We were blessed with unexpected opportunities to serve God these past few months. A big highlight was the end of the pre-marital counseling Odir was giving to a young couple and also the privilege to officiate their wedding and preach at the ceremony (pictured below). Actually, since we arrived for ministry in Sao Paulo in 2020, God has given us many opportunities to counsel couples in various stages of their lives. This is a new ministry focus for us in which we want to keep learning and serving.

Here are all the highlights for the past few months (for God's glory!) and some ways you can keep praying for our family:

New pre-marital class
This week we are starting a new pre-marital class. This time Cynthia will be helping, too. Her “women’s perspective” on marriage life will be much appreciated as we invest in the life of this new engaged couple. Please pray for us as we really want to set apart Thursdays-nights from now on to focus on these counseling sessions. Pray for David as well, he will be in a different house each week so people can watch him for us during these counseling times on Thursdays.

Bible Lessons with the teenagers
In our Sunday School Class, Odir finalized teaching the baptism group and now he just started a new class with teenagers 13-18 years old. On the first day, he asked if they ever read one of the 66 books of the Bible entirely, and none of them ever had. So one of the goals now is to read through the book of Mark with them.

Opportunities to make new friendships with unsaved people
With the Covid situation becoming more and more of a “type of flu” in the mind of the people, we are finally able to interact more with our neighborhood. Cynthia buys fruits and vegetables everyday in the same place and spends some time talking to a lady who used to attend a neo-pentecostal church and got frustrated. Odir is cutting his hair at the same barber shop and often stops by just to chat with two guys he is getting to know (one Catholic, one with no religion). Please pray for those relational interactions and more to come.

Prayer and Bible studies
Every Wednesday night we have our prayer meetings with Bible study time. Odir and another guy from church are leading these meetings and Cynthia plays the guitar. Each week we have an average of 20 people attending and this has been so encouraging to us. Pray as we are planning to schedule some of those meetings in homes as an opportunity to invite neighbors and have unsaved people participating as well.

Developing a pastoral team at Good News BC
Messias is pastoring the church for 2 years now and we are helping him to develop some sort of pastoral team to assist him and encourage him in ministry. This is also crucial because Pastor Messias works full hours daily in an administrative role at the Theological Seminary. Good News BC recently voted in two deacons (Luis and Marcos) and we invited a seminary student called Fabio to also join us. Odir is loving the experience to walk alongside this team of faithful men (and Cynthia is also having a great time with their wives).

Some more blessings to share:
On Sunday evenings, Pastor Messias, Fabio and Odir finished the first part of the Genesis Series and now we are taking a break in Genesis for the rest of the year with a new expository series on the Sermon of the Mount. Please pray as we are trying to encourage a higher attendance in Sunday evenings specifically.

The Ladies bi-weekly meetings on Saturdays keep growing. There is an average of 15 women present each meeting.

Cynthia is making plans to start to help with graphic designs for the women's magazine of our Regular Baptist movement (she did this ministry in 2016-2017 and now they invited her to do it again).

Good News BC welcomed 6 new members last month.

We are making plans to start homeschooling David in August (pre-K). We are a bit (a lot?) scared, but we decided to go with a full curriculum called Sonlight. Please pray!! We also need to start raising funds for David´s education.

Our supporting church in NYC is dedicating the month of July to pray for us – thank you so much! And thank you all for reading this letter, caring for our family and praying for us.

Please keep sharing our website (brandaos.com): this is a big way to help us in raising support and prayers. We know God always does the rest.

Enjoy a glance into our life in Brazil through some pictures.