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....assisting Christian outreach in Portugal |
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Helcio and Angela Lange de Silva, Mondim de Basto
Helcio is from Brazil and Angela is from the U.K. They lived in Birmingham after their marriage in 1986 and in 1988 spent a year in Brazil before moving to the north of Portugal, where they’ve been ever since. They have four children, Cristina, Emily, Daniel and David. Angela shares recent news: The youth cell continues to go well under Melq and Christina’s leadership, and the second cell is gaining ground in terms of participation of those who come, even though the leader now works away during the week and can no longer come. We’ve had new people come to meetings, and were able to invite neighbours to our home for an evangelistic dinner. We’ve also shown a film at which about 30 people were present, many of them non-christians. We have had contact with a new family, which is encouraging, and the couple who live in a town 6okms away and who we bring to the church once a month and visit once a month, had a special service in which they renewed their wedding vows, never having had a “Christian” marriage service.
We’ve just received the approval of our church registration application, after months of paperwork. We had a really blessed time at our annual Easter Missions conference, this time in Penafiel. Peter Richards preached, together with a South African called Kieran McLean. There was more involvement from different churches this year and we were able to have the 19-seater bus from the town hall to take people as well as two cars- more than 30 people in all, from Mondim to the evangelistic meeting on the Friday night, and we saw response to the message. Melq has been able to give up his job in Spain and get a job with a welding company in a town not far from where Christina studies. Two other young people have also been able to get better jobs: amazing at a time of such rising unemployment. We now have a new meeting place. We’ve been able to rent the premises next to the language school and have been working on it, putting up partitions, painting etc. We were able to have it rent free for April, during which time some of the work was done, and have been meeting there since the beginning of May. We praise God as we’ve seen financial provision for the alterations, and man power, including Melq’s brothers and some of their friends, all in the building trade. Family news: Christina and Melq got engaged on March 29, which is our wedding anniversary and Melq’s birthday! A family celebration! They hope to get married some time next summer. Helcio and Angela June 2009
Forward to Peter and Marilyn Hawkes, VN Famalicão
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