David and Cleuza Nicholson

Commended from

New Zealand Assemblies since 1993

Missionaries in Brazil

Evangelism by Open Air Preaching and Tract distribution.
Bible Teaching.
Pastoral Work.
Construction Project(s).

Contact:

WhatsApp / Telegram

+55 16 991 145 590

For calls, remember we are 16 hours behind NZ time.

Email:

david.liliane.1510[at]gmail.com

Nicholson's News

May 2024

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings from Brazil in the Precious Name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

NEWS IN A NUT SHELL

Cleuza and I got Dengue Fever, an unpleasant experience, but we have both recovered now. I am posting videos on my Youtube channel again creating short videos looking at essential not-so-focused-on doctrines here in Brazil. Cleuza and I have been visiting sick people including church people, family member and friends. Via prayer, many have recovered miraculously. We are doing guitar lessons for church members who want to participate in church praise with music. Discipleship of the five young men baptized back in October is going well. They are participating verbally in meetings and I have taken two under my wing for personal discipleship development. The construction project is going on to the next stage now that we have finished the upper beams and the upper concrete floor.

For greater details, photos, videos and past articles, please continue browsing the lower parts of this web page.

DENGUE FEVER

Yes. It finally happened. I got "Dengue Fever" after being in Araraquara, Brazil, since 1993 (thirty years). It would seem that those horrible little mosquitos bit Cleuza and I on the same day because we both woke up last Saturday (13/04) with a high fever and absolutely no energy. I only had the fever three days and was right again on Tuesday. But Cleuza took ten days to recover. The final stage of Dengue Fever is intense itching especially on the soles of the feet and palms of hands. The virus causes micro-hemorrhaging in the skin as platelet numbers drop exceedingly low (it debilitates bone marrow cells, as I understand). There is a form called Hemorrhaging Dengue Fever which causes widespread hemorrhaging through out the body and it can be fatal. Pray for our safety in these things.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL

The Lord has laid it fairly heavily on my heart to put teaching on my Youtube channel. Many of the things I have been teaching in the assemblies for the last number of years is not being taught on a wider basis. Things such as the Lordship of Christ, Forgiveness, Favorite Sins and so on are all things that need to be addressed in the Brazilian context. I have managed to get good free software for making the videos at home, and I am using Blender's video editor to edit existing videos.

If you want to find my channel, use this text in the Youtube search bar ...

@boasnoticiasdedeusparavoce7975

Remember that the videos are produced in Brazilian Portuguese. I plan to redo the videos in English, as English gives me a larger audience. There is one ready to watch in English.

VISITING

Cleuza and I have been visiting a lot of different families with many different needs. Some of the needs are health related. Many times praying with these ones we have seen remarkable recoveries. Reminds me of the verse in James 5:15: The prayer of faith shall save the sick.

OPEN AIR EVANGELISM PARTNERS

We have made contact with OAC partners in Brazil. Only preliminary messages have been exchanged so far, but we are looking forward to cooperating with Brazilian OAC evangelists this year to learn from them and there may even be a few things they can learn from us. They are in a city only two hours by car from us.

GUITAR LESSONS

There has been a lot of interest in our assembly to participate in the praise ministry with instruments. So I currently have a group of about five guitar students who learn to play guitar with me on a Sunday afternoon. Some want to go on to playing piano and others want to go on to Bass guitar, but acoustic guitar is a good place to start to learn basic music theory and rhythm. I'd say our group is at intermediate level already and they can already play a good number of songs in our church song book.

DISCIPLESHIP

The five young guys baptized in October last year are continuing on well. We started out with a general discipleship class, but that fragmented due to different ones having different agendas for their early Sunday evening. So to that end, I have taken two of them, the ones not so well attached to other assembly members, under my wing personally giving them studies with homework to do, learning music, general jobs and a few interactive fun activities. This seems to be working well. We need to pass on the ministry to reliable men that will then pass it on to others. I pray that these will be men of this caliber.

BUILDING PROJECT

Having completed the upper beams and concrete floor, I am now looking at the hand rails, sloping floor for water run-off, and to build the water tower. As was the case last year, I am having trouble finding someone to do the job for me. The building backlog from covid days is still a problem.

Well, I think those are the most pertinent snippets of news for this month. I hope you enjoyed reading about what the Lord is doing in this corner of the world using Cleuza and myself.

Yours in His Exciting Service

David and Cleuza.

Prayer Points

# Protection from Dengue fever and other sicknesses circulating here.

# Youtube channel growth in videos, subscriptions, views.

# A return to Open Air Gospel meetings, but further afield than Araraquara.

# Continued opportunity to witness with tracts and testimony.

# Continued healing of the sick via prayer and testimony.

# Conversions among the children we work with.

Praise Points

# Answered prayer relating to health issues of people around us.

# Spiritual growth in the assembly

# Numerical growth in the children's work.

Recent YouTube Videos

I wrote this children's song using guitar chords from a music lesson. The content is John 3:16 and John 3:36

Encouragement from 2 Chronicles 7:14

Keep reading for older news updates

Photos and Videos are below

News Update

14 Feb 2024

(If using a cellphone ... turn it sideways for easier reading)

Dear friends and family in the Lord Jesus,

Greetings from Brazil in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Construction Project

As of November of 2023, I had spoken with three builders about progressing on with the Church Construction Project, which was needing to have the upper concrete beams prepared and poured along with the upper concrete floor. To me, it seemed like a better idea to do the beams in one stage and the concrete floor in a subsequent stage. But after talking to each builder who came to see the site, it became evident that it would be better to do both stages in a single job, with a single pouring of the concrete. So that is what we did. The beams and the concrete floor were formed up with pine slabs and with supports under the forming work, the concrete was poured using a concrete pump. Four truck-loads of concrete were poured to complete the job. The floor that was poured is about seven meters above the ground, so it is very high. The last part of the structure to do now is the water tower, which will hold four tanks of 1,000 liters of water each. Once this part is done, we can start finishing the inside with doors, windows, bench tops and the likes. The size of the floor concreted was 10.6m x 16.0m and the cost to finish this stage was $35,000 NZD. Contributions to the project are welcome and can be sent to us via GCiM earmarked for the construction project.

Discipleship Program

Five young men baptized last October are now being discipled and taught to take part in our Open Worship Service. We have a meeting each Sunday afternoon for this purpose. We have taught them to share the scriptures in the meeting which they now do with clock-work regularity. And the last sessions with them have been directed at teaching them to pray in the Worship Service. This is harder for them but they have accepted the challenge. Future sessions have been opened to other young men from the assembly to learn how to prepare sermons aimed at both Bible Teaching and Gospel presentations.

Carnaval Camp

Both Cleuza and I were involved in this year's Carnaval Family Camp for all ages. There were around 100 campers. Cleuza was in charge of the kitchen to feed the crowd with three other assembly women to help her with that.

I was involved as the counsellor for the Young Married Men's dormitory having the responsibility for the devotionals for these ones each morning.

Cleuza and I came home from the camp exhausted and it took a good amount of rest to catch up on our energies again. "We ain't so young anymore."

QR codes on tracts

We have given out about 50,000 Chick Tracts over the years that we have been spreading the Gospel here in Brazil. With the advent of QR (Quick Response) Codes, I thought that we might be able to get people to search things out further with a site dedicated to those who have read the tract and want more information regarding our meetings and Bible Study programs. To this end, I am currently working on this site, and a site that will open up on any device that can recognize a QR code, the greater number of these will be cellphones. It seems everybody has one these days. You can see a preliminary rendering of the site HERE. It is in Portuguese at the moment, but sites can be translated by Google so you can see what it says.

Teaching Music

There has been a resurgence amongst the baptized members of our assembly to participate in the our Music Ministry. So I currently have six learning guitar with me. These ones are: Lucas, Pedro, Cleuza, Neusa, Leonardo and Eduardo. Some have the desire to learn other instruments (keyboard and bass guitar) down the road, but my advice has been to learn the guitar first as it is a good place to start to learn basic music theory.

Those are the main events that have had their happenings over the last few months. I trust that these few snippets of news have been an encouragement to you.

Yours, serving the Lord Jesus,

David and Cleuza Nicholson

Praise Points

Completion of the upper beams and floor of the construction project.
Cleuza has recovered from a bout of bronchitis to be able to cook for the Carnaval Camp campers and lead the cooking team.
We have had many coming to meetings such that there are no seats left at most meetings.
The Lord has protected us on all sides, both health-wise, and physically, such as in our city's traffic and on highways.
There has been good acceptance of the tracts we distribute on a daily basis.
Our stock of tracts is now low and needs replenishing.

Prayer Point

Continued protection on all fronts.
Continued health to be able to meet the needs of the ministry.
That finance and tradesmen would be provided to complete the next stages of the Construction Project until it is completed.
Blessings for itinerant ministry. Journeying mercies. Ministry in conjunction with the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Deliverance from Evil. (taken from he Lord's prayer)