Tylers in Brazil | Reaching the World Through Brazil

Only in Brazil

Posted on February 29, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

It never ceases to amaze me how God is in control of every single aspect of our lives. We do not understand His ways, His motives, His thoughts, or His methods of getting things done. We always look at life from a selfish perspective. However, God is always looking from a heavenly perspective.

Here is our situation. Because these kind of things do not normally happen in this way I thought it would be interesting for many of you to read this and better understand our lives as missionaries.

Here is the situation with our move to Porto Velho…

1. About a week ago we purchased tickets for flying to Porto Velho tomorrow morning. We were not sure when our moving truck was going to show up and so we had to wait until then to purchase tickets. We were told that the truck would arrive on Wednesday. Having complete peace about the situation, we went ahead and purchased the tickets.

2. The truck we are getting is not a normal truck for a move. It is a meat truck. What does that mean? That means we decided to get an air conditioned truck for our move! The inside will probably be a little different than the regular truck you might expect. So we will be sending a different herd on this truck. We will be sending a herd of boxes and furniture on this ride! The reason we chose this ride is because it is nearly $5000.00 cheaper than any other moving truck we could find.

3. The truck was supposed to be here yesterday. It is already getting late in the day and we still have no word on the truck. It wouldn’t be a very bad situation if we were not leaving at 7:30am tomorrow. Other than the truck not being available yet, there are restrictions on trucks and when they can be on certain streets. Remember we are in Brazil. To get to the house we are loading from, the truck will probably need to wait until late in the evening. The roads that block the entrance cannot be accessed by trucks between 5am and 9pm.

4. We have not yet sold our car. We are planning to take it on the truck with us. The problem is that we are not sure that it will fit on the truck with all of our belongings. We have a 40′ truck coming. However, we have our move, the Kokenzies’ belongings and a few other things for another missionary up in the area. The other issue is, “How do you load a car into the back of a meat truck?” My first thought would be to back it up to a dock, right? Well, I have not to this moment been able to find a dock. So, my next thought was we get it onto a hydraulic lift at a mechanic shop or something like that. Being in São Paulo, there are not many truck stops around. The closest ones I can find are not anywhere within reasonable range. So we have finally found a solution that will work. I will call a tow truck to lift my car. Then I will drive the car off the back of the tow truck and onto the meat truck!!!

5. Because of our move we decided that we would go to church on Wednesday evening if the truck did not come. We usually go to church on Thursday evening. We decided to go to a church that we have been to several times before. The pastor is a friend of mine and when we prayed together during the service, he asked me to give a testimony about our move to Porto Velho. There were probably about 20 people there including my family and my parents. One of the 20 was a young man who was just visiting the church. He had been doing some business in the area and when church time came he decided to make a visit. After church, the young man came to me and explained that his father was a missionary in Porto Velho for 8-10 years. He explained how he had grown up in that town and remembered many things from his youth there. His father worked with the missionary who will be picking us up at the airport. What a blessing! Looking back, we can see how God orchestrated all of this.

With all of these things in play, what will be the result? Will our truck come today? Will we be forced to load the truck all night before leaving at 7:30 in the morning? Will the car fit on the truck? Will we need to leave anything behind? Will the Lord come back before morning?

With many questions on our mind, we are looking to the Lord and encouraged about all of it. We have placed our confidence in the promises of God and we KNOW that He is in control of all of it. I will post next week on the outcome of all of these things. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of this truck and move.

“Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.”

Proverbs 16:3

— Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog

Igreja Batista Bíblica – Paraisópolis

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

My wife did an excellent job blogging about our visit to Paraisópolis, so I asked her if I could post her comments on here also. If you would like to look at her blog, you can visit TylerFamilyTales.blogspot.com.

Jeremy had the opportunity to preach for a Brazilian pastor who has a church in an area of the city called Paraisópolis (translated Paradise City).

It is actually the second largest favela (slum, shanty town) in São Paulo, and far from what I would call paradise. Jeremy preached here once before in 2004 when the church was just beginning. It was exciting to see how they have grown and expanded since that time.

Click on the picture above to explore the area using Google Maps Street View

Judson enjoyed his class and was proud of the picture he colored.
The neighborhood of Paraisópolis has about 100,000 people living in it. According to the stats that I have found, there are 1000 persons per hectare. For those of you who (like me) who have no idea what a hectare is, it is 10,000 sq. meters, or 100m x 100m. Only 25% of this population live in houses supplied with sewage system, half of the streets are not paved and 60% use irregular means to obtain power. These “irregular means” are usually hooking into wires themselves and not paying for electricity.

São Paulo is a city of extremely rich and extremely poor, and many times these two are located right beside each other. This is the case with this neighborhood as well. These apartments that you see in the background sell for over $1 million.

Please pray for Pastor Washington and this work in such a needy area.

Posted in Family, Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

Recent Trip to Campo Belo

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, John and I took a trip up to Campo Belo, Minas Gerais. There we met with the three pastors in the last photo below, Jim King, Cleber Rodarte Neves, and Anderson Dantas. The trip was not stressful at all for us being most of the time we were sitting in our hotel room working and doing research on the projects we were talking about. However, I do believe the trip was of great benefit to all of us. Not only did it help us build a stronger relationship with some national pastors, but it also proved fruitful to the ministry of Editora Maranata.

We arrived on Tuesday and left Thursday giving us a few days to talk and work together. On Tuesday we met with these pastors and talked for a while about the future of the ministry. The Lord blessed in the conversation. We pointed out some basic needs the ministry had in order to survive and then began acting upon those things.

On Wednesday, we began by visiting a couple banks to inquire about any regulations they might have regarding online businesses and money transfers. We quickly found out that nobody had ever dealt with this before and they had absolutely no idea how things worked.

In the afternoon we drove over to Pastor Anderson’s city of Boticão. He showed us his church, future home, and some of the beautiful scenery around that city. The trip became a little more eventful when he took us around in his little VW Bug. Though we were aware of the fact that the car was not in perfect condition, we were quite surprised by the large piece of the floorboard began scraping and soon fell of. I could easily feel the road by just allowing my feet to rest on the floor mat.

Later in the afternoon we drove back to Campo Belo in the pouring down rain. As you can see in the pictures below, we were slowed down by traffic. Several of the bridges around the area were closed and we were forced to take the only road open. This road is the one you see in the pictures. When a car would muster up the courage to go through the muddy trenches, the crowd that had gathered around the area would cheer. As the car would go through it would slide around and throw mud and water up in the air making it quite an entertaining scene.

We made it back in town in time to get part of the midweek service at Pastor Cleber’s church. It was refreshing and enjoyable to spend a little time in a church that seemed to be enjoying the Christian life.

Below you will find pictures from all these different events on our trip. To view the entire album, please click visit THIS PAGE.

–Jeremy

Posted in Literature, Ministry, Old Blog

Back in Brazil!!!

Posted on January 3, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are back in Brazil. We arrived safely last Friday. The trip was very smooth other than the two lugnut studs on the car that broke off on the way to the airport. The other three were loose and about to come off when the car started shaking. The Lord lead us to a mechanic who had the car fixed in less than 45 minutes and we were on our way to the airport with no further incidents.

Our flights went very well. On the long flight from Detroit to São Paulo, we had a row of seats for each of us. There were only 30 people on the entire flight.

Since our arrival we have found out that our car needs a little work done to it, but the mechanic that I use has left for the holidays. We are waiting a few days to see if he returns, but we might have to take the car elsewhere if he delays.

We knew our arrival would not mean settling down. Next week we will be gone for 3-4 days. I will be preaching and helping in a conference in Limeira. The week after that I will be gone for 3 days travelling to Campo Belo to meet with a missionary friend and several pastors from the area to discuss Christian literature and our involvement with their ministry.

Please pray for us as we are starting to make preperations for our move northwest. Very soon we will be making plans and looking for transportation. Pray for the Lord’s timing in everything we do over the next 6 months. There are dozens of events that must fall into place at the right time. We are thankful for those who have prayed for us and continue to pray for us.

— Jeremy

Posted in Family, Ministry, Old Blog

Cambodian Ministry

Posted on November 3, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

The Lord has opened a great door for us to reach Cambodians all over the world. We are excited about this. It will be a little work, but this may help reach people who will never hear the Gospel any other way. Please pray that this ministry would help those serving in Cambodia, those with Cambodian ministries in the US and other parts of the world, and that it would help us get the Gospel to Cambodians who have never heard the Gospel.

Cambodian Flag

Cambodian Flag

Posted in Literature, Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

Quick Furlough Update

Posted on October 27, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

We have been in two conferences in the last two weeks. Both conferences have been very good. I believe God did a work in many hearts in these conferences.

The first conference was in our home church, the Temple Baptist Church in Powell, TN with Dr. Clarence Sexton. Pastor Sexton has been a great encouragement and help to us. We are sent directly out of Temple Baptist, so it was a joy to be home again and see so many people we had not seen in a long time.

The second conference was in Santa Clara, CA with Dr. Jack Trieber. The staff and members of North Valley Baptist Church and the students of Golden State Baptist College were a great encouragement to us. We enjoyed spending the time with other missionaries in this conference also.

Please keep praying as we will be travelling to PA and then back to IL by next Monday.

–Jeremy>

Posted in Furlough, Ministry, Old Blog

Tyler September Travels

Posted on October 10, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

I can hardly believe we have been in the US for over a month now. Here is a short log of our travels…

Illinois – When we arrived at the end of August we spent about a week with Amanda’s parents. It was a great time to spend together because it was Labor Day weekend and that gave the boys a little more time to spend with their grandparents. The boys have enjoyed learning about corn, soy beans, tractor pulls, and many other fun things around Flora, Illinois. While around Flora we visited friends in the following churches:* Calvary Baptist Church – Flora, IL – Pastor Mike Evans
* Calvary Baptist Church – Olney, IL – Pastor Chris Jennette
California – After about a week in Illinois, we flew to California. This was an exciting two week trip because we were able to visit several supporting churches we had never been in before. During this time, we also spent some time with my uncle, Larry Tyler and his family. They were a great blessing to us in many ways. The time spent with them was very refreshing and relaxing.During this trip I preached or gave a testimony in several of the churches. We really enjoyed getting to meet people who have prayed for us and kept in touch with us though we have never personally met before. It was also refreshing to meet a few Brazilians in these churches.
* First Baptist Church of Long Beach – Long Beach, CA – Pastor John Wilkerson

* Coastline Baptist Church – Oceanside, CA – Pastor Stephen Chappell

* Horizon Baptist Church – Camarillo, CA – Pastor Brian Leversee
Missouri – On our return from California, we flew to Kansas City to pick up a van from BMTM (Baptist Missionary Transportation Ministry). This is a great ministry that provides vehicles to missionaries while they are traveling. For a considerably small monthly charge, they provide the vehicle, maintenance, and even insurance for us. We will have the van for about three months.After driving about to see family and a few friends, we had a meeting in Ozark. The pastor and his wife were very kind to us. He wanted to take the boys fishing, but it did not work out this time. I talked about our ministry in Sunday School and preached in the afternoon.
*Ozark Baptist Temple – Ozark, MO – Pastor John England

Now we are back in Illinois again with Amanda’s family. We are excited about getting back to Tennessee very soon. We will be in the Temple Baptist Church in Powell, TN – our sending church. It will be great to see family and friends there also! Please pray for our safety as we travel at least 8,000 miles over the next few months.

— Jeremy

Posted in Furlough, Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

Last Night At Parque Bristol

Posted on August 28, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

We just had our last Sunday at the Primeira Igreja Batista de Parque Bristol where Bryan Johnson is the pastor. The people in the church have become great friends and we look forward to keeping in touch with them and working with them through future years. Many of them have been a great blessing and help to us in the ministry already.We had a great time of fellowship yesterday evening as we said good-bye. We are sad to leave, but glad to be moving forward in the ministry God has given us. Later I will post some pictures of the last few weeks at the church.

One older lady in the church called me outside. She handed me a little homemade envelope (as she has done before) and said through her tears, “I cannot read and I cannot write, but I like to do what I can for the Lord.” She gave me a big hug and told me she would miss us. When I opened the envelope later there was good sum of money in there.

We are very thankful that the Lord has given us these friends. We were showered with kindness as many people gave us notes and told us they were praying for us.

— Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog

10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 -3 – 2 – 1- Blastoff!!!

Posted on August 18, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

We will be leaving for the US in TEN days! We are anxious, excited, and somewhat still unprepared.

Today we are moving out of our temporary housing and into my parents house. We still have much left to do before we leave. Though a good part of the ministry we can attend to from a distance, there are still many things we must care for personally before our departure.

Here are a few things we would like for you to pray for…

The finalization of the second issue of the publication. It has been in its final stages for a couple weeks, but because of busy schedules, it has not yet been sent out.
Meeting with a young man developing a very resourceful tool for churches here in Brazil. This meeting has been postponed several times, so please pray I can meet with him this next week.
Preparations for meetings in the US. We want to put together a small presentation of where we are and where the Lord is taking us in the near future. We also need to put together an new prayer card and have it printed within a few weeks.
Planning and scheduling meetings for our trip to the US. The Lord has opened a few doors and we are excited about sharing what God is doing here in Brazil.
Safety traveling. We will be traveling thousands of miles by airplane and on highways in the next six months.

Thank you again for your faithfulness in praying for us.

— Jeremy

Posted in Family, Furlough, Ministry, Old Blog

Lack of Communication

Posted on August 1, 2011 by admin Leave a comment

Just this last weekend we were away from home and I was not able to keep up with my regular e-mails. I had planned on that and was ready to answer the 30 or more e-mails that were in my inbox when I returned. However, I was not expecting the recent trouble we had.

On Monday when we returned home we were able to get online and catch up on a little communication. In the afternoon, the phone company had some men working on the lines and our phone and internet were cut off. A few hours later everything was back on, at least that is what we thought.

The phones came back on, but we were never able to connect to the internet. While I was out at a prayer meeting on Monday night, my mother called and said she was not able to call our house. We soon found out that the lines were crossed and we now had a new number.

On Tuesday morning I called the phone company and asked them if they could come fix the problem. All day long I kept answering phone calls of people who wanted to reach a certain business. All day long that business received phone calls from people who wanted to reach us. We even communicated back and forth a few times checking to see if the numbers were working yet.

Tuesday evening I decided to go to my parents house and check my e-mail there. When we arrived we found their phone and internet were both off also. Just as we were leaving the internet came on and allowed Amanda an opportunity to call her parents to let them know we were ok even though we were not able to communicate easily.

On Wednesday, I called the phone company again and they said a technician was on the way. Later in the day I called them again. They told me the issue had been fixed! HAHA! I still had no internet and could not receive calls at my own number. They told me I would have to wait up to 72 hours to get another technician.

Welcome to Brazil! Not everywhere can you get service like this. I had devoted this week to finishing our second issue of our publication. I finished editing three articles, but I could not access the other nine articles. This was very frustrating! So, I must remember that the Lord has a purpose. He is working in our lives and is in control of everything.

Thursday went by and we heard nothing about the phones. I called the company again on Friday and I called the company again on Saturday.

On Sunday, when we arrived home after church in the morning, there was a note on our gate. The phones had been fixed!!! We were excited we walked in the house and tested the lines just to find out that nothing had been accomplished.

Then the Lord gave me an idea. I got in the car and looked all over the subdivision for one of the phone company cars. After about 10 minutes I found one. I took the note with me and showed the technician the other mans name. He did not know him, but after hearing the issue, he said he would stop by after lunch and check out the problem.

Though he had said otherwise, he stopped by immediately before he went to lunch. I stood there with him and helped him repair the lines by throwing up the pliers, wires, etc… that he asked for. Within ten minutes we had our phones and internet back on.

Some people may think that as a missionary we should not count on communication such as internet and phones. Well, I try my best to communicate, because part of our ministry is communication.

Yes, we complain and gripe, but I will give you four good reasons we are thankful the Lord allowed the lines to be repaired…

I was doing my best to communicate with people in Portugal about a lady who had recently received Christ through the internet! She has now received a visit and has promised a visit to church this coming week.
We had contact with two men in Pakistan about the Gospel! Both registered on our Gospel website.
A man had sent me his testimony of salvation. Unfortunately, he recounted his salvation as being a vision he had seen. I had to make sure he received a clear Gospel presentation.
A lady that has been writing to me periodically for over a year had questions about her salvation. Pray that God gives her peace!

The Lord has given us an opportunity to communicate with people who need the Gospel. We want to do our best to show these people that Jesus is salvation and He is the solution of every problem we have.

— Jeremy

Posted in Family, Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

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