Children’s Day Celebration; Planning New Work

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

October 21, 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings! Hope and pray that all of you are well and being blessed! We are doing great and have been blessed. Last month our 2 daughters and their families came to visit us. We had a great time with our children and grandchildren.

The ministry is doing really great. We have had several saved. One of the people who was saved is a man who lives in a community near the church. Two weeks ago, he asked me if it would be possible to visit the village and bring people on the bus. He said, “I worry about the children that live in the community. The name of this community is Lago do Limao, (Lemon Lake). Please pray for this community. We are planning on starting a work there.

This month we have had several special programs. In October there is a day called Children’s Day.  What was really great is that many mothers come with their children. We have a service and then special activities for the kids. The mission in the community of Multirão is doing great and the people who work there are really excited and involved. The bus went and picked up the people from the community of Ubim for the Children’s Day program. We had 60 to come. Several mothers came with their children.

The mission in the city of Iranduba has had an increase and most exciting is that the older members are growing spiritually. They have had growing desire to serve the Lord and are excited about serving.

In communities all around us there are so many children and young people. They need to be reached with and taught about the Lord. In these places the drugs are everywhere. Please pray for us as we reach out to these places–that God give us the wisdom and means. Thanks for your faithful prayers and financial support.

God bless each of you.

Love in our Lord and Savior,
Odali & Kathy Barros

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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In the Height of Ministry 30 Years Later

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

February 21, 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We pray and hope that all have been blessed and are rejoicing in God’s care over each one of us. We have been doing great. It is hard to believe February is just about over. Kathy and I have been in the ministry for over 36 years and missionaries for 30 years. It is hard to believe that much time has gone by. Nearing the age of 60, I believe we are in the height of our ministry. We completed 3 years living back in the Amazon. We have been blessed and truly enjoy our ministry here. At this moment, we have one night free during the week. All the other days, we have some kind of ministry going on and on Sundays we have 3 services. We are really excited and thankful for what God is doing.

Our newest community where we are working, is Açutuba. What has been so wonderful is that God has placed people in our ministry that have opened the doors of their home to be used for reaching people. We started 4 weeks ago in this place. This week we had 22 that attended. What a wonderful blessing.

Not long ago a young man came to our services at the Living Rocks Baptist Church (Igreja Batista Pedras Vivas) and has been coming every week since. This week he told me that he had invited some young people from his community to come. He had 8 visitors and asked if someone could pick them up. Here it’s like living in farm country—people live far away and not everyone has cars. So, we help with transportation for those who need it.

The youth groups are doing great and growing. Kathy and I work with the youth in the city of Iranduba, where we have a mission. It is doing well and growing. This is the only mission that’s really in a small city. Inside the city limits there are probably a population of 20,000 people. This city is about 30 minutes away from our home. We have services there 3 times a week.

At the community of Ubim we are really needing a bigger place. We are meeting on the patio of a house that a family has opened for us to use. We are running an average of 45 kids from ages 1½ years old to 15 years old. We would like to be able to work with this group the best we can. Please pray that God will give us a larger place to work.

We still have 2 children at home with us. They both help in the ministry. Jonas has been great in helping with the children on Sunday mornings and with the youth, and Gabriel with the church band. They have been a great help to me while Kathy is in the US visiting her parents and our other children. We’re thankful that God has used all our children in many different ministries.

THE GREATEST THING YOU CAN DO FOR A PERSON IS THE INVEST IN THEIR LIFE. FROM KNOWING THE LORD AS SAVIOR AND GROWING IS WISDOM FROM GOD! We thank God for calling us to invest in people’s lives day by day—an investment like no other. It will last for eternity. This has been our life and our ministry. May God Continue to guide and bless us each day. We thank each one of you for your love, prayers and support. God bless y’all.

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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Praying for New Meeting Places in Ubim & Iranduba

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

December 30, 2016

Hope all of you have had wonderful holiday season. We have had a great and busy time.

At the main church, Pedras Vivas, things are doing great. We have been working with members of the church that have been there for a long time, to get them involved in ministries and to reach out to the lost. The church has a bus which has started running in the community where we live and in two new communities past the church. These communities are actually big enough to have a mission. We are limited with workers so for now we will continue to bring them on the bus. Our church has built an addition on to the church building for classes fellowship and also put in air conditioning.

The ministry in the community of Ubim is doing really wonderful. It has grown and the area we work in has reached its limit. We use a patio that a family lets us use, but we have so many small children coming that we need room to work with them so we can better work with the older people. We are asking God to provide a new place. Many teens are coming and need to be worked with to reach them. There is not much in this community for them to do, but there are a lot of bad things as an option. Pray with us that God would show us a place.

At the Iranduba mission we did a special emphasis in reaching out to the youth. The city has so many young people. Prostitution and drugs are very strong there. We hope that this coming year they will continue to reach out to friends. We also are looking for another building there. The building is rented, does not offer options, and is small.

The mission at Multirao community is doing great. We have a team that is working there. They are having four services a week. They are doing well—they have meetings and are making new plans for next year. They are making plans to build a wall around the building. There was a banana tree in the back and someone stole it—can you believe that? Well that wasn’t all…they stole the toilets out of the bathrooms. They didn’t get into the church because there are iron bars on the door and windows. Pray for this team that God will bless them.

We want to thank each of you who have prayed for us and our ministry and have given so faithfully. We appreciate and love each of you. God bless you tremendously.

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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Outreach Festival at Main Church, Growth in Iranduba & Multirão

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

July 27, 2o16

Greetings to all our friends and supporters!

Hope you all are doing well and rejoicing in the Lord. We are doing great.

We have had great things happening in our different missions. Here at the main church we have had great blessings. We planned an outreach festival. The area here is rural, so we asked the members to bring friends that were not church members—and especially lots of people. We started planning for 150, but, as time went on, we realized that people were really getting excited and that we better plan for more people. Good thing we did! We had 300 hundred come. It was exciting! We had the youth group from the mission in Iranduba do a skit and then I spoke. It was great! Last Sunday we had a family that came as a result.

At the mission in Iranduba we have started a new program for the youth to reach out to lost youth in their community. They are really excited. It’s called “Missiom” Rescue.

The mission at the community of Multirão is doing well. We are training a team to work here. They are doing well and keeping the number of people and visiting. The mission at Ubim is doing great and growing. The families where we have been having services have been so gracious, but with the growing number we are limited. We are praying and looking for God to show us a place to buy and or build.

Also the mission at Iranduba, we need to look for a place to buy land to build. The place we meet is rented and really is not cheap for the size it is. And we don’t have any class space.  Please pray that God will direct us to some good deals and good locations.

We praise God for all of you that have faithfully supported our ministry. God bless each of you tremendously!

Love,
Odali & Kathy

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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Missionary Update: Odali & Kathy Barros in Brazil [September 2015]

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

September 1, 2015

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We pray that all of you are doing well and rejoicing in the Lord. We are all doing great.  The Lord has been good to us and cared for us each day. The works here are doing well and growing. We had a very interesting experience last month. Here where we live, we raise our own fish and other animals. One of the kinds of fish we have is a fish that eats fish. So from time to time, we go to the fish plant where they package fish and get the leftovers. We had not been getting any because the water got so high that the plant was closed for some time. Kathy was going into town for some groceries so I asked her if she didn’t mind going by the fish plant to see if they were already open. The water was still high but Kathy stopped and asked the guard if he had any idea of when they might start back to work. Here is the interesting part. The guard asked Kathy where she was from. He noticed that she had a different accent. She said. “Well, I sound like the south but I was actually born in Manaus. My parents were missionaries here for many years.” The guard quickly replied, “Missionaries?! With what church?” Kathy said, “Baptist!” The man became very excited and said, “We have a mission but we don’t have a pastor. Our pastor left and said we could do whatever we wanted: join another church or shut down.” He had been saved through the ministry of missionaries I know. So the next day I went back with Kathy to the fish plant and met the man. So we got together and talked and they joined our church. So now we have a mission point in the city of Iranduba. This is the city that I was praying about starting a church. It is a city of around 50,000 and growing. Please pray for this work.

Kathy is working with a group of young teens that she is training to work with the kids clubs on Saturday is the community of Mutirão.  This has been great—it is so good to see the young men growing and enjoying the work with the kids. Two of the guys like it so much they asked Kathy if they could go with us to Ubim on Monday also. So we have extra help that day also.

We are working on getting people from the church more involved in the ministries.  For so long they just went to church and that was it. It is a slow process but things are starting to change. Pray that the members will see and feel a need to reach out to others.

Please continue to pray for us and the ministry: that God will direct each step and keep us safe as we are on the road a lot. We thank all of you for your prayers and your support. You are an important part of this ministry. God bless you!

In Christ,
Odali and Kathy

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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Missionary Update: Odali & Kathy Barros in Brazil [August 2015]

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

July 26, 2015

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We rejoice in the Lord that all is well here and we pray that all is well with each of you. Kathy got back from her trip to the US to see her parents and our children. She had a great time. She really enjoyed the BFM conference in Lexington.

We are really excited with what God is doing here.  I have been pastoring the church for a little over a month. God is really working and the people are responding. Before, when services were over the members of the church would leave immediately. It has been wonderful to see them change and just enjoy hanging around and having fellowship. We praise God for this. There were some children that were coming to church with some members of the church. After a while the mother started coming. Then this month the father came. The father got saved after the second time he came. Kathy and I went to visit them. I asked him why he started coming to church. He said that we started to notice a difference in his children, so he wanted to see what made the difference. Last Sunday night I did not have an appeal for salvation at the end of service, but as soon as service was over the children’s mother came to me and said she wanted to be saved. Praise God! At the next midweek service I asked if anyone wanted to be saved and the lady made a public decision. Also another man got saved this month. This last month we have averaged 66 in church. Last Sunday we had 10 people baptized. What a blessing!

The youth group is doing great! We have had to drive two cars to take them to church. Last Sunday night we had to drive 3 cars. We are praying that God will give us a van.

Last letter we mentioned about a group that was going to come and build a church building in one of the communities where we were blessed with a lot given for a mission. Two weeks before the group arrived we had a group of men putting in the foundation. The group that came arrived here on the 9th of July. They stayed here at our place. They started putting up the building on Monday and had walls up, windows in and lights and fans ready to use in four days. They worked hard and did a great job. On Sunday we had an inauguration service. The building was full and 3 people were saved. Kathy and a group of young people are having a children’s program Saturday afternoon. The first day they had 63 kids. Then on Saturday night and Wednesday night we have services. The response has been great. Pray that God will continue to open doors in this city, MUTIRÃO. We want to thank Tabernacle Baptist Church for the lot where the building was built. Also thanks to Judson Hatcher who gave our name to the group that wanted to build a church.

We have talked to the people in Garça these days. They are really excited with their new pastor. They are doing some remodeling in the area where the church meets. It is really great to see how happy they are.

Please continue to pray about the court hearings about the closing of Alpha and Omega because of the accusations that the kids were mistreated.  Pray that God will give the Lawyers wisdom as they gather information they need. We thank those that have already been praying for us.

In Christ,
Odali and Kathy

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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Missionary Update: Odali & Kathy Barros in Brazil [September 2014]

Odali and Kathy Barros served the Lord in Sao Paulo, Brazil together from 1987-2013. In late 2013, they transitioned to Manaus in Northern Brazil to start sharing the Gospel and planting churches in villages along the river.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We praise God for all he has done in our life and ministry. We thank Him for His watch care and guidance each day.

The work is coming along and growing each day in the community of Ubim. The children are so receptive. The come every week and don’t miss and have been bringing their friends. My brother’s church was going with us to the services, but as of the beginning of the month, they started a mission point in another village. We praise God for this. We have plans to start in 2 other places. We are looking at the city of Iranduba. It has a population of around 70,000 and apparently only one Baptist church that looks closed. We saw a building this week that would be perfect. It has a nice size auditorium, 4 room and bathrooms. Pray that if this is the place that God will help us be able to rent it.

barros sept1barros sept3We have people working with us to learn how to start a new work and also learning how to work with the children.

The church my brother pastors moved in to the new church building the last Sunday of July. We pray that they will continue to be excited and will reach out to the people around them.

barros sept2

We thank God that He allowed Kathy to go see her parents in the US. She got to stay there 2 weeks. She had a great time and was also able to see our 3 children that live in the US.

Pray for us as we make plans for each community we work in. We are looking at possibly renting a place in Ubim so we can have services on Sunday. The family that has opened their house for us to use have been wonderful. But, needless to say, this limits us. Pray with us that God would show us just the right place.

We thank each of your for your prayers and your support. May God bless each of you tremendously!

Odali and Kathy
Titus, Jonas and Gabriel

Odali & Kathy Barros
Caixa Postal 1
Iranduba, Amazonas 69.415.000
Brasil, S.A.
odali_kathy[at]hotmail.com
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