Psalm 43

Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

Balola

On Wednesday night we were eating pizza at this pizza parlor where they bring pizzas to you non-stop until you are full. Great and very cheap restaurants in Brazil. I was sitting next to Balola (spelling? pronounced Ba-loo-la) who is a 19 year old brazilian with hair spiked up a foot and a half tall. Its amazing what you can do with elmers glue isn't it?

Balola turned to me and said that he will have to go away for a year with the army starting next week. Its a requirement. He seemed pretty broken up about it. I told him that I would pray for him and he really appreciated that. Balola and his girlfriend Marina have developed a relationship with No Longer Music since 4 years ago. They have seen the show many times but had never made a decision to surrender their life to Jesus.

On Thursday night Balola showed up at the C-hipset Z-ero concert and afterwards he was broken up. I and another member of our team explained to Baloloa that Jesus loves him and wants a relationship with him. We explained the cross to him and encouraged him to surrender his life to Jesus. He wanted more time to think about it.

Last night was our last public show (wedding show is tonight) and Balola went forward and surrendered his life to Christ! I have been so excited! Today he and I are meeting for coffee at 1PM (10 AM CST). He says that he hasn't been sleeping well because he has been thinking so much and he has some questions.

Please pray for me as I help Balola begin his journey with Jesus. Pray that I have divine wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit as I talk to him today.

Last night we had 200 people show up for our final semi-public show. We handed out special invitations to this last show to those who responded at previous show. It was at the church we are working closely with. We saw people from all the shows that we have played at in Sao Paulo. Many like Balola recieved Christ last night and were connected to people in the church. David is speaking tomorrow for the churches Sunday morning and evening services and we have invited all of them back. I get to lead worship on Sunday night as well! Plus I am playing and singing 4 songs in this wedding that we have tonight!

This may be my last blog from Brazil! Thank you so much for your committed and consistant prayers. I have many more stories about God's amazing power during this past month and stories about all the different adventures of Virgin Man (mostly all of them are humiliating).

I will see most of you this week!!!!!

With much love, Peter

Cocke

There is this guy traveling with us named Cocke (c-oh-k-ay) from Chile. Before Joy and I met No Longer Music in Sao Paulo the band did some shows in Santiago, Chile. During the end of one of the shows where David does the ratcage speech this guy stood up and started translating for David. David already had a translator, but this guy insisted that he had to translate otherwise he would 'throw up'. This was Cocke and he became a Christian that night because the power of God came over him. David had the band pay for his ticket to Sao Paulo and he is our sound guy for this tour!

It's very cool because he is a baby Christian and is joining us for our daily prayer and devotion time. You can just see God molding him and teaching him daily through us!!! I tear up everytime he prays. Its amazing.

This weekend at the Thorns festival we had some people come and talk to us and say that they were Christians who had walked away from their faith. They said the show revealed to them God's amazing love for them and they felt strongly they need to get back on track with him. It was such a crazy and disgusting atmosphere but we sensed God's peace in that back room as we talked to the 20+ people that responded to the message.

I talked for a long time to this guy Marcelo that I had been chatting online with since Brazil '03. He is one of the organizers of the massive thorns festival. We talked about God for a while but I can tell that he has not surrendered his life to Jesus yet. I will see him later this week. Pray for him that as we talk more he will surrender to Jesus.

There were some great things that happened that I can't talk about here for an important reason. Please pray for those things... God knows what I am talking about.

It so amazing that God gave us the opportunity to play at Thorns... the band after us was overtly satanic. They had a mock pulpit where a guy dressed up like a priest threw communion wafers out into the crowd. They burned crosses and had all these satanic icons and symbols. I stood right next to the band members as they were about to perform and prayed for them and asked that God would reveal to them the reality of what they are promoting. They just don't really know what they are doing!

There was much more unmentionable stuff going on there, but I felt no fear the whole night. Our team felt God's peace there and we were free to do what we wanted there - under His authority. I even walked around after the show in my virgin man suit! No problems! :)

Last night and the night before was saw more respond to the message of the gospel. Last night we saw another 20+ respond to the altar call and with more resounding voices received Christ. This was at a church and they had a great number of people ready to counsel those who came forward - thank God for their preparation. I heard a testimony of one of the guys who responded and he said that he had known about Jesus but he was living a life of visiting prostitutes. Last night he gave that up! Praise God!

There were many christians at this show and we were able to hand them promo items for our upcoming shows - especially the one on the 3rd. PLEASE PLEASE pray that many will come to our show on Thursday! Please commit to praying for this show as much as possible. If you could let me know how much you are committing to pray for this show I will tell our team and the church we are working with here. They will be very encouraged.

Last thing... I have a praise about my mom - thanks for your prayers!! The surgeon said before the surgery that she would have a 90% chance of having to have surgery again... BUT - because of God's power - after the surgery the surgeon said that she now has an 85% chance of NOT having to have surgery again. AMEN to that! Please pray for her recovery, she has a pretty loose disk that the doctor is concerned about. She will be doing some PT to try to fix that.

OK! This is a long blog! Thanks for reading all of it. You get 350 points.

See you all in 6 days!

Weekend

It's amazing that God allows us to easily and freely walk into these very, very dark venues to lift up his name! I don't have time right now for detail but we are very safe and doing well and have seen God's spirit do amazing things that I am anxious to share.

It's my 26th Birthday!! In Brazil!

Can I ask for a favor? Please pray for my mom who is having back surgery today at 3 PM CST. Thanks!