A Historic Week

Monday evening at the Continent of Great Cities Dinner at the ACU lectures, our hearts were filled with joy as we watched and listened to Alesandra Kelly (Ale) tell her story of how she came to be a missionary wife in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It started for real 25 years ago tonight (9-20-81) as Deb and I along with four other young families got on a plane and left the USA to move to Fortaleza, Brazil, to begin a new church planting ministry. In 1984, Alesandra’s parents were among our first 100 converts, and I was privileged to share the gospel with them when Ale was just 10 years old. The whole family moved to Sao Paulo in search of work in about 1989. As a result, Ale and her siblings finished growing up in the great Ninth of July church in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her father has since planted numerous congregations as a tireless self-supporting church planter whose health is now deteriorating. Her parents’ zeal for sharing Jesus was contagious for many including her and her three younger siblings. Ale has married Chris Kelly from Portland, OR, and they serve as missionaries in Argentina. Ale’s brother and his wife are part of a church planting team composed of Brazilians being sent out by the Ninth of July church. Her baby sister is married and they are active Christians there too. Her next to youngest sister is engaged to the son of a “preacher man.” Ale told of how she had learned how to teach children by watching Debbie teach her mother and other ladies how to teach and make visual aids for children. She showed us slides of her family and the churches her dad had planted and finally her spiritual family (church) in Argentina. As she told her amazing story of a family finding and sharing faith in Jesus while growing in grace, there was hardly a dry eye among the 250 folks present. Even though she has never played softball, she hit a home run with that speech!
It is an amazing thing to see one’s spiritual grandchildren grow up and bear such fruit by having their own spiritual grandchildren. What joy fills our hearts as the Kelly family spends time in our home this weekend as they complete this leg of their furlough.