from the foran desk

Finishing the Sunday School area

2006-06-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

The team from Calvary Baptist in Lansdale, Pennsylvania ( with participation from other churches as well) left on June 2. They did a great job putting up the drywall dividers for our Sunday School area. What remained to be done was the painting. Here are the rooms after painting.

We thank the Lord for all his blessings in helping us build these beautiful rooms for teaching his word. Lord bless,

The Forans

Our Inauguration Service

2006-05-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it! We had our last meeting in our borrowed facilities Sunday, May 21. You can see the crowd we had that day.

We have just put in days of intense work getting our building (almost) ready for the inauguration service. The workmen on the crew finish their part on Friday night at 11:00 pm. They didn't get everything done, but we had some bathrooms and some lights. Everyone available had been painting and sanding furiously for days. On Saturday morning others of the church people came in and did heavy cleaning.

We've been helped by the team from Calvary Baptist in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. They arrived on Friday morning and by Friday afternoon were getting the drywall up for the nursery. The worked Saturday morning while cleaning was going on all around them. We were able to use the nursery for the first service. We had 15 babies!

The service itself began at 7:00 on Saturday night. We had 200+ chairs and anticipated a few people perhaps standing up. We set up a children service upstairs between the studs for the drywall.

All 200+ chairs were filled, approximately 185 people stood and we had a number outside the door listening. Pastor Lasley from our home church, Buffalo Ridge in Gray, Tennesse, preached.

Here is Pastor Lasley (2nd from left) with three pastors of our previous churches and Jeff Traver, our co-worker.

On Monday Preacher Lasley spoke to our area preachers. It was a great meeting. His message was, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" The Lord used it in a special way. Here's a picture of the pastors.

Lord bless, Graham and René Foran

The Race to the Finish Line

2006-05-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

It is a busy time for us as we head toward furlough and try to get into our new church building. We have a three story building set on a 600 square meter lot. We will be using the first two stories and leaving the third story to finish later. Here's the latest picture. We are frantically doing everything possible to have it useable for the 27th of May when Pastor Gene Lasley will preach our inauguration service. The date was set months ago and I decided we'd have an inauguration no matter what the state of the building was!

Right now, São Paulo is in the midst of a big panic due to the actions of the PCC, a large criminal gang which began in the prisons. There have been dozens of police killed in the last four days and over 40 prison revolts and today, the city shut down due to fear. Mostly exaggerated, the gang is not that big, but rumors fly and soon everyone was closing up shop. Once that started, even the people who didn't believe the rumors had to shut down. There were no customers!

It is calm around here. Most of the violence is directed at policemen. The number of attacks has diminished drastically since Sunday and the only number going up is the number of criminal killed. It seems obvious that a lot of the ones they catch will be killed "resisting arrest". A lot of police were buried over the weekend.

Lord bless,

Graham, René and Katie Foran

Trip to Foz do Iguaço (Iguazu Falls)

2006-04-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

One of our goals for this last year year was to take Katie around to some of the famous Brazilian landmarks. She actually has been to most of them...but when she was a baby, so she doesn't remember them at all. Last August we went to Rio de Janeiro and last week we went to Foz do Iguaço on the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We took in both the Argentine and the Brazilian sides of the Falls and walked over the bridge to Paraguay...just to say we'd done it.

The Falls are incredible and worth every effort. The walk across to Paraguay was bruising (literally). René and Katie got pretty beat up by the huge crowd of "sacoleiros", people carrying sacks of contraband across the bridge from Paraguay (which has no industry to speak of and imports bazillions from China and other cheap spots) to Brazil (which has high tariffs on manufactured goods.) We also ate supper one night in Argentina. (Everyone brags on their beef, but I think Argentine chickens are pretty good.)

Anyway here's some pictures of the Falls and our trip. My favorite spot is "Devil's Throat", the center of the 200+ waterfall system that according to Elenor Roosevelt, "makes Niagra look like a water spigot."

April 5, 2006

2006-04-05T10:47:00.001-07:00

Hello,

This first picture refuses to move to the bottom of the page, so let's just pretend that I meant to put it here! It also refuses to resize to a smaller dimension. Its the final prayer of the ordination service for Iuri at the Barueri church.

I preached the challenge to the candidate.

We are glad to see the construction going ahead. It always seems slow, especially with the method of building here, but the light is at the end of the tunnel, literally.

The power company has been dragging their feet for months about connecting us. They kept coming up with "problems" for us to fix. Finally they came by yesterday and tried to connect us to the system. Their pole was defective! They promised quick resolution. Here's a picture of the construction.

Here's a picture of Iuri and his wife Cintia at the ordination at the Barueri church. Beside them is Pastor João. Some of your have prayed for Bible college students. Some have even helped with their school bills. This shows two recent graduates standing by their pastor who is a graduate from past years. All are doing a great job, praise the Lord Your prayers and support are paying off.

And, of course, our grandkids. Ben took his first steps and Isaiah is starting to be potty trained. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Graham and René Foran

March, 2006

2006-03-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

René and I got back from the Carnaval Retreat in Goiania on March 2. The trip back was a 13 hour bus ride. Fortunately, it was what we call a "leito" or sleeper bus...not that we did all that much sleeping. It definitely was better than a standard bus, and I did manage to sleep some, between stops. The strange thing is that I bought an airplane passage for the trip out for less than the bus trip back!

Why didn't I buy the same ticket both ways? Schedule. People leave for their Carnaval excursions at different times, hence, I found good air passages for good prices. But everyone goes back from their Carnaval destinations on the same day. Neither love nor money (at least in the amounts I was willing to pay) could arrange airfare. Here are a couple of pictures of part of the crowd from the retreat. The lady in blue is my favorite camper!

Right after getting back, I had to leave again for Brazilia for our All Brazil conference and Strategic Planning meeting. This past year I served as secretary for Baptist Mid Missions in Brazil and our 140+ missionaries. I enjoyed the opportunity to serve, but am especially happy that I now am NOT the secretary anymore! May the Lord bless Mark Swedberg!

While in Brazilia, I had the fun of seeing Wanderson and Katia. Wanderson was saved and called to the ministry in our Barueri church. He studied in our Bible Institute where he met Katia. They were married and are now serving in Brazilia. The Lord gave them twins, recently, Abigail and Gabriel. It was great to see them and the Lord's blessing in their ministry.

Of course, I can't sign off without at least one picture of my grandkids. Here's Ben. Apparently he has decided on a lifetime baseball team preference.

Lord bless,

Graham, René and Katie

february 2006

2006-02-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

The first of the year took off before we were ready for it to happen. With the kids all visiting (Nathan, Becca and boys in November) and Ginny and Ryan over Christmas, and our strategic planning meetings for the South Region of Baptist Mid the first week of January, it seemed like by the time we looked around it was February. We also had to plan and put on two Bible Schools in the third week of January.

We had our own Bible Time and then did it again in the afternoon for a new church being started by two missionary families who work down the road a piece. (Geber and Robert Coelho families with Baptist World Missions) Our young people did much of the work.

In the first weekend of February our Barueri church (New Life Baptist) had a 10th anniversary celebration for their pastor. It was such a sweet time with those people.

Our South Region Missions conference was held the next week. I had to leave on Wednesday to pick up visiting pastor, Dr. Dave Doran from Inter City Baptist in Allen Park, Mi. He stayed with me that night, visiting our works and preached in the Barueri church. I returned to our conference. We got back on Friday afternoon.

Monday we took off for Porto Alegre for the Fundamentalist Congress in that city. Dr. Doran delivered what was undoubtably one of the best messages of the congress.

I took three of our pastors who come up through our ministry. They enjoyed the fellowship and meeting my stateside pastors, Drs. Bob and Steven Jones, etc.

Pastor Danny Sweatt, who also spoke at the Congress came from Porto Alegre and stopped by here for a few days to visit us and preach in the church in Carapicuiba. We had three great services. The people loved his messages from the book of James. Here's a picture of Brother Dan in front fo the construction.

This week we were home. Catching up on the construction and church. We also found out that grandchild number 3 is a girl! Little Abigail will arrive in July. René is hoping for a little curly haired girl who takes after her Becca.

Tomorrow, February 23, René and I are off for Goiania. I'm speaking for Romolo Ribeiro at his family camp. René will be bringing messags to the ladies.

Love to all. Graham, René and Katie