Sprouting wings

Off into the wild blue yonder (or, here in ILM country, the gray, misty overcast), again.

Heading to Abilene. Almost feel like a cowboy driving a herd of cattle to market, only I’m not a cowboy, I don’t have any cows to drive and I don’t ride very well on a horse. But, other than that, I’ll pretend I’m a cowboy.

Excited about what I’m going to learn and who I’m going to meet (heading to a Global Awakening conference).

This ought to be fun…

On the fly

Whew!

Three days and almost 1200 miles later, I’m back home… kinda.

Fabulous trip to Chattanooga. Had some great time with the gang at Journey Chattanooga. Those guys are perched to make a really big noise in Choo Choo City! If you’ve ever in their neighborhood be sure to visit them (they’re one of those weird churches that meet in a warehouse). Thanks to all the folks who gave to help the Seed of Hope kids!

Grandkids? Thanks for asking!

Really cool and intense time with the guys from The Glorious Unseen. Twice! Almost got to meet Charlie Hall… almost. But I did meet Paul Young’s (The Shack author) daughter, Amy.

Heading out tomorrow for Abilene, Texas. I should have some interesting posts…

The Farmhouse

Of notoriety on par with that of Jesse James, “the farmhouse” in Ubaúna is the base of operations for mission trips into this region. Often made out to be worse than it really is, the farmhouse is primarily used for sleeping, or at least what passes for that.

Wildlife abounds; frogs in an amazing variety of sizes, tarantulas, snakes, rats, goats, lambs, cows, hawks, buzzards, lizards and so on. Some are so friendly that they want to sleep with you or accompany you to the bathroom. Others just like being where you are.

Accommodations are not quite of the five-star classification, the air conditioning isn’t quite up to par and the traffic can be a wee bit noisy at times.

I hear more screams, both male and femail, in the course of a week than I hear over an entire year while residing in the farmhouse. Typically because something as silly as a frog has jumped on someone or a little spider was found in someone’s hammock, but sometimes for “other” reasons.

Affectionately christened as “the clubhouse” on this last visit, the place actually becomes an object of affection. Folks who’ve stayed there look at it with longing and recognize it for the purpose it serves; they know that they’ve encountered what might be called a portal between the natural and the supernatural while they’ve been there.

Most do not leave it without being transformed.

The farmhouse is definitely an interesting place…

Júnior

“What’s your name?”

“Júnior”

“So, how do you say it in English?”

“Junior”

And with that began our relationship with our artist-painter-teacher who would go to Ubaúna with us to help the children express themselves artistically.

Júnior, who had no idea who we were before this encounter, had volunteered to go somewhere he’d never gone before, with people he’d never met and to do something that he didn’t even understand. He’d be sleeping in a hammock, in the heat, braving the elements and having to hang around foreigners who didn’t speak his language.

But he was game… because of the children.

What he didn’t realize was that he was going to the Brazilian desert to meet Jesus.

The two of them had an encounter and he became a follower. Just like that. When we got back to Fortaleza, we had the privilege of baptizing him into the Kingdom.

The weather was perfect, the ocean like a lake and we even had the token drunk who came up and asked what was going on.

When he came up on the beach, he simply asked, “What’s next?”

My response: “Interesting that you should bring that up…”

Ubaúna Warm Fuzzies

Passing along some more photo-love from Ubaúna, Brazil.

Of course, you must click here to get the warm fuzzies.

What an ass!

More photos of the trip are up (thanks Jen!).

Click here to see them.

Yeah, but it got your attention, didn’t it?

Braggin’ on my childrens…

We had amazing talent on this trip to Brazil.

I could just let that sentence stand by itself and it would be enough.

However…

Since there was such amazing talent, I want to start showing it off! We had two dynamite and professional photographers with us: Amber Currin and Jen Griffin. We had a professional videographer, Travis Currin. We had a professional band (and they are really good, too!): Wrent Band (Brady and Jennafer White). We even had a professional Brazilian band: Megafone. Then we had the super amazing, traveling road show GFB “choir” composed of Tiffany Poston, Hannah Morrison, Bonnie LaClaire, Kelly Cannon, Josh Stephens, Patrick and Christy Loyd, Garry and Barbara Colsen, Hal Griffin and keyboard/guitar virtuoso Paul Tyndall.

Some of this talent will be finding it’s way here in the form of images, video, sound, etc., over the next few weeks.

But I’ve got something to show you right now. If you will follow this link, you’ll get an eyeful of some of the activities that occurred on this trip.

Touch down!

They’re back!

Team Ubaúna is back in the U.S. of A. At this moment they’re all making their ways to their respective cities from Atlanta, and all should be home no later than midday today.

This group was fabulous! They stepped up and did what they were called on to do; spiritually, they knocked it out of the ballpark. I’m so proud of them I could burst!

What was accomplished was incredible; I’ll be detailing it over the next several days. It couldn’t have been done without this crew.

Thank you, gang! Papa Joe is proud of you!

Home again, sort of…

We arrived back in Fortaleza last night, had a bite to eat, then crashed. Almost literally.

Today has been a hurry-hurry day. We started with a baptism (more on that soon), then off we went to downtown Fortaleza to run some errands. A large contingent of the group just left to go to the downtown central market and will be back in a few hours so we can have our last meal as a group together here at the hotel.

We’ll be heading to the airport a 8:00 pm to hop the flight back to Atlanta at 11:00 tonight.

The trip will then officially be history.

I’ve got much to post. So much happened, so much will be happening, as a result of this trip. I’m not returning with the group tonight; I was scheduled to speak at a missions conference in south Brazil this weekend, but the conference was canceled at the last minute due to widespread sickness in the region.

This is actually a blessing in disguise. I’ll be able to have several meetings here in Fortaleza with some key people and even have a chance to wind down somewhat from the trip to the interior. Much posting will be prepared.

A heads up to those interested in making such a trip… I’ll be announcing the next trip in just a few weeks, so keep watching.

Not dark, but gray

Sorry that my posts have been so few.

I’ve had lousy Internet connection here in Ubauna. I can get an occasional signal and get out a tweet (Twitter.com/joecarr) but actually using my computer is out of the question. My iPhone has to be the greatest invention since sliced bread — without it I couldn’t post anything anywhere.

Since we heading up 3000 feet to Tiangua, I actually have a decent carrier signal on my iPhone and am attempting a real live post.

I used to say I was “going dark” when I went to Ubauna. I think it more appropriate to say now that I go “gray.”

The trip has been fabulous. We’re on Day 5 of the hop into the interior of Ceara. Last night we blew out Ubauna in a flurry of healings (approximately 55) and a powerful presentation of the Word that was confirmed by those supernatural actions. This resulted in folks accepting Jesus.

I never tire of seeing that occur.

Today we are Tiangua, a very dark place. We get to shine Jesus and dispel that darkness.

I wish I could share that blessing with everyone…