Standing up to the Challenge in Brazil

Because my father "discovered" the creationist movement in the early sixties, we went to creation conferences and on tours almost every summer during my Junior-Hi and High School years. I began to believe that all fundamental Christians were "young-earthers" since it seemed like such an obvious slam-dunk! After college and seminary, God directed my wife and I to Brazil as missionaries with a fundamental Baptist group. Again, I just assumed that everyone in our mission was a "young-earther"! Boy was I wrong! Even though in numbers, the ones who believe in an old earth are only about one percent, we ended up working with two missionaries who laughed when they discovered that I believed in the literal Biblical chronology of about 6000 years. It got to be kind of a game with them calling me a "flat-earther" and with them accusing me of being so stupid as to accept the date of creation based on Arch Bishop Usshers chronology. Though I could defend myself fairly well on many points, I had no defense for Ussher. Now, his newly reprinted Annals of the World sits on my shelf. Just let someone try and smear his scholarship again in my presence! My two missionary friends, instead of persuading me to their side, simply provoked me to start reading again on the creation-evolution controversy. That was the year 2000. Their challenge has led to a total change in our ministry direction here in Brazil. In 2001 I wrote and published a book on creation in Portuguese that has currently sold nearly 1500 copies and have recently translated and published Ken Hams Is There Really a God booklet in Portuguese. I have also been privileged to give dozens of creation lectures and conferences. The hunger for any material on creation here is very great, but we need more. We desperately need books for school kids since they are being bombarded here just like every where else. I am extremely grateful to AIG for your website and materials. It has been so much fun to see how the arguments really work. But more importantly, I can guarantee that your faithfulness in equipping us is bearing fruit in the lives of hundreds of young people here in Brazil, as for the first time, they are getting answers! There are many really intelligent young people who are being challenged to abandon their Christian faith in the universities. It is such a thrill to see them brighten up when we show them that they dont have to abandon their faith to be a scientist and that the evidence always confirms the Bible, when a person starts with the right facts! Looking forward to meeting lots of you and others like myself at the Creation College.

R. P., Brazil