Barry and Ellen Farlow are missionaries in Brazil with Baptist Mid-Missions.

We are sent out by Altoona Regular Baptist Church in Altoona, Iowa. We are seeking to partner with conservative, fundamental, independent Baptist churches.

Barry is involved in training national leaders at the Paraná Baptist Bible Institute and in assisting church planting in Curitiba, Brazil.

This site contains both our ministry prayer letters and the blog below that includes some of the “fun” things we do as a family.

June 14-18 we were priviledged to have Dr. Jeff Newman from FBBC&TS teach a master’s level module on Biblical Counseling for us.  It was an excellent week.   We had three taking it for credit and 6 auditing it.  Some others came in from time to time as they were able to as well. The comments from the students were very positive. I believe this module will have a significant impact here in Brazil. Ed Alexandar (our director) and I did the translating.

Yesterday (April 30^th) we went in for an ultrasound and found out God has blessed us with our fifth boy! He is due to arrive around the second week of October, if all goes according to the Lord’s will. We praise the Lord for our little surprise and pray that God will continue to grant us His wisdom as we strive to train all our boys in the fear of the LORD.

The first week of March we went to Baptist Mid-Mission’s all Brazil conference in which they celebrated 75 years of ministry in Brazil.  While we were there we got to ride on an old steam powered train, made in the US in 1912.  Here are some pictures from that ride.

Here is our latest family photo.

Dear Friends,

We are working on getting a prayer letter out soon, but we wanted to give this quick update to set at ease those who may have heard we were in a car accident.

We were coming back from our trip to Natal and were driving on the interstate going from Sao Paulo to Curitiba when about an hour out of town Barry lost control on the wet road on a sharp curve going down hill.  We spun around at least three times hitting apparently both sides of the road.  There was a large cement barricade on one side and a grass embankment on the other separating us from oncoming traffic.  We slammed into the cement barricade and smashed the front of the car during the spinning and at some point hit the back as well.  We praise God that all but Mark were in their seat belts and were not hurt other than seat belt bruises.  Mark was in Ellen’s arms at the time and went flying to the front, Barry saw him spinning in mid air (actually he was probably still while the car was spinning) and reached up and grabed him out of the air with one arm while trying to correct the car with the other.  We were spinning so fast though, there was no way to correct it.  We praise God, though, that Mark was not hurt other than a bloody lip that soon healed. The worst part ended up being the scare for the boys, they were very scared and crying afterwards.  Another way God protected us is that the car stopped on its own, on the side of the road, facing the correct direction, as if it had been perfectly parked!  Had it stopped in the middle of the road we would have been creamed, because we were in a blind spot around a corner and down the hill.

We still do not know how every thing is going to work out for us to replace the car.  The insurance does not cover it all.  We are hoping to get enough from the wrecked car to make up the difference.  We trust God will provide for us.  Mean while though, our internet and phone are not working so it has been hard to be in contact with all those wondering how we are.  So I am at a friends house taking advantage of the chance to update you all.

Thank you for your prayers!

Barry Farlow

Barry preached a series of six messages on the Abrahamic Covenant and its implications  today for the state Association of Regular Baptist Churches of Rio Grande do Norte where he grew up.  It was held at Camp Elim.

Here are some pictures from our time at Tim Franklin’s home in Natal.  (This is where Barry also grew up.)  There are several pictures of the cashew fruit. Many people are only familiar with the cashew nut. The nut is encased in the grayish curved part at the bottom of the fruit. There are a number of varieties, two of which are pictured. The fruit is juicy, but acidic and the nut is not edible as it is.  It has a poison similar to poison ivy.  It has to be burned and the outside knocked off before it can be eaten.  So it usually serves as a handle to eat the fruit with and is then collected in bags to be  sold ($5 for a bag about 10 kgs.) to people who process them to sell ($10 per kg.).

Today I finished my first year teaching!  I really enjoyed it and can’t wait for next year. Here is a picture of my students and I from the second semester.  There are three married couples and three single girls.

We recently went to Iguassu Falls for the first time since we have been here.  The falls are in Parana, the state we live in, but are on the other side.  It takes about 9 hours to drive there.  It was a blessing that Barry’s parent’s were able to be there at the same time as well!  There was an abnormal amount of water coming over the falls when we went, which made for an amazing display of power, but poor pictures as there was so much mist clouding the air.   We also went to the bird park that was beside the falls.  It was fun to be able to get so close to many beautiful birds.

Play Iguassu Falls video 1 (Probably be faster to right click and download, since these videos are large .mov files)

Play Iguassu Falls video 2

Play Iguassu Falls video 3

Here in Brazil, Children’s Day is at least as big as Christmas.  Here are a couple

pictures from our Children’s Day activities at church.