God Stories
Open to the Word
A 28-year-old woman is the newest member of our bag production team. Married and a mother of four, she needed work after her husband suffered a motorcycle accident and broke his arm, preventing him from working as a truck driver. We welcomed her aboard and discovered her dedication and talent. She is Hindu, yet she participates in our weekly prayer and Bible study meetings and is currently learning how to sew. It is a joy to see hardworking individuals who are open to the Word of God joining our team. Please pray for her and her family.
Cast out
During the carnival holiday, a teenager showed up in front of the Church in Pirituba. Pr. Alberto saw that she seemed lost or was walking a long distance to get home. Alberto approached the young girl, who was probably coming from a carnival party, and invited her into the Church building. She used the bathroom and joined the service. Pray for this young lady, for the Good News she heard to be transformative. Many people are cast out because of how they are dressed, or drunk, or not looking the part of a Christian from local churches. However, those are the people we are reaching out to and saying, "Come as you are, and when you hear the Good News, the Holy Spirit will touch your heart so that you do not stay as you are, but are transformed into who God created you to be!" Pray over this young lady to come to Christ, and for us to continue with our arms wide open, reaching for the lost.
God of miracles
A lady called Luza confessed Jesus, but she didn’t want to be baptized because she was a smoker. When she discovered that she had breast cancer, she asked Jeff Fife to do the course called A Healthy Christian Life, written by him. Jeff Fife went there on a few Saturdays to teach the course, and on a Sunday, she got baptized. Afterward, she had a CAT scan, and no cancer was found, but a scar inside, as she had surgery. The cancer on her breast disappeared. God healed her as she was baptized in Christ Jesus.
One Body
The church in Jundiai met at a rented location. The rent went up to an equivalent of $7,000 a month, which is what you would pay for the space here in the USA. It was unbearable for the church to continue to pay such a high rent.
God made a way. The grandfather of a family that is a member of the church in Jundiai was a pastor at another local church, but he moved 230 miles away and could not be there for the church he was pastoring. The grandfather contacted Jeff, and after praying, he told Jeff to use the building where his church was located for our weekly programs and Sunday services, for half of the rent the Jundiai church was paying, because they only used the building for Sunday evening services. This was already a huge blessing for the Jundiai church.
God did not stop there. After prayers and conversations, the grandfather asked Jeff to help at the Jundiai church with the Sunday evening services, so we helped at the other local church. Monica started helping lead worship, Jeff started helping with the preaching and pastoring over the lives, and the members of the Jundiai started helping as well.
You know how God is; the impossible became a reality. After more prayers and conversations between the pastors and elders of both churches, the other church asked to be one church with the Jundiai church.
Last July, both congregations became one local church, being a vivid witness of God’s kingdom on earth! I had the privilege of being there with them during that service! Praise the Lord!
Trusting in the Lord
With an infection in her feet, Rita would need to have her leg amputated up to the knee. Everything was scheduled for the surgery, but she said they would not amputate her leg. She cried a lot day and night, and her eyes got swollen. When she was in the surgery room, they saw her eyes swollen and thought she had a problem with her heart. So the surgery was delayed. Rita didn’t question why this was happening, always trusting in the Lord. Her sister told Rita to call for her God, because Rita says God is so good. She was afraid but trusted God, said, “It is in your hands,” and asked God to calm her heart. God gave Rita peace without understanding. When the doctors came to her room again, they saw that the foot was dirty and not infected. So the head doctor told them there was nothing to amputate here. She is going home to take care of her foot. So, Rita was sent home and didn’t need to have her leg amputated. Glory be to God!
Gratitude
When I was in 8th grade, I ended up dating a girl, and after only 3 months, I broke up with her and felt really down. After I left my old group of friends, three girls who were friends of my ex came to talk to me, and I regretted having dated her. After they talked about Jesus, I followed them just out of respect. However, I tried to pray once and realized that God had forgiven me and I could still return to Him. So, after attending church for a short time, the word entered my heart, and I realized that if the bad things hadn't happened to me in the past, maybe I wouldn't even be back on the path. And I'm grateful for everything that has happened in my life, whether good or bad.
180
My testimony is that I used to go to church when I was little, and then I grew up with my parents. I left the church, did a lot of wrong things, got into a lot of fights, and hung out with the wrong people until one day my mother asked me to go to church with my brothers. I was very angry because I didn't want to go. She even gave me some money so I could go. When I got there, everyone treated me very well. Here I decided to learn more about God. I asked myself, "Wow, they're always smiling." I want to serve this God too. I was baptized, and today I attend church. Glory to God.
Fill by God
The camp was a blessing. I have never felt the presence of God like I did there. I was able to fill this emptiness I'd never been able to fill, and I tried to find people to fill it, but I couldn't until I got there. God spoke to me a lot there about things that were really happening to me, and I needed to hear it, you know!
The Lost is found
Antonio is a man whom we connected with through our Street Evangelism. He was lost in the streets and ashamed of his situation after leaving rehab and going back to the streets. After we prayed and talked with him, he gave us his sister’s number. We were able to connect him with his family, who thought he was dead because they did not hear from him for over three months. Now, Antonio is reconnected with his family and going to church.
Present Savior
Arthur is a kid in one of our churches who, every time he heard about Jesus, would get really emotional and cry. One day, the kids' ministry leader asked the kids if they had ever heard the voice of Jesus. Arthur raised his hand and said, I have heard the voice of Jesus. He shared that one night he heard footsteps and wondered who was walking close to him. Instead of fearing the footsteps, Arthur heard the voice of Jesus, who said it was Him and told Arthur He was taking care of him.
Food baskets that satisfy their hunger and the Good News that satisfies their soul
A woman has two young kids, a husband who left them, and works full-time for a salary of 380 dollars a month, barely paying her bills, and gives her life for Jesus in a Tuesday night discipleship service. This is the reality for many people in the Portuguese-speaking world. However, most people’s stories stop there, before reaching the blessing of meeting Jesus and a church that will help them. After paying all the bills, her heart is broken even working full time because she cannot feed her children. In her time of need, she goes to church, and we were blessed to be chosen by her to be the hands and feet of Jesus in her life. The church now provides food baskets for her, so she and her kids can eat. This is not a story about someone who wants to receive food for free without working hard for it. This is a story of a mom who works over 40 hours a week and still cannot provide food for her kids. We are blessed to be there for her and her kids.
Broken home restored
One family went from prostitution, physical and verbal abuse, alcoholism, and drugs to a true relationship with God because a local church did not judge. This is the story of the Batista family. A father and a son walk into a week's service totally drunk. At the end of the service, we saw who could come the next morning to help expand the church building because the church was growing. From the voices of two drunkards, we heard, “We will be there tomorrow morning to help.” Many of us did not believe it, but our pastor did believe they would be there the next morning. Surprisingly, they were the first ones there, ready to help with the construction. After this day, this family was never the same, from the grandfather who was a smoker and alcoholic to a new man in Christ Jesus, who did not miss one service until his last breath. This man became the first person baptized in the new baptistry with his children. After a few years, his grandchildren were baptized in the same baptistry for the glory of God. The Batista family are faithful members of the church to this day.
New life
Rosalina fled from terrorists. She saw many people beheaded; she suffered a lot. She has two children: a boy and a girl. After she met Jesus Christ, her life changed. She was baptized in 2023. Today she works in housekeeping at Hope School.
Jundiai church
After a few years at the Campo Limpo church, we started reaching people in a nearby city, Jundiaí. It came to the point that 30% of the members in Campo Limpo were from Jundiai. So, we planted the Jundiai church in 2010.
We often have people coming to the churches we help plant through our outreach ministries, as well as those trying to find a Biblical local church. Usually, they are from another town, city, or even state. In this way, we prepare them through our Hands-on Bible college to plant new churches in their towns, cities, and states once we have a solid group from that region.
We work on a four-year process so the local church can be self-sufficient. In the first year, we provide 75% of the resources; in the second year, 50%; in the third year, 25%; and in the fourth year, the local church is self-sufficient.
Keep the faith
In the Yanomami tribe in Brazil, a tribal chief heard the good news of Jesus. When he encountered the story of the Savior, he surrendered to Him. During the 2020 pandemic, he got really sick and was taken by the missionary to the city for treatment. Unfortunately, the man had COVID. Instead of worrying about his condition, the tribal chief was worried about his son and his tribe, keeping the faith in God and persevering in God’s promises. One of his last words to the missionary was for his son and the tribe to continue to live for Jesus Christ our Lord.
Doctor of doctors
A lady had a wound in her leg, and she searched for healing through many different religions and went to many doctors, but they could not figure out a way to heal it. In the meantime, her son met Jesus at one of our churches and shared the Good News with her mom, and she decided to be baptized. On a Sunday morning, she was baptized, and within a few days her wound healed.
Eternally grateful
Meeting Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was on a lost path that wasn't for me. In 2022, I got pregnant and, close to my brother Richard and sister-in-law Laysa's wedding, I started bleeding. I was already having an abortion, and I had to rest completely. Letícia, Laysa’s mom, invited me to her house, where they prayed for the baby and me. There, I felt a wonderful presence, and I saw that it really was the Holy Spirit, because with it came the peace that everything happening was God's will. I lost that baby, but I also gained eternal life and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. And 3 months after this loss, God gifted us with another pregnancy and, to the glory of God, we have Davi, Ana's companion. I am eternally grateful to God.
Being who God created me to be
Through our outreach, Connect Kids to Jesus, a little girl heard about Jesus and how God created male and female. One day she came to the kids' ministry leader and said, “I understand now, and I have asked forgiveness from God, because I asked another little girl to be my girlfriend. Now I know that is not what God created me to be.” She understood that God created her to be a beautiful little girl who shines the light of Jesus through her life.