Reaching the Lost | Teaching the Saved
Mission Field
Country: Brazil
The fifth largest country in the world in land mass and population, Brazil is also the largest country in South America.
With over 210 million people - most of which identify as catholics - Brazil is a field ripe for harvest.
The official language of Brazil is Portuguese,
all four of us have grown up speaking
this beautiful language and are
completely fluent in it.
Church Planting
Establishing Independent Fundamental Baptist churches has been the largest part of our ministry in Brazil.
Our first church was Igreja Batista Maranata em Tarumã (Maranatha Baptist Church in Tarumã).
We stayed at this church for 19 years leading the people and spreading the gospel in that part of the city.
For a long time we had prayed that God would send someone to pastor that church, but the laborers were few and for over a decade we prayed for the Lord to send a national pastor to take over that ministry.
Only in 2016 did God answer our prayers and send Pastor Wanderley to lead the church,
he is a national pastor who has been a blessing to us and the church in Tarumã ever since.
In July 2018 we started a new church in another part of town.
Templo Batista Maranata em Eldorado (Maranatha Baptist Temple in Eldorado) celebrated its 1 year anniversary in July 2019 with a Baptism out on the Camp property, this was a day of rejoicing as 8 people were Baptized and 2 of their family members accepted Christ as their Savior!
If God allows, we want to stay in Eldorado a few more years until the church has a national pastor to take over the work and we can move on and start a new ministry in another neighborhood.
Camp Maranatha
Since 1991 we have been directing camps at Camp Maranatha, a ministry that Robert Doolittle started over 40 years ago.
Through the years, Estância Maranata (Camp Maranatha) has grown from a small gathering of people on the banks of the Pari River to become one of the largest Christian camps in the country and the largest among Independent Fundamental Baptist camps in Brazil.
With seven camps a year for people of all ages, we are constantly working to provide an atmosphere where Christians can gather and fellowship while strengthening their faith and where the non-saved can hear the gospel being preached.
In this ministry we have worked with other BIMI missionaries John & Joyce Raehl and Chico & Shari Pinto who have been a great blessing and support in helping with the work at Camp Maranatha.
Guardians Ministry
As we have mentioned before, there is a great need in Brazil for men who are ready to live for God and do His work.
For this reason we started the Guardians of the Faith, a ministry working with boys ages 9-15 and teaching them to be manly men who love the Lord and live for Him.
We work with four pillars: God, Family, Church, and Country.
We teach the boys to obey, respect, and serve in these areas and encourage their Spiritual growth in every one of our weekly meetings through Bible studies and character-building exercises.
The meetings are conducted in a scouting-style but with the Christian life being the focus, we require obedience and discipline from the boys as we teach them about practical things that every man should know.
Our goal and dream is that in a few years these kids will be men who are ready to pastor churches, preach the gospel, and live an exemplary Christian life built upon the foundation we gave them when they were boys.
All according to our motto: "Teaching the boys of today to become the men of tomorrow."
As of ------ 2020 we have two published books written by Peter and Stanley for the Guardians of the Faith ministry. This book series is based on the lives of Robert Doolittle, John Raehl, and George Huestis, the Pioneers of the Baptists in the state of Mato Grosso Brazil.
The books are available in English and Portuguese and may be bought through Amazon: link@amazon.com
Training Center
While we are busy working in the present, we also look forward to the future, Missionaries have been starting churches but there aren't enough national pastors to take over the work once the missionary moves on.
This has always burdened our hearts that the next generation is not being prepared to go and preach, there are local church seminaries all over Brazil and even some that have had decent success, but it is not enough as the demand for pastors grows quickly.
Another problem is that many pastors who graduate from these seminaries are not well prepared for the ministry, they have Biblical knowledge but often don't have much more than that and many have weak work ethics and morals.
God touched our hearts to start a Training Center where students will come and live while being taught theology.
Not only will the students get Biblical knowledge, they will be taught to work with their minds and their hands as they have tasks and duties and are taught much needed skills that are not often found in pastors.
They will grow alongside veteran missionaries until they are ready to go out and pastor a church, some will even have the opportunity to plant a church alongside the missionaries and work with them until the missionary moves on and the student takes over as pastor.
Camp Maranatha has over 290 acres of land, most of which is currently unused.
Our plan is to use this land to start the seminary for students from the entire nation,
we are in a privileged location in the heart of Brazil and the Lord provided us with all the land
we need to start this work.
It will still be a few year before we start this ministry, but once it has begun it will most likely be the main focus
of our work in Brazil.
The idea is: We can spend years establishing and pastoring a church or we can spend that time training a dozen students to go out as missionaries and pastors.