GMO Brazil
Brazil is the largest country in South America, the sixth-largest economy in the world, and home to the largest group of Global Media Outreach volunteers outside the United States. Last month I was privileged to spend eight days visiting our GMO co-laborers in Campinas, Brazil — about a two-hour bus ride from the airport in São Paulo.
My trip to Brazil had two purposes. The first was to produce GMO’s basic evangelism and discipleship web video content in Brazilian Portuguese. The other purpose was to record several interviews and gather other footage to create a video documenting the model that has emerged with GMO’s partnership in Brazil. We would like to launch similar partnership in other countries.
The GMO Brazil story began in 2006 when some former missionaries, Brad and Victoria Myers, learned about GMO through their church in California. They realized the potential for this ministry in Brazil, a country where internet access is increasingly common. They then asked our leadership if they could help facilitate training and recruiting volunteer online missionaries in Brazil.
Brad and Victoria went to Brazil and presented the GMO vision and strategy to their friend, Pastor Marcos, and others in Campinas. The pastor’s church, Igreja Baptista El Shaddai, provided a small office space and some funds to help get things started. One of the church’s members, Paulo, began the task of translating GMO’s email response system and training materials into Portuguese. Paulo is now one of our “super volunteers” and helping GMO recruit online missionaries in other Latin American countries.
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God’s supernatural blessing, working through the commitment of our partners, has transformed a handful of volunteers into a movement of over 500 online missionaries spread across Brazil. In addition to their own country, these believers are having a global impact by responding to Portuguese-speaking people around the world: Portugal, Angola, the United States, and many other places.
From the start, the GMO Brazil partnership has included several other pastors and churches. Today, over 100 churches from multiple denominations have joined the effort: Baptist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Assemblies of God, Foursquare, and more. Besides involving their members in global ministry, this provides a natural and solid link for those being reached online in Brazil to connect with a local church — a key goal of our ministry.
Victoria Myers met up with me in Brazil and helped organize a celebration for GMO Brazil. (She also helped interpret both the language and culture for me.) On Saturday, September 26, one hundred twenty people gathered at a hotel in Campinas to celebrate what God had done through this ministry partnership. Some flew in from 1000 kilometers away, while others drove 5 or 6 hours to be there.
It’s impossible to put into words the great joy and blessing it was for me to be with them — to witness the spiritual kinship and unity of purpose they shared with other GMO partners in the US and around the world. With my friend Paulo as the interpreter, I had the privilege of telling the group about some of GMO’s future plans and announce some new web sites being launched in Portuguese.
Even though I had practiced with some with Spanish-speaking volunteers in Orlando, doing interviews in Portuguese was quite intense. I would ask a question, which was then interpreted, the interviewee would respond, and then I would get a quick interpretation of what he or she said. But I ended up with some great material from Pastor Marcos, Paulo, three other pastors involved with GMO, several of our online missionaries… and a couple who came to Christ through one of our web sites!
Since I also needed to capture some other footage of Brazil, I spent a day shooting in São Paulo — it’s the fourth largest city in the world and, of course, has some world-class traffic jams! I was accompanied by my interpreter and two men from Pastor Marco’s church as my guides and security guards. Even though I saw just a sliver, I was struck by the tremendous diversity of people in this city of 20 million — there’s even a “Japan-town.”
I was able to master a few basic words and phrases in Portuguese. And, of course, I had to sample some of the local cuisine… including a “Brazilian hot dog” which is hard to describe, and was kind of tasty (but later required several tablets of antacid). You can see a photo of this “delicacy” and other pictures on my web site.
I’m so thankful for the opportunity to spend time with our GMO partners in Brazil. I was blessed by Pastor Marcos’ heart for reaching his city and, through GMO, the world. The members of his church gave me a very warm welcome and it was a unique pleasure to fellowship with them. I’m humbled to be part of a ministry that is involving so many other committed believers around the world in fulfilling the Great Commission. And I’m all the more thankful for my own team of partners who make my ministry possible.
On my last night in Brazil, many of my new friends asked when I would be coming back. I simply replied, “When God allows” — which I truly hope will be sometime soon!
