Vida Em Cristo is a young and fresh church in Cubatao Brazil. The seed of Vida Em Cristo came out of the English school Young's English Club. A group of young believers (fruit of a short-term work team) were looking for a good Bible teaching church. They were not able to find a church they fit into and by the guidance of David Dormaier (a short-term worker at the time, now a full-time missionary in New Mexico) they started a church.
For a few months the small group met Sundays in classrooms at Young's English Club and had informal, but very meaningful services. The group held regular and intense prayer meeting asking God for direction and the next step for their developing church. David led the group as their pastor and mentor.
After a few months of meeting together David had to return to the U.S., but he had full intentions on returning to Brazil after updating his visa. However, it soon became clear that David would not be returning to Brazil. The Brazilians were devastated. Those in the group were all very young in the faith and none of them had any leadership/Theological training. As a result, Cristiana stepped into the place of leadership. Looking back now she cannot understand how she was able to take on that role. All she can say is, "God really helped and worked through me, I did nothing on my own."
The group stayed together and believed that God brought them together for a reason and it would be worth it to stick together see what God would do. They began to pray earnestly for God to send them a new pastor with Theological education and leadership skills. After about 8 months with no pastor God sent them an answer, Jeremy Kochendorfer. Another lady, Shelly Fuehrer went along with Jeremy and worked teaching English at Young's English Club.
Jeremy stayed in Brazil for 6 months. Under his leadership the church became official with the Brazilian government and became Vida Em Cristo. While Jeremy was in Brazil the Mission began renting a house. The weekly services were held in the backyard of the house. Jeremy had to return to the U.S. because his visa time limit was used up, but he committed to return to the church as their pastor.
While Jeremy was gone for approximately 8 months and during that time the Executive Director of Missions and his wife, Duane and Jessie Erickson filled in for 2 months and after them David Dormaier and his new wife Madonna took over the pastorate for 5 months. During the Dormaier's time in Brazil they found a one-room space in a building downtown where they began to hold services.
In January of 2002 Jeremy and Shelly returned to Brazil along with a new short-term worker Aaron Brakefield. Since his return Jeremy has been the pastor of Vida Em Cristo. However, Jeremy has needed to return to Brazil for various reasons periodically. Multiple short-term workers have gone to help the church and the English schools. These workers include Barbara (6 months, now wife of Jeremy), Corrie Larson (6 months twice) and Anne Olson (one month and 6 months) many others have gone to Brazil for a month or less trips too. Aaron has filled in for Jeremy on two occasions when he needed to return to the U.S., once for a month, the second time for 3 months.
In 2003 the church moved into a different rented site. This location is not much bigger than the one-room place, but there are temporary walls set up that allow for separate classrooms for the adults and children. For the last 3 years the church has been looking for a new location, preferably to buy. In June of 2006 a church in Anderson, IN sold their property and gave a donation to Vida Em Cristo that would cover the entire cost of buying a church building. After a long time of searching making offers in July of 2007 the church finally closed a deal on a prime piece of property on the main avenue. A lot of reformation has taken place and still needs to be done in order to make it a church, but we hope to move in soon.
In 2005 the church hired one of their own as an assistant pastor. Luis Reis is an energetic man with a heart broken for the lost people of his community. Luis has a wife and three young kids; his passion is for evangelism. Luis lost many years to alcohol and drug abuse earlier in his life and he uses his experiences to influence people away from that life-style. In the fall of 2007 Luis started a Bible and Theology course that will help him with his duties at the church.
In October 2007 Jeremy and Barbara accepted a position with the mission to be the "stateside director." This position will involve promoting missions in our U.S. churches and organizing short-term trips to the mission fields. Jeremy will step into this position in September of 2008. This means that the church will have some decisions to make regarding the pastor position before that time arrives. Pray for their wisdom and maturity regarding this decision.
In Brazil there are large pockets of low or no income families on the outskirts of the cities. These are families that live in very desperate conditions. Brazil has no welfare, workman's compensation, unemployment, disability or food stamps. We have met people that live in these areas that at one time had decent jobs, but because of an injury or some other unexpected incident they lost everything and had to move into a shack of scrap wood in these burros.
The government, recognizing the situation in these areas and also recognizing the tool of English, opened up two schools to teach English; one school in Vila Esperanca and one in Ilha Bela. At these schools the students are generally ages 6-16. The teacher hired to teach in these schools happens to be a member of our church, his name is Menezes. Through our contact with him we are able to go 4 times a week to work with the kids. We sing worship songs with them, play games and we teach them Sunday school type lessons in English. Menezes has been teaching in these schools for 5 years now. The education is free for the children, some of them have hardly enough money to clothe themselves let alone pay for education. But don't be fooled, although the education is free it is still good quality. There are some students that have been going to the school since the start and now they are able to translate for the Americans that come to visit. There are other students that now have good jobs because they have English on their resume.
We are blessed to be able to work with the people of these communities; they are loving and grateful people. The people have very little, but are content with what they have, they are not greedy or constantly seeking more, they do not have the victim mentality, but they make do with what is available. We have been in homes where the family will sacrifice much more than we ever imagine in order to have us as guests for a meal in their home. We hope they learn as much from us as we do from them.
This ministry has been Barbara's responsibility, for the most part. Now that Jeremy and Barbara will be leaving next year someone else will have to fill that role. Please pray for wisdom and availability for whomever it is that God wants in this ministry.
