Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, Brazil, is the home of Verbo’s newest mission. After a year of preparation Yure and Karyne Sabino from São Paulo’s Morumbí congregation inaugurated the new work with a concert, a seminar, and a Christian businessmen’s training course during the first week of August. The new congregation is Verbo’s sixth in Brazil and will serve as an evangelistic base for establishing outreaches throughout the nation’s Northeast.
Concerning the founding of the new congregation, Yure relates, “Three years ago my wife and I moved to São Paulo from our hometown of Fortaleza to open up new sales territory in the south and southeast of Brazil for the software company in which I am now a junior partner. Some friends told us about Verbo so we made a visit. We identified immediately with the clear and simple way that the leaders expressed the Gospel, the lifestyle of the members and the practical demonstration of God’s power.
“We soon joined in the ministry’s work, opening a church in the home in our house and eventually taking on the task of helping the leaders in their discipleship work.
“Then, about a year ago, my mother-in-law had a prophetic vision that Karyne and I would return to Fortaleza, which is three hours by jet plane from São Paulo, to start a new Verbo church. At first we didn’t take the vision seriously. We had no intentions of returning to the Northeast. Later our presiding elder, José Carlos Sampaio, received a vision similar to my mother-in-law’s. We concluded that God was leading us to return and began preparing to assume the responsibilities of starting a mission. We arrived in Fortaleza at the beginning of June and initiated meetings in an auditorium.”
The official inauguration started on the first Friday night of August when the São Paulo Verbo worship band presented its latest praise album in a concert at a local university to a crowd of mostly young people. The festivities continued on Saturday with the opening of the Strategic Christian Services School of Business, making Brazil the third country in the Verbo family (after Guatemala and Mexico) to offer advanced Christian business management training to professionals and business owners. Sergio Coutinho, who coordinates the three churches of Verbo Rio de Janeiro and the Business School was on hand to give the first lesson along with Verbo Brazil national director Norberto Maresca of São Paulo and International Council member James Jankowiak of Guatemala City.
The visiting ministers concluded the official opening of the new work on Sunday with a day-long seminar focused on training new members to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially healing and prophecy. Almost 90 people attended the seminar, marking a strong beginning for this new congregation.
“People began joining us as soon as we arrived in town. We have a nucleus of believers who are excited and ready to cooperate with God’s plans for Fortaleza,” Yure says. “Our goal is to edify lives through pastoring and discipleship and to make new leaders (following the words of José Carlos, ‘to make war horses out of sheep’).”
“We realize that to accomplish this objective we will need to help each new member learn to live and breathe the life of Jesus so that they will be testimonies to others, which, of course, is a very impactful type of evangelism,” Yure observes.
