Kingdom Seeds, our Brazilian partner, is located in Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third largest city.  It's name fittingly means "beautiful horizon" in Portuguese.  Like most Brazilian cities, it is a place with the very rich and the very poor.  Brazil has one of the most inequitable distributions of wealth in the world.

 

 

Márcio is the Board Chairman for Kingdom Seeds.  He is also the Executive Director for the "City of Refuge", one of the social action ministries of the CB'Shalom International Baptist Church.  Márcio's gifts in administration, leadership, and passion for proclaiming Christ in word and deed will enable him to lead a very effective Brazilian board that oversees Kingdom Seeds.  He is also Lécia's husband -- the two make a formidable team for making Christ known!

 

Kingdom Seeds officially launched their program on April 16, 2005 with a fair for entrepreneurs in the region to come and sell their goods while also hearing more about Kingdom Seeds and the services they were planning to offer their prospective clients.  The event stirred a lot of interest in the community of small entrepreneurs who need access to capital and training in basic business practices to enable their businesses to grow.

 

The response to Kingdom Seeds' launch was impressive!  The hall was filled with entrepreneurs who wanted to have a good day in sales and hear more about how their small businesses could be strengthened through Kingdom Seeds.  From those who attended the fair, the first group of Kingdom Seeds clients were selected, trained, and given their loans.

 

Members of the Brazilian board of Kingdom Seeds spent many hours in training from PEER Servants volunteers in how to effectively govern their new ministry.  This training took place in February, 2005, but almost three years of planning went into the actual launch of Kingdom Seeds.  PEER Servants is committed to laying a "Foundation of Fellowship" with all partners before actual launch takes place.

 

PEER Servants spends countless hours in preparing materials and tools to assist the staff members of our partnering organizations to effectively run their CMED programs.  Here Doug Mostrom (background) is training Lécia (foreground) in the use of a loan administration software program prepared by Beadle Retnarajan, another PEER Servants' volunteer back in Boston.  Gabriela (middle) is assisting with translation!

 

One of the services PEER Servants offers our partners is networking them together so that they can benefit from each other's many strengths and equip each other for more effectively advancing the Kingdom.  Joining us on our February, 2005 training trip was Reverend Panya Baba, founder and board member of Rescue Fellowship, PEER Servants' Nigerian partner.  Reverend Baba came to discuss with the Brazilian partner the potential for partnership between Nigerians and Brazilians in missions, funded through the entrepreneurs as their businesses grow!  Translating for Reverend Baba is Reverend Regina Pinto-Moura, the PEER Servants volunteer originally from Brazil who has been most instrumental in forging this partnership.

 

Brazilians love to have times of fellowship together, often into the late night hours!  Here our February, 2005 training team is being hosted by one of the families in the Brazilian church.  Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ have much to teach Christians from the West in the concept of community -- being sacrifical in time and resources to meet each others needs and have onlookers be amazed at the love they have for one another!

 

Meet Betty -- an entrepreneur who started her small floral arrangement business and is looking to grow by accessing credit and getting basic business training from Kingdom Seeds.  Betty is one of the first of what, Lord willing, will be thousands of entrepreneurs in the years ahead that can start and/or grow their businesses and strengthen the Brazilian church through the ministry of Kingdom Seeds!