Promifé

Promifé - I guess I'll try to put this eight day mission's trip into words, though some things are near impossible to describe. But I guess I should begin with the beginning and explain what Promifé is.

In the early 80s some Christian young people in São Paulo decided that they wanted to spend more time focusing on evangelism. They developed a plan to spend a week of their next vacation month sharing Christ door to door in their neighborhood. An American missionary named Ken Flurry liked the idea and took it back to the youth in his city, Riberão Preto. In July of 1983, Promifé - PROjeto MIssionário de FÉrias, or Vacation Missionary Project - began. Today, Promifé reaches out to people in small towns in the state of São Paulo twice a year - one week in January and one week in July - seeking to share the love of Christ and partner in His transforming work. Around 140 participants come from the cities of Riberão Preto, São Paulo, Campinas, and several other smaller towns in the state of São Paulo, as well as from the United States. I got involved in the project in July of 2000 when two teachers from my highschool, who had fallen in love with the project the previous January, invited students to join them for the next one. At the time, my sister Karis and I were the only ones to take them up on their offer, and almost all the other 15 or so participants came from Riberão Preto. The project had been placed the previous year under the leadership of American missionary Ric Sturtz, who had invited Brazilian Paulinho to be his co-leader. It was a transformational week for me. My soul had been longing for what Anne Shirley calls "kindred spirits" and I found them in the participants of Promifé, and especially a certain three: Alex, Geraldo, and Yara. I went back the next January, and every January and July afterwards that I could. During those weeks, God worked powerfully in my life not only through providing me with special friends, but through teaching me how to share the gospel in a simple way with Brazilian strangers (I think methods have to vary according to culture), experience Him deeply through intense times of prayer, walk in greater dependance on Him, understand more closely how His body works together, and develop gifts of leadership and administration. They were extremely formative times for me, to say the least. I was so passionate for the project, that several friends from church joined me for my second time, and several more for the third, and so forth. Friends also started sharing with friends from other churches, and the passion grew and spread. Today there are at least half a dozen São Paulo churches involved, including a Chinese-Brazilian one that sends over thirty members each time. This Chinese-Brazilian church, known as Pão da Vida (Bread of Life) has been an extra blessing as they have taught us even more about the move of the Spirit and having a servant's heart. They have also reached out to other Asian believers in the city of São Paulo, so that this last time the project included a member from a Brazilian-Korean Presbiterian church, as well as a Japanese-Brazilian believer. Several years ago, Pr. Ric passed off the main leadership to Paulinho, who has been passing it on to young Brazilian leaders. As he told me a few days ago, one of the main goals of the project is to form leaders among its participants. In this sense, as well as others, it has certainly been successful! This July, the project will be celebrating 25 years of existence. Paulinho is hoping to bring together about 250 young people (almost twice the normal number) for a "super-Promifé," including about fifty from the United States! If you have any interest in getting to know Brazil a little and participating in a work of God, feel free to come along! The project will be happening from the 12th to the 20th.

The Promifé schedule looks something like this:

Arrive on a Saturday (in the case of this next one, July 12), unpack, and get set up.
On Sunday-Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday:
Breakfast at 8:00
Worship, teaching, and training in evangelism from 9:00 to 12:00
Prayer and afternoon instructions around 2:00, and then door-to-door evangelism in groups of 2 or 3, as well as a simultaneous VBS.
Get back to the school (we sleep in the emptied-out classrooms of a public school) around 5:30 (sometimes later) to shower and eat.
Gather around 7:45 to pray and then head out for the evening activity: showing the film "Jesus" in a public place, and sharing the message of salvation with the people who come to it.
Get back to the school between 1o:30 and 11:30, have a snack, and head to bed.

Wednesday's our day off. We often go to a rural hotel type place to swim, play sports, eat barbecue, rest, and hang out.

On our final night (Saturday), instead of showing the movie, we have a service celebrating what God has done during the week. All the people from the town are invited. We present the results of our time there to the local church that has been supporting us and working with us throughout the week, as well as records of each home we visited, so that the church can do follow-up and discipleship with those that accepted Jesus. This January the "numbers" were the following:

In a town of 7500 residents:

250 children reached through the VBS
480 decisions for Christ in the homes and at the movie
Around 1300 people reached with the message of the Gospel

Sunday morning, we pack up, clean the school we stayed at, and head back to our respective homes to make up for lost sleep, knowing we have been changed in beautiful ways through seeing the Kingdom of God grow and experiencing the love of those around us. One preoccupation of mine is always whether the work really will be carried on by the local churches after we leave. At least this last time, one of the pastors had eight new Christians agree to come visit his Sunday service even before we had left! I know he is passionate about discipling those who came to know Christ, and am excited to see what God will continue to do in the town of Ibiraci. This next July, we will be working with three churches in a town known as Santa Rita do Passo Quatro.