Dear friends,
In August of 1983, the Church of God World Missions Board appointed us as missionaries to Brazil. That was forty-three years ago this month.
We had planned to teach at the seminary in Goiânia. In the last months before our wedding, the Lord redirected us to São Paulo instead — then the fourth largest city in the world. We went to lead a training center for young missionary candidates. We stayed twenty-four years, raised three children there, and watched the focus shift from training North Americans for Latin America to equipping Latin Americans to reach the world.
Then Manaus, from 2008 to 2015. Thirty new churches planted and built in four years, most of them raised by Men and Women of Action teams who paid their own way to come and swing hammers in the Amazon. Then eight years of pastoral ministry back in the States, with two or three trips to Brazil every year to keep the work supported.
In 2024 the Lord sent us back.
We tell you all of this because the pattern has never changed: go where the gospel has not yet gone, and leave leaders behind who can carry it further than we ever could.
Which brings us to the river.
We are supporting Project Judea, a ministry to the River People — the Ribeirinhos — who live in small fishing communities scattered along the tributaries of the Amazon. They are one of the largest unreached populations in all of Brazil. Over one million of them have never heard the gospel. The work is based in Vitória do Xingu, in the state of Pará, and it is led by Pastor Lucenildo Lima and his wife Andreina, together with Evangelista Diones. Evangelism, discipleship, church planting — and a heavy emphasis on ministry to children.
We are also extending into northeastern Brazil, a region known internationally for the trafficking of children. There we are partnering with pastors and pastors’ wives who have already proven their commitment and integrity in reaching children at risk.
The word missionary comes from the Latin for “sent one” — the same meaning as the Greek word behind apostle. Paul and Barnabas were sent out from Antioch, and the church at Antioch sent them with support and with workers. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is, in plain terms, a thank-you note to a church that kept sending.
We cannot go unless we are sent.
Would you pray and ask the Holy Spirit what part you are to have in this? Gifts marked for “John and Kathy Hayes Ministries — WM Project #060-0063” can be mailed to Church of God World Missions, PO Box 8016, Cleveland, TN 37320-8016, or given online at the link on our website.
Thank you for sending us.
John and Kathy Hayes