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Thomas Smoak
Director
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ACTION missionaries in Brazil serve the needs of the church and the poor in three key areas: leadership training, community development, and various programs for children at risk. The ACTION Brazil team believes in the authority and key role of the Brazilian local church and seeks to submit all of its work under local church and para-church leadership. There continues to be consensus among the team that an incarnational model of ministry, in which each team member is embedded in a local ministry structure, speaks clearly of the Lord’s love of the church and His desire to empower His people in Brazil to do the work of the Kingdom.

ACTION Brazil missionaries are involved in caring for abandoned children, child evangelism, missionary training, foster care, adoption, church planting and community development.

Mark and Paige Anderson oversee the Davis Lar Orphanage in Fortaleza. The orphanage focuses on the child victims of prostitution, drug trafficking, abuse, and abandonment, providing homes and restoring the children to spiritual, physical and emotional health while reaching out to their families and communities. The Andersons also partner with the local Brazilian churches to create and support other childcare facilities in Ceará.

Tim Anderson spent six months working with the teen-agers at ABBA in 2005, returned to finish his degree in Cross Cultural Ministry and now serves as a career discipler with young men in the "Republica Remanescente" of ABBA.

Jonas & Iria Braun serve the Lord in Goiânia, Brazil where they have a ministry of recording, publications, and training Brazilian church leaders. Jonas and Iria are also involved in counseling and teaching at several rehabilitation centers for substance abuse victims.

Lika Braun coordinates an evangelism and development project in a poor community near Goiania Brazil. Her team uses art and nonformal education to reach children with the gospel during the hours they are not in school.

John & Yvonne Macy joined ACTION in 1990 and maintain their previous membership in Swiss Mission Fellowship. From 1988 to 1993 they served as church-planters in the red-light district in Sao Paulo, and from 1993 to 1999 they developed ABBA, ACTION's partner ministry in Sao Paulo, working with the rescue of street children and placement of these children in Christian homes. They spent two years training Brazilian missionary candidates in northern Brazil before returning to Sao Paulo where they work with a small, Brazilian missionary agency and serve the Boas Novas Community Church.

Julie Kacena Madeira (married to Elias) works with children in the Iporanga Slum doing Bible clubs and vocational training and literacy classes.

Samuel & Ruth Oliveira are planting a church in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo. They organize child evangelism events with neighboring children at various times throughout the year.

Mazinho & Ana Quaresma have adopted more than 30 abandoned Brazilian children. In 2003 the Lord gave them a small farm where they are developing their home for the discipleship of their expanding family.

Also working with ABBA in Sao Paulo are Thomas and Susanna Smoak. The Smoaks work with this 20-member Brazilian partner mission of ACTION to train and support families who will care for their own children, foster children or adopted children in the name of the "Father of the fatherless." ABBA has four homes for abandoned children on the south side of Sao Paulo.

Marco and Claudia Van de Merwe run a prevention program for rural children in Camaqua RS. They operate from a small farm where they hope to do agricultural training and nonformal education to prevent children from going to the street.

Current missionaries needed in Brazil are two administrative assistants, a camp coordinator, a research and network specialist, street children and children's home workers, teachers and teacher trainers, and urban missionaries.

DONATE TO Brazil - WHERE NEEDED MOST

 Photo Gallery

Thomas Smoak with boys.	Brazlian boy.	Brazilian favela	Sao Paul, Brazil
		Baby bathing	Brazil Team
Brazilian boys	Camp time	Camping out	Cool missionary with boys
Curious cutie	Discussion	Eating a spider?	Family
Favela families	Favela of desperate need	Four and seven	Friends
Girl study	Glue-sniffing boy	Group shot	Happy friends
Happy together	Making lunch	Missionary with street kids	Shanty homes
Sleeping on the street	Two Brazilian girls	Visiting	Welcoming committee
Young lady

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