Partnership between the Church in Joinville - SC (Brazil) and churches in East Birmingham UK.

When at the end of 1993, Pastor Harry Scates from Uberlandia, one of the pioneers of GO TO THE NATIONS Movement, visited our church in Joinville he told us about the challenges and the needs of the church in United Kingdom, we were challenged by God in coming and seeing for ourselves everything what he had said to us.

       Thus, in the July of 1995, I came to “spy out the land” and to verify everything that Harry had said, and spent 2 weeks in East Birmingham, with brothers from Glebe Farm Baptist Church and Castle Bromwich Community Church.

        As result of this visit, God bound our hearts despite of the distance that separated us. So from 1996 to 2003 there were many comings and goings (leaders and brothers from East Birmingham to Joinville, and brothers and leaders from there to Birmingham).

       This partnership that began in God’s heart finally was sealed with the coming of 12 young people and my family from the Church in Joinville in February of 2004 to serve the Lord in this region of Birmingham, working together with 4 churches, as follows: Glebe Farm Baptist Church, Saltley Baptist Church, Kitts Green Evangelical Church and Castle Bromwich Community Church.

       Kingfisher College, a school of English with an emphasis on mission, was the way that our God gave us to make this project possible, making sure that the 12 young people could stay in the UK for 1 or more years.

       Now that 4 years have gone by, we have seen how the good hand of the Lord has been on His Church in this region of Birmingham, despite many challenges still needing to be overcome. We have been living in a predominantly Muslim area, where the spiritual atmosphere is really heavy, the churches are small, the majority of which don’t have the vision of us being One Body. But thanks be to God because many leaders are starting to understand how important fellowship is, the development of relationship and the need to be praying together.

       God has given one vision to many people on different occasions, different dates and in different places - that He will transform this area of Birmingham, which is a desert spiritually speaking, into an oasis, with palms trees and abundance of water.

       I firmly believe that God will do this, and somehow our partnership is part of what God is doing, while we work together to prepare the soil, to sow, to water, to encourage and to pray together to see His Kingdom come with power in East Birmingham.