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As we get closer to my 20-year mark on staff with Campus Outreach, I want to celebrate one of the reasons I have continued in vocational ministry. The motive that drew me to work with Campus Outreach was the commitment to life-on-life, multiplying discipleship. Simply stated, it's what I believe Jesus did as the framework of his earthly ministry and what we see in the New Testament, both in the foreground and background, in the primitive church and on the early mission field. The charge Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1-2 has been my motivation in ministry for decades, "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."
During the first 10 years in Belo Horizonte, there were many men in my life with whom I had the absolute privilege to engage in discipleship. During those years, from 2002-2012, I was much younger, had no children and related on more of a leader-peer level. Those were very sweet times, because the men I led were also my dear friends. Times were not always easy, and today I don't have the close relationship with all of them I did then; even some who criticize me today. However, I continue to press on because this is what I believe the Lord has for me.
Below I will highlight a few names and faces. These are men who have continued to dedicate themselves to the generational impact of discipling men in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many who will be left out, and I do not mean any ill-will towards anyone. For the sake of readability, I am attempting to keep this short, while also celebrating all the men who have continued to dedicate themselves to the generations among different nations around the world; Brazil, USA, the UK, and beyond.
Thiago
Thiago, was my roommate for years after he became a Christian. He is small in stature, and soft spoken by nature, but the Lord is using his very potent dedication to the Scriptures in big ways. Thiago is a leader and elder in our local church in Belo Horizonte. He was a deep-thinking, The Matrix trilogy-loving, frugal college student full of existential questions to which he didn't have any answers. How I love seeing him, his equally impactful wife and his growing family every Sunday as he worships the Lord and, at times, teaches from the pulpit.
Pedro
I met Pedro when he was 16 years old; a spiky-haired teenager all about Judo and having fun. His sister was involved in our community, and he came along for the fun parts. The Lord worked on him. What a testimony of the ministry of purposeful friendships that ask hard questions and don't shy away from even harder answers about God, sin, purpose and eternity. Pedro and I had a long discipleship relationship because he came to Christ before ever starting college. Pedro was one of the guys I considered a "purposeful non-hire" - meaning that I purposely did not want him to come on staff because he was ready to go into the marketplace to make an impact. However, God had other ideas…better ideas.
Pedro came on staff in 2015, fruit of a process that confirmed his character, his vision and his gifting for joining our staff team. By 2019 he had grown in leadership and experience, positioning himself to take over as our Administrative Director and leading the Admin team. His wife, Priscila, has been on staff with our team since 2008. Together they have grown into a couple that leads by example and by conviction, and driven by the grace of God in their lives. In 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, Pedro officially took over as our Regional Director of CO Belo Horizonte, the first time a native Brazilian has been in overall leadership in our 20+ years of history. It has been amazing to see all this unfold, and to support him in his Christlike leadership.
Alan
Alan was the guy that wanted to do everything during college. If there was an opportunity, he was involved. So when this group of US exchange students arrived on campus with our Cross-Cultural Project in 2002, this wide-eyed freshman was all about it. That was just a start, because what began as an opportunity to refine his English grew into a real friendship. I'll never forget when Alan asked me one day, after a few years of already studying the Bible and asking hard questions about God and faith, "If I never become a Christian, will we still be friends?" That took me by surprise, but also challenged me to check my own motivations; if I loved these students conditionally because of ministry, or unconditionally because of Christ in me?
Alan did in fact become a Christian. Immediately, he was a man captivated by gospel. Over the following years we dug into the scriptures and Alan wanted to be as involved as possible with what our team was doing on his campus. He got his family involved in church, in Bible studies; his immediate family, his extended family, his classmates and so many others. He quickly knew that this was what he was going to do for the rest of his life. He made sure we knew his desire, and didn't take "no" for an answer. Alan came on staff in 2006 and worked directly on the campus for years as a Campus Staff and as one of our Campus Directors. Many things coincided among his experience, family and desire to lead that culminated in Alan, his wife Júnia and their little boy moving to the UK to partner as a CO staff with a church plant in Manchester. Today, they have moved to Birmingham, England (not Alabama!) to continue to labor with a Campus Outreach team that is reaching out to the multicultural campuses there, with direct ties to more nations than I can list here.
Diego
Diego was that guy on campus who joined a Bible study group in order to prove me wrong. I mean, he was a law student and really smart, so what risk did he run? Well, that backfired because he became a Christian in 2010 and never looked back. We were in a few different versions of discipleship groups for several years, but our relationship has only grown closer. Today, Diego is my brother-in-law! He married Tathiana's sister, Fabiana, in 2015.
Diego is a professional, not on staff. He, in many ways, is what I long to see more often in and through our ministry - dedicated Christian professionals stepping into the marketplace, raising first-generation Christian families and committed to the ministry in and through the local church. His struggles and battles to believe and hold firm to his faith are much different than those of us in vocational ministry. But, to be directly involved in his struggles and see his faith grow deep roots in order to sustain the oftentime desert-reality of the marketplace is amazing. Jesus sustains; Diego and Fabiana have been a testimony of this truth. Their generation is growing as they welcomed their first child in November of last year. Maybe one day they themselves will go to the nations outside of Brazil.