Adriano - My first memory involving missions comes from the sunday school class room. I was about 7 or 8 years old. That morning we read out a letter from a missionary called Gunther Carlos Kriegger. I left that class room with my heart enchantered with what I had heard, and decided to do something as exciting in my life. But of course, as the years passed, my poetic veiw of missions transformed. What was exciting for my child ears, became terrifying and I ended up thinking that this mission things wasn’t for me.

I lived my teenage years considerberaly normal ... if you know what I mean? I was an active teenager like any other ... at school I was involved with a lot of study, at church with whatever unusual activity. At this period in my life, I lost my adoptive parents who were already elderly. I then lived and studied in various cities, I had many different addresses. I was “adopted” by others that helped me out during those difficult years. One of these people was my pastor, Pr. Jess, who received me into his family, and beyond his own teenagers, supported me. Today I consider him to be may father, his family mine, and his children my brothers and sisters.

Missions came back into my life when I least expected. I was living through those difficult years, full of questions, feeling the imense need to get closer to God and live a life set apart for Him.At the same time I had no idea how I would do this. During this time there was a youth conference in a city in the countryside of Bahia. The year was 1990. To be honest I only heard half the sermons as I was chatting to some of my friends. Everything happened when these friends left the meeting to do something else, I was left there alone, just me and God. And it was there that everything begun. God spoke really deeply with me in those final ten minutes of the message like I had never experienced before. I returned from that Conference with a heart full of the expection to surrender my youth to God, serving Him in missions. Since then that’t what I have done. After those days I stared to help in a project for planting churches, then went on to work as Leader of the youth of the Baptist churches in my state, and finally I got involved with a mission organisation called YWAM, where I have been serving eversince.

Carmen – I was bought up in a christian home, and today I know this was a great priviledge. My parents, Eli and Alba, were always very involved with the work at church, where ever we might be living. My mother, always preocupied with the children, was always running behind new things. Her commitment went as far as, together with some friends and the support of my father, started a group for the children in the church. This was something that for 15 wasn’t very comon. So it was there we grew up, the can along a new thing. I will tell it how I remember: a guy came to my church informing us about a project which took place during the holidays for children and teenagers. To be honest I didn’t really pay much attention, but remember that my father chatted with him after the service. And then I remember having to pack our bags to go, all of us, the whole family was off to this project called “King’s Kids”, the team of the king, a ministry of YWAM.I didn’t know exactly what it was, but that it involved evangelism, dancing and camps. I remember that we went the next year and the next year, and the next year…we didn’t always go as a whole family,, just the ones that could make it during the january and july holidays. This was a time that really marked my life.

After the first time that we got involed with “King’s Kids” we started to know a lot of different missionaries who turned into very close friends of ours and came to speak at our church a number of times. Missions turned into something real to me. And inside my heart something was saying that this had a lot to do with me.