It’s been so long since we posted to this site that I had to watch the tutorials to remember what to do! I decided the best thing to do was to start all over again with a fresh reset. I was going to just delete everything. Start fresh. But then I decided that I would leave all the old stuff there just to remind me to be more intentional in keeping things current. I’ll consider this to be an experiment. If it works, you will hear from us more often! If not, who knows? I may just have to delete the entire site out of embarrassment.

Who are we and why are we here?

We are Mark and Caron Johnson and have served with the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention for 30 years. We have served in many capacities in Brazil over the years, but here, I want to focus specifically on two areas: Leadership Training and Prayer. Our purpose here is to give you an idea of what we are doing in the area of Leadership Training in Brazil and provide you with some concrete ways you can partner with us. The single most important way you can partner with us is through prayer.

Leadership Training – 3 levels

• Advanced – this usually involves Masters Level work at one of our Brazilian Baptist convention seminaries in partnership with one of our SBC Seminaries. These classes are usually online.
• Formal – this involves teaching in person, or online at the Bachelors level in one of our Brazilian Baptist Convention seminaries (Photos below show South Brazil Seminary in Rio, North Brazil Seminary in Recife, and Equitorial Brazil Seminary in Belem).

• Informal – this refers to teaching and training that happens at the local or small group level. It can be anything from weekend or week-long intensive training, hosted by a State Convention, Baptist Association, Bible Institute, local church level, small group, or even individual mentoring. (Below you can see an associational level training event, a “graduation” dinner for discipleship students completing all 4 books of MasterLife and a local church leadership trining event.)

Prayer Requests:

Thanksgiving is coming up and we are so thankful for all who so faithfully support us with their prayers. We could not do what we do without your prayer support. Here are some specific ways you can pray for us:

• Holiday times can be a bit lonely when one is far away from family. Pray for us, our children, our grandchildren and our extended family, while we are apart from one another during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.
• Pray for us as we begin scheduling our teaching/training commitments for 2024. There are always more requests than we can fill. Pray for wisdom in knowing which commitments to prioritize. We will be posting some opportunities in the future for you to join us in some of these training initiatives here in Brazil. Stay tuned!
• Pray for your church and your pastor. The end of the year can be a very busy time in the life of the local church. Pray that all will take the time to focus on worship. Ask your pastor how you can help – make an evangelist visit with him or disciple a new believer. You will be blessed as you serve within your church.