04/01/2010
Hope of exciting new developments in our own lives often accompanies the celebration of the new year, but for one BMS World Mission family, that hope extends beyond even their own exciting new circumstances.
BMS mission workers, Mark and Suzana de Azevedo Greenwood, have just returned to Brazil, after a short time in the UK, to a new city, new role, and a new set of challenges.
Mark, Suzana, and their two children, Edward and Ana, have moved from the state of Ceará to Rio de Janeiro, about 600 miles away. In Ceará, Mark headed up state-wide social action programmes and Suzana developed, among other things, resources to help underprivileged children make the transition from primary to secondary school through educational games.
In Rio, Suzana will be working on expanding the use of the materials she pioneered in Ceará to other states with a view to taking them nationwide. In his new role, Mark will head up the newly-created Social Action Department at the Brazilian Baptist Convention.
Mark describes the importance of the new role like this:
“If you look at Brazilian society, the country itself is very rich – it’s the ninth largest economy in the world – yet you see a huge amount of poverty because of social inequality. A very small number of people benefit from the large amount of wealth.
“If you look at the evangelical church, they’ve had huge growth over the last 20 years, but there hasn’t been a corresponding shift in society where you could say that life is becoming more just and more equal because the Christians are having an impact.
“So the idea is that if they get a vision for having an impact on their community, that will begin to change society. If you can get the rich Baptists in the rich areas to look outside their own church walls and get involved in Baptist churches on the periphery, that can have quite a huge impact on society.
“If James 1: 27 (“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”) is true religion, then the Church should be making sure people can live holy lives through their relationship with God, and taking that holiness into social relationships and compassionate care. And we would love to be able to make a contribution to that.
“There are lots of people in the Brazilian Baptist convention who have this vision, and we just want to be alongside them in making that difference.”