“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6–7).
Every day, the Rev. Alexandre Manoel da Costa shares the Good News on Perfect Love Street in Bauru, São Paolo, Brazil. Da Costa, who has been a pastor for 27 years in the Igreja Evangélica Luterana do Brasil (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil, or IELB), preaches, teaches and gives God’s flock His gifts. He thanks The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) for sending missionaries to his country in 1900 — leading to the eventual formation of the IELB. Thanks to this work, he was able to hear about Jesus from a pastor evangelizing his indigenous tribe decades later.
“There are so many things to say,” Da Costa said on why he loves being a pastor, “but I will say only this: I want to [work] with the people who don’t know Jesus, like I did not know Him, that they come to know Jesus. … This church has given me Jesus, a wife, a family and a vocation.”
Da Costa was one of 528 pastors and 443 laypeople at the IELB’s 63rd National Convention, held in June in the coastal city of Gaurapari, in the state of Espírito Santo.
When he was merely 4 years old, the Rev. Airton Scheunemann Schroeder, IELB vice-president for mercy ministry, told his parents that he wanted to be a pastor when he grew up. He fondly remembers how pastors visited his grandmother when she was bedridden. He watched while they cared for her and showed her the love of Christ.
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Bethany Lutheran Church
1011 Ulatis Drive
Vacaville, CA
(707) 451-6675
mychurch@gobethany.com
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