![Martinho Moura has invested time in bringing his friends to know Christ [Photo Courtesy of the South American Division]](https://cdn.adventistcontent.org/images/5df200974469ba078555eb4c/6e5149fcaec77c20b80a7952c92f2632ee61fbde/1200x/Urb1638775967755.jpg)
The Counselor of the Federation of Adventist Entrepreneurs (FE), Martinho Ferreira de Moura, recalls his childhood memories from when he was ten years old. Since he was a child, his parents encouraged him to be active in preaching the gospel and every Saturday he delivered evangelistic tracts from the Adventist Church to homes in the Meier neighborhood, located in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro. Time passed and the teachings of childhood reverberate in his heart until today.
A businessman for 50 years, Martinho has presided over the transport association and union and is currently a member of the Inter-American Transport Chamber. All this experience expanded his network of influence and made it possible for him to meet many entrepreneurs in all regions of Brazil, and most of them became his friends. Recently, Ferreira de Moura, an active member of the central Adventist church in Rio de Janeiro, found a very creative way to present God's teachings to his friends.
The main form of contact between them is online, as most of his friends live in other parts of the country. That's why Martinho had the idea to start sending messages from the channel Este Dia com Deus to his friends through WhatsApp.
Initially, the messages were sent to a group of 20 friends, but the initiative gained popularity and the number of interested parties grew rapidly. Thus, Martinho's contact list increased almost six times, to a total of 114 people, from all over Brazil. The group, officially named “Entre Amigos”, receives Bible meditations on a daily basis and its sole purpose is to share the hope that is found in Jesus.
Martinho says that his friends have questions about some topics in the videos and he takes the time to help them understand the content better.
Fernando Carneiro is also a businessman in the transport sector and receives messages from Martinho every day. The two are competitors in the business world, but the respect and friendship of 25 years extends above their professional sphere.
Aries is from another denomination, and as a Christian he enjoys sharing messages from Jesus. Therefore, he decided to create a group to send the videos to his network of friends and family, who, in turn, also share them with their contacts. In this way, the sharing of Bible meditations continues to grow, reaching and transforming more and more people with the study of excerpts from the Word.
“It's enriching to exchange experiences with my friends”, declares Carneiro. He doesn't just watch the contents, but uses the Bible as his main tool to deepen his knowledge of God. In particular, the book of Daniel caught his attention, which prompted him to study it further.
Online meeting and meetings
In the Entre Amigos group, the idea of holding Bible study meetings for the group arose. Carneiro not only participated, but also brought 15 friends to the first meeting. During the Bible study meeting, participants had the opportunity to choose what Biblical themes to study and deepen their knowledge. “The most popularly voted theme to study was Life After Death.”
Online meetings covering the topics have already started and take place every Wednesday. The speaker is the Doctor of Hebrew Bible and Pastor of Nova Semente, Edson Nunes. To start, he has dedicated three separate meetings to talk about the theme of death as explained in the Bible. At the first meeting, he explained what life is and then talked about what happens at death. According to Carneiro, the pastor spoke of creation, included the etymology of some words and made references to the original language in which it was written. “I watched the first episode twice so as not to miss any details. The sermons brought a perception that I didn't have before”, he confesses.
During the online weekly meetings, the following themes will be addressed, respectively: the resurrection, spiritual gifts, Jesus' return, the 7th day Sabbath, the end of the world, Holy Spirit, predestination, miracles, salvation and God's law.
According to Martinho, Pastor Gilson Montin, from the Central Adventist church in Rio de Janeiro, is available to clarify any doubts of the group's participants, and to deepen the Biblical knowledge of those interested on an individual level.
The vision is for the Entre Amigos project to spread. “Our objective is to encourage other entrepreneurs to spread the gospel of Christ Jesus in their area of influence.”
This article was originally published on the South American Division’s Portuguese news site.