Faculdade Adventista da Bahia inaugurated the Institute of Missions, which houses the first headquarters of the Colportor Student Development Institute (IDEC) in Brazil and a missions agency, linked to Adventist Volunteer Service (SVA). Located in Cachoeira, Bahia, the new location has rooms for attendance, classes, a meeting room, and an auditorium.
The opening ceremony brought together students and employees, as well as local, regional, and national administrators, with representatives of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for Brazil and South America. During the opening event, pioneers were remembered and honored for their effort and volunteer work in the country and other territories on the continent, as were leaders representing strategic areas for the advancement of missionary work in its different aspects.
Pastor Stanley Arco, president of the Adventist Church for South America, highlighted one of the purposes of the inauguration of spaces like this, which will contribute to forming a society and strong community. “We want to put in the hearts of boys and young people, girls and ladies, this spirit of giving the best in service and preparing a community of [citizens] for the kingdom of heaven,” he adds.
Development
The Colporteur Student Development Institute (IDEC) is a satellite of the Publishing Ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that was established with the purpose of encouraging, training, inspiring, coordinating, and developing colporteurs (an activity to disseminate Christian literature) among students at Adventist university centers in the territory of South America.
Alan Araújo, director of IDEC at FADBA, explains that the place represents a lot for being an institution that works on the education and training of students. This year, IDEC completes 12 years of work at the college, and in the last summer hiatus, 726 colporteurs were hired.
“Students have participated in training. They have been increasingly dedicated to this, and the response has resulted in well-educated leaders and colporteurs working in a missionary way in various places in Brazil. Therefore, it is an acquisition that will mark the life history of these colporteurs and also of FADBA,” adds Araújo, who also highlighted the dream of having 1,000 colporteurs going out during the holidays, with the help of the structure for training and contact.
Students who participated in the ceremony were also thrilled with the opening of the space. “We, as students and colporteurs, are very happy for the inauguration of the building, and I feel that it is a great opportunity for each of us to prepare ourselves and thus fulfill this professional dream and also fulfill the mission,” says Alexander Santos, colporteur and volunteer missionary.
School of Missions
Adventist Volunteer Service (SVA) is an official program of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the purpose of providing, in an organized way, temporary volunteer service opportunities for Adventists, youth and adults, students and professionals, in needy regions of the world, helping the church in the proclamation of the gospel.
The Bahia Adventist College School of Mission has authorization from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to provide missionary training and prepare youth for local, national, and international missions.
When talking about the importance of opening a space like this, Pastor Joni Roger, director of SVA for South America, highlights two aspects: one of them is to show the mission is one, even with different fronts, and that fosters unity; and the second is to show the group of young students and community members that the mission is not only local but must have a worldwide reach.
“We need to preach the gospel to the whole world. In the past, we asked, ‘Who will come?’ and today, we have asked, ‘Who will go?’ Who can go and help the church around the world so that Jesus returns soon? It is a monument that will remind people that we are committed to the local mission but also to the global mission,” Roger adds.
Francesco Marquina, SVA coordinator for FADBA and the Adventist Church's territory in Bahia and Sergipe, explains that the purpose of Adventist Volunteer Service is to train young missionaries, and in this place, there will be special preparation for them.
“The School of Missions is a missionary center where they learn how to use their gifts and talents. Therefore, this building will be a building of great blessing for FADBA—train thousands of missionaries to serve different corners of the planet, and we hope, with that, to see Jesus return soon,” Marquina concludes.
The department already exists at FADBA and receives missionaries from all over Brazil, such as Miss Illina, who came from Kazakhstan as a missionary to learn another language, assist the SVA in projects, and work as a Russian teacher.
"First of all, I am very happy to be here. This experience has changed my life in many good ways. I feel that I am closer to God, closer to the people here, and I am able to meet them, learn the culture, language—a blessing for me,” shares Illina.
I Will Go
The biggest mission event in South America will take place at FADBA in 2022. I Will Go involves missionaries from all over the world. Part of the investments are directed to projects that will start at the event and then continue and spread throughout the territory of the Adventist Church in South America.
This article was originally published on the South American Division’s news site