BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil — Wayne Jenkins’ vision to build 75 church buildings in his beloved Brazil was fulfilled this July, seven years after his death.

He was invited to Brazil in 1983 on a short-term missions endeavor, after a mission trip to India fell through, and after his family’s career missions application fell through. He led his own team to Brazil — a tradition he would continue for 35 years.

“He loved the people,” Jenkins’ widow Martha Jenkins told Baptist Press in late July. “He saw the desperate need to share the gospel there. God put it on his heart and that was all it took. We had a calling to missions and this was an open door.”

Jenkins, who later would serve as evangelism director for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, saw the people were open to hear a gospel witness, liked Americans, and that Brazilian Baptists were eager for partnerships, said David Denton, pastor of Highland Baptist Church in New Iberia, La.

Denton, married to Jenkins’ daughter Deanne, has led the non-profit ministry called “Beyond the Walls” since Jenkins’ death in 2018.

“The backbone to all this is the partnership we have with Brazilian Baptist churches,” Denton told Baptist Press on July 10. “Our goal is to come alongside local Baptist churches in Brazil to help them reach their communities.

“We do that by evangelizing across the city days and preaching nights. We’ll be doing that in eight churches this year. We’ll also be in two prisons and several schools, doing VBS at three churches, building two churches and the drama team will perform throughout the city.”

Over the last 42 years, tens of thousands of gospel conversations have taken place during the annual Brazil mission trip, thousands upon thousands of professions of faith have been heard, and as of last month, 75 churches have been built.

That is a significant number. A few years into his mission, Jenkins was asked how many churches he thought he’d build in Brazil.

“Dad said, ‘I don’t know if this is God telling me this but I always had 75 (churches) in mind,” Deanne Jenkins Denton told Baptist Press. “Mom and Dad were called into missions, and this was their venue.”

God gave Wayne Jenkins a vision for more than professions of faith and churches built. The pastor wanted volunteers to grow in their ability to share the gospel.

“He has involved thousands of people over the years in short-term missions,” Denton said. “Tens of thousands have been reached in Brazil. Mr. Wayne’s heart has been for the volunteers, for leading people to experience what missions has to offer.”

Examples:

Gene Jenkins was with his brother Wayne Jenkins on that first trip in 1982. One morning Brazilians he was with got out of the car to talk with men they knew. Gene saw a woman standing on an opposite street corner and without thinking of the language barrier decided to talk with her.

When one of the other men saw the woman was crying, he came over, then turned to Gene.

“He said she was his aunt, that he’d been talking to her about Jesus for a long time, but she wasn’t interested. ‘Then you came from America and when she heard you speak to her in her language, she accepted Jesus in her heart,’” Gene said he was told. “But I don’t speak her language. When I got home and told my wife, she said, ‘If God can speak through a donkey, He can speak through you.’”

This year is Brenda Carter’s 31^st mission trip, each year with the “compassion ministries” team, which revolves around evangelistic visits in homes, on the streets and in public spaces.

Two years ago, she was walking down a street with others on her team, which included a translator, when they saw a woman some ways ahead of them and decided to catch up with her. They prayed and set off.

The woman turned a corner, and they thought they’d lost her, but then she came back, with head down as if looking for something. It was some change she’d dropped, she told the small missions team.

“We started talking with her (through her interpreter) about the story in the Bible where the woman loses a coin,” Carter told Baptist Press, “She accepted Jesus right there on the street! She was so open to hearing us share the love of Jesus.”

This year Carter was in a home with two sisters, both Christians who had not been following Jesus.

“I started talking with these ladies about how God loves us even though we fall short,” Carter said. “They just wept and wept and wept and wept. They were ready to make a new start.”

After presenting the evangelistic “wordless drama” 25 times in six days this year, the teenaged drama team could have been ready to enjoy their day off. But when they heard the town’s plaza was especially busy that Saturday, they put on their drama outfits and went back there. Nine people made professions of faith. This was after conquering their fear and persevering through obstacles earlier in the week, when they performed in a prison, during which 30 inmates made professions of faith in Jesus.

“We have a theme every year,” Pastor Denton said. “The theme for this year is God’s faithfulness. We have a theme verse: 1 Corinthians 3:9. We look back through the years of this ministry and see God’s faithfulness. The whole thing is how God has come through at every point. All the way through, we’ve seen Him at every point.

“Mr. Wayne’s heart was in taking first-time missions volunteers and the potential for what can happen in short-term missions,” Denton continued. “I believe this year specifically God was at work not only through us but in us. Particularly in the lives of our students. They’re growing (in their faith) and as a part of that growth realize the importance of sharing their faith in a way God isn’t just verbalized, it’s lived.”

TC Carter, Brenda Carter’s husband, was part of the first church built. That was 1996. He’s been all but three years since, and two of those were because of COVID. This year churches 74 and 75 were built.

TC, despite being relegated to a chair for this his 81st year, was in charge of the one 20 feet tall, making space for when the church expands, that pastor told the volunteers. (The other church is a standard 10-foot-high build.)

The congregations that want a church built have to be invested in the project by having clear title to the land, and by pouring a concrete slab on which the structure will be built, Carter said.

The 25×50-foot structure can be built in six days with Brazilian and American volunteers using concrete blocks and covering the walls with stucco. One team of six Brazilians came to help this year after watching their church be built last year.

Language isn’t much of a problem if everyone stays flexible, Carter said. Americans use a level; Brazilians use a plumb-bob. Both make sure vertical lines are straight.

“It’s been a blessing for me to go and do that all these years,” Carter told Baptist Press. “To see God work year by year and finish a job of that size in five or six days, working with people you can’t talk with, you’re the one that ends up getting blessed.”

Beyond the Walls isn’t finished in Brazil, Denton said. Already the ministry has enough money to pay for one church building next year. 

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.)