Matthias and Julia Iseli
Globe Europe Missionaries to
Brazil| Origin: | Switzerland | | Missionaries since: | April 2002 | | Country of ministry: | São Paulo, Brazil | | Education: | cicil servant / secretary | | Status: | married, 3 children | | Newsletter: | Download (german) |
Matthias made a decision for Jesus when he was 17. Two years later, after a time of personal change, God specifically spoke to him concerning “South America and street children.” After this formative “God moment,” he decided to follow the call and submit everything else to it.
Julia gave her life to Jesus when she was 14 years old. At 16 she attended a missions conference in Ultrecht (Holland) where she first became aware that we are all challenged to fulfill the Great Commission. After this time, missions was always a priority and she was willing to go wherever God might choose to send her.
Matthias and Julia were married in 1999 and started Bible College at “Christ for the Nations” a year later to become equipped and to prepare for missionary service. Easter 2001, during an outreach at the “ARCA DAS CRIANÇAS” in São Paulo, God laid it on their hearts to serve in that area and to invest their lives in the people of the favelas of “Jardim Noronha”.
Matthias and Julia Iseli with their children Eric, Elena and Noah have been living in São Paulo since May 2003 ministering there as part of the team of "ARCA DAS CRIANÇAS". As leader of the work their area is the children's and youth work (mainly the setting up of the youth work "Ancora") and since September 2004, the month the church "Comunidade Apostolica da Cruz" (CAC) was founded, they have also been involved in church building.
More than anything else the work with children and youth from the slums of Jardim Noronha is of a preventative nature aiming at keeping them out of drugs, prostitution and crime and from having to live on the street. The main emphasis of "Arca" is to tell the children and youth the living gospel of Jesus Christ that brings them hope and a new perspective of life. The church, moreover, is to offer them, their parents and everybody else here in “Jardim Noronha” a spiritual home. |
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