Six months after arriving in the coastal city of Recife, Brazil, International Mission Board missionary Keith Jefferson felt led to work among the Quilombola people of Brazil’s interior. Two dozen missionaries were working in Recife, but none 450 miles away. When he first set foot in a quilombo (village), Jefferson was shocked by its isolation.
Deborah Jefferson helps children in the village of Terra Vermelho decorate a Christmas tree. Jefferson and her husband Keith serve as International Mission Board strategy coordinators for the Quilombola people who live in remote villages in Brazil’s interior.Established by fugitive African slaves in the 1600s, the remote villages originally served as safe havens.
While Keith and his wife Deborah are the only IMB personnel working there, volunteer teams assist the couple from Houston’s First Baptist Church in carrying the gospel to the villages.
For the past four years, volunteers from Hyland Heights Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., have taken trips to the villages, offering eye and dental clinics along with Vacation Bible Schools.
After returning to the same villages for the past three years, Rick Magee, administrative pastor at Hyland Heights, understands the goal of making disciples who will lead their own people to Christ.
“The people who will have the most credibility are the nationals, not a foreigner with a foreign idea,” Magee says. “So it’s critical that the nationals (disciple) and (multiply) themselves.”
For the Jeffersons, the time to reach the Quilombolas with the gospel is now.
“My wife and I are overjoyed because somehow we know that God has given us this awesome task,” Keith says, “and that we are his people for this time to speak to the Quilombola people.”