EDITOR’S NOTE: This year’s Week of Prayer for International Missions in the Southern Baptist Convention is Dec. 1-8. Each year’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions supplements Cooperative Program giving to support Southern Baptists international missionaries’ initiatives in sharing the Gospel. This year’s offering goal is $205 million. To find information and resources about the offering, go here.
Danilo Miranda moved hurriedly through the Rio de Janeiro airport. He was on his way across the world to attend a Global Senders Forum. The conference highlighted the IMB’s and other sending organizations’ commitment to globalization. It was a fitting conference for the IMB missionary who is originally from Brazil. Danilo’s ministry in Brazil has been focused on mobilizing the church in Brazil to fulfill the Revelation 7:9 vision.
The unexpected blessing of hurrying through the airport that day was seeing his friend, a newly commissioned Brazilian missionary headed to Africa. The new missionary greeted Danilo, and they embraced before praying together. Danilo reflected with joy, thinking about his friend who is headed to Africa as a global missionary partner on an IMB team, largely because of Danilo’s encouragement and training.
Danilo and Catherine Miranda serve with their family as IMB missionaries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. IMB Photo
At the Global Senders Forum, Danilo met with leaders from Africa. He told them about another friend who wanted to take the Gospel to the least reached in their region, just as others through Africans on Mission are preparing for ministry on other continents.
“That’s our role – to connect,” Danilo said, sharing multiple stories like the one above, where God orchestrated encounters that developed into productive, mutually beneficial, relationships.
Catherine, Danilo’s wife who grew up as an IMB missionary kid in Brazil, explained, “We see how important it is to have these cross-cultural teams working together. It reflects the body of Christ to the world. And it teaches us so much about working with people who are different from us but have the same faith and the same goal of reaching the lost and starting healthy churches.”
This passion for globalization started in Danilo when he was just a teenager being discipled by IMB missionary Mark Johnson. After seminary in the U.S., he and Catherine returned to Brazil to work among Indigenous peoples in Brazil.
In his current work, Danilo spends time in churches and with the Brazilian Baptist conventions, training others to be healthy senders. He knows the Great Pursuit requires partnership and unity to carry out the Great Commission. That means “all nations to all nations.”
In Rio, he connects easily with other Brazilians while keeping a focus on the lost in the uttermost parts of the world. Whether he’s talking with students, young pastors or families considering a call to leave Brazil for the sake of the Gospel, Danilo leads them to consider how God might use them to spread the Gospel. For many, the time is right to learn a new language, travel to unfamiliar lands and bring the Gospel to people who have never heard.
Pray
- Pray for the Mirandas as they walk alongside potential global missionary partners and prepare them to go.
- Pray for the local churches the Mirandas partner with. Pray they’d grow into healthy sending churches.
- Thank God for the investment Mark Johnson made in Danilo Miranda’s life. Ask God to send more mentors who will invest in new missionaries.