~Featured Missionary and Country of the Week - Bennie DeMerchant Family/Brazil

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Bennie and Theresa DeMerchant
Region(s): South America
Field(s): Brazil
Website: click here to visit
Bio: Bennie DeMerchant, left NB Canada for Saint Paul, MN in 1959 where he acquired his private pilot license, married Theresa Shomberg a Bible school techer from Wisconsin and graduated from ABI. After a short three year pastoral stage in New Brunswick they arrived as UPCI missionaries in Manaus, capital of the huge Amazon state in northern Brazil in 1965 where they live to present. Bennie combines evangelism tools of a Cessna 172 and 206 single engine seaplanes kept in a floating hangar in a lake off the Amazon near Manaus with a fleet of wooden boats, aluminum canoes, portable cement block forms and trained workers to plant churches in the Amazon cities, towns, villages, islands, lakes and among Indian tribes. A UPC convention Center has been built in East Manaus that acomodates up to seven thousand people for special events. Theresa DeMerchant, national director of Bible schools, coordinates the work of translating, printing and curriculum for 65 Bible school locations with 204 teachers, 1,121 registered 2-year students, and 4,500 alumni. This vital training work has been liberally supported by Ladies Ministries of UPCI since 1972. Many trained youth have left these schools to open up new works in many towns. DeMerchant was elected Bishop of the UPC of Brazil in 1989 presently with 32 districts and 1,200 churches and congregations. About 750 churches are in the Amazon Basin, the northern half of Brazil, a hot equatorial zone equivalent to the area of the USA east of the Mississippi River. Most áreas have no roads. The natural road is the rivers to many places reached in days by boats otherwise only reached by air. Full Throttle, (a Pentecostal Publishing House publication) records their adventures, challenges and fears in flying thousands of hours to open the worlds largest rain forest area for His kingdom.

Brazil

Federative Republic of Brazil/República Federativa do Brasil
Area Coordinator: Bennie L. DeMerchant
Superintendent/President:
Population: 186800000
Area: 3,300,154 sq. mi.
Capital: Brasilia
Languages: Portuguese
Religions: Roman Catholic

Brazil, the world’s fifth largest nation in area, covers nearly 50% of South America and contains one-half of the continent’s population. It is the only South American nation to derive its culture and language from Portugal. Manaus is in the center of the world’s largest forest that scientists call the “lungs of the world” by its contribution of oxygen it gives the atmosphere. Over a third of Brazil is drained by the Amazon and its more than 200 tributaries. The UPC of Brazil began in 1956 under the leadership of Samuel Baker. Under Superintendent DeMerchant, the UPCB now has 1,000 churches and preaching points, 852 licensed ministers, and about 67,700 constituents organized in four regions and 20 districts. In March 2002 the UPC of Brazil, with its own Faith Promise and Partners In Missions programs, sent the Cezar Moraes family from its shores to Mozambique, Africa, to help in training. Under the Regional Missions Program, Brazil plans to reach other Portuguese nations: Angola, Azores, Assunção, Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissaú, São Tomé and Príncipe, Macaú, and East Timor.

Additional Information:

Geography

Brazil covers nearly half of South America and is the continent's largest nation. It extends 2,965 mi (4,772 km) north-south, 2,691 mi (4,331 km) east-west, and borders every nation on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. Brazil may be divided into the Brazilian Highlands, or plateau, in the south and the Amazon River Basin in the north. Over a third of Brazil is drained by the Amazon and its more than 200 tributaries. The Amazon is navigable for ocean steamers to Iquitos, Peru, 2,300 mi (3,700 km) upstream. Southern Brazil is drained by the Plata system—the Paraguay, Uruguay, and Paraná rivers.

Government

Federal republic.

History

Brazil is the only Latin American nation that derives its language and culture from Portugal. The native inhabitants mostly consisted of the nomadic Tupí-Guaraní Indians. Adm. Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed the territory for Portugal in 1500. The early explorers brought back a wood that produced a red dye, pau-brasil, from which the land received its name. Portugal began colonization in 1532 and made the area a royal colony in 1549.

During the Napoleonic Wars, King João VI, fearing the advancing French armies, fled Portugal in 1808 and set up his court in Rio de Janeiro. João was drawn home in 1820 by a revolution, leaving his son as regent. When Portugal tried to reimpose colonial rule, the prince declared Brazil's independence on Sept. 7, 1822, becoming Pedro I, emperor of Brazil. Harassed by his parliament, Pedro I abdicated in 1831 in favor of his five-year-old son, who became emperor in 1840 (Pedro II). The son was a popular monarch, but discontent built up, and in 1889, following a military revolt, he abdicated. Although a republic was proclaimed, Brazil was ruled by military dictatorships until a revolt permitted a gradual return to stability under civilian presidents.

President Wenceslau Braz cooperated with the Allies and declared war on Germany during World War I. In World War II, Brazil again cooperated with the Allies, welcoming Allied air bases, patrolling the South Atlantic, and joining the invasion of Italy after declaring war on the Axis powers.

After a military coup in 1964, Brazil had a series of military governments. Gen. João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo became president in 1979 and pledged a return to democracy in 1985. The election of Tancredo Neves on Jan. 15, 1985, the first civilian president since 1964, brought a nationwide wave of optimism, but when Neves died several months later, Vice President José Sarney became president. Collor de Mello won the election of late 1989, pledging to lower hyperinflation with free-market economics. When Collor faced impeachment by Congress because of a corruption scandal in Dec. 1992 and resigned, Vice President Itamar Franco assumed the presidency.

A former finance minister, Fernando Cardoso, won the presidency in the Oct. 1994 election with 54% of the vote. Cardoso sold off inefficient government-owned monopolies in the telecommunications, electrical power, port, mining, railway, and banking industries.

In Jan. 1999, the Asian economic crisis spread to Brazil. Rather than prop up the currency through financial markets, Brazil opted to let the currency float, which sent the real plummeting—at one time as much as 40%. Cardoso was highly praised by the international community for quickly turning around his country's economic crisis. Despite his efforts, however, the economy remained sluggish throughout 2001, and the country also faced an energy crisis. The IMF offered Brazil an additional aid package in Aug. 2001. And in Aug. 2002, to ensure that Brazil would not be dragged down by neighboring Argentina's catastrophic economic problems, the IMF agreed to lend Brazil a phenomenal $30 billion over fifteen months.


Read more: Brazil: History, Geography, Government, and Culture — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107357.html#ixzz1K0fjyX00