Get to Know the Nunes Family

Ministry Description

Our work is with the Riverside natives of the Amazon River. We work specifically with the Training Department with our main ministry focus being the leadership development and discipleship of the Riverside believers. We work to equip those who have come to Christ to serve in their local churches with the goal of developing church leaders and missionaries. Our ministry includes running the Floating Seminary, the year round Village Leadership Training program, and mentoring those involved in these programs. Our goal is to see the Riverside churches of the Amazon self-sustaining as the native Riverside people take the reigns in leading and reaching their own.

Learn more about the ministry in Brazil North Belem.

About Felipe

I was born into a Christian family and spent my entire childhood in church. However, I only came to know Christ after becoming frustrated with the empty promises of the world. At 22, tired of seeking joy in fleeting things, I decided to do something different: read the Bible. After three months immersed in God's Word and listening to sermons every day, God transformed my heart and I trusted Christ as my Saviour. That same year, I began to get involved serving at a church and preaching the Gospel. A year later, I decided to invest a year of my life in getting to know God better at the Word of Life Missionary Institute in Northern Brazil.

Throughout that year, God was shaping and breaking my heart. At the same time, I began to understand more about my calling to serve God more intensely. In my second year of seminary, during a class on the Biblical Theology of Missions, I understood that God was directing me toward cross-cultural ministry. From that moment on, prayers, time with the Word, and the Lord's guidance led me to understand that He was calling me to work with the Riverside people along the Amazon River.

About Vanessa

I was born in a Christian family in Western Canada and my dad was a pastor of a local church for most of my childhood. Growing up in church and having Christian parents I heard the Gospel many times, but I only really understood it when I was 7. I was attending a VBS one Summer and after the services we broke into small groups and my counsellor presented the Gospel to us very clearly. Listening to the message, I understood that I was a sinner and I believed that Jesus came down as a man to die for me, to save me. After this, I started to grow in my relationship with the Lord and learned to study the Bible.

Quite a while later when I was a teenager, on a very normal weekday, I remember reading the book of Acts and being very impacted by Paul’s missions trips. During one of these devotionals, the Lord placed on my heart a strong desire to do what Paul was doing and go to places to preach the Gospel where Christ is little known. My dad prayed for me that day and eventually the Lord led me to study at Word of Life Missionary Institute in Northern Brazil after I finished High School. There I studied theology and missiology and was trained for the mission field. Me and Felipe met at Word of Life in 2017 and in 2021 we got married. It was during this time that we also went on a missions trip to the Amazon River and where we felt called to go back there to work as full time missionaries.

Contact Information

fnunes@wol.org
vanessaandfelipemissions@gmail.com