On May 9, 2026, Maranatha held a special missions Sabbath program at the Botafogo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. More than 700 people attended the event, which featured Maranatha staff; volunteers; Hiram Kalbermatter, president of the Adventist Church in southeast Brazil; and the music of vocalist Regina Mota. The program was also broadcast to viewers on the church’s popular YouTube channel, which has 146,000 subscribers.
Kalbermatter, who was the special speaker, talked about his region’s effort to reach 350 towns where there is no Adventist presence. Currently, missionaries are at work sharing the gospel. When congregations have successfully been planted, Maranatha is partnering with the church to construct places of worship for each new church plant. Kalbermatter called on Botafogo members to join in the effort to share the Good News by getting involved, inviting them to answer God’s call and “pick up the torch.”
The program also welcomed two volunteer testimonies. Claudio Soares, an attorney from Santa Catarina, Brazil, shared his experience of taking a group to serve on Maranatha mission trips in Peru and Paraguay, and how positive it was. Lia Araujo, a nurse from Rio de Janeiro, went to the Dominican Republic with six friends. She loved the project so much that she went on two more–including one with her kids–and has committed to going on more purpose-filled vacations.
In the afternoon, Maranatha held an extensive question and answer session with more than 100 people inquiring more detail about Maranatha’s work, funding, and how to get involved. At the program’s close, Patrick Duarte, senior pastor of Botafogo church, and Luciana Brotto, church member, made an altar call for everyone who was inspired and interested in going on a Maranatha mission trip in the future. More than a dozen people stood up.
Brotto is the person who invited Maranatha to present at the Botafogo Church. She says she wanted to “motivate people to get involved in missionary projects, both here and abroad. … These events bring a feeling of unity and purpose to the whole church.”
“The impact of Maranatha on our church goes far beyond a simple event; it has become a true missionary movement. We have seen a church more spiritually awakened and motivated to leave its four walls to fulfill the mission that Christ entrusted to us,” says Duarte. “Today, I see a church that is more available and more aware that we have been called to impact lives and prepare people for the return of Jesus.”
While short-term mission trips are a tradition of the Adventist experience in some parts of the world, in South America, the service trip is relatively rare. In the past decade, Maranatha has been working to expand opportunities by organizing volunteer projects in Portuguese, namely for Brazilians, who make up the largest population of Adventists in the world with more than 1.8 million members. More than 600 Brazilians have participated in projects, and interest in Maranatha’s work is rising year by year in this South American country.
Maranatha has worked in Brazil numerous times throughout the organization’s history. However, Maranatha kicked off a major effort in 2011 to construct churches and schools. Through collaboration with local Adventist leadership, Maranatha completed more than 1,000 projects in Brazil. In 2019, Maranatha began to address a growing water crisis in the dry, northeastern region of the country by drilling water wells at Maranatha-built churches. So far, Maranatha has drilled more than 150 wells in the country.