Forty Years · Four Phases
Forty+ years of ministry
Bahia, the Amazon, Fortaleza, and the USA. The Lord took us a long way. Here is the whole story, in order.
The Route
One river, four chapters, then home.
Prologue
Roots
Before 1982
Both Allen and Kim grew up far from the USA. Kim was raised in the Amazon of Brazil, where her parents, Hank and Ruth Scheltema, were pioneer aviation church planters. Allen spent his childhood in Guatemala, where his parents served as missionaries. Allen and Kim met during Bible college while Allen was training in aviation. Mechanic’s training followed, then they joined ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) in 1980 and reached the field about a year and a half later, once their support was raised.
Phase One
Bahia
1982 – 1988
Our first years, we were in the state of Bahia, Brazil. In 1982 we started at language school in Salvador (Brazil’s first capital), helping another missionary couple. After that, we moved interior to the city of Itaberaba and started a church, while also using the airplane to reach towns around that city with the gospel.
Phase Two
Amazonas
1989 – 2016
“33 glorious years in paradise.”
The first town we worked in was Benjamin Constant, helping restore a dwindling church work by training the members and leaders to carry on the work rather than depend on outside help and pastors. The second town we worked in began as a weekend preaching point downriver in the large town of São Paulo de Olivença, which grew into a thriving church with trained leaders. We also used the airplane to give continued theological training with fourteen Indian villages in the area.
Phase Three
Fortaleza
2016 onward
After three decades in the Amazon, we moved 2,500 miles from the west of Brazil to the east coast, to Fortaleza, mainly due to health problems Kim was facing, hoping a cooler, less humid climate would help. We were able to start a new church in Eusébio (a suburb of Fortaleza) and also develop and implement a Master’s in Biblical Counseling course in a seminary (SIBIMA) there in Fortaleza. Within a couple of years, we were asked to begin the same course in another seminary in the city of São Paulo (LOGOS). Much of the training was done using online modules with a week of classes every three months, so when COVID arrived, we did not have much adjusting to do, for which we praise the Lord. We simply changed the live classes to Zoom classes while everything else continued as before.
Phase Four
Still at it
2022 → beyond
“Not dead, NOT done.”
In 2022 we packed up and moved to Georgia, to our home there and out of the tropics for Kim’s health. Allen, turning 70, retired from the mission. Yet we continue to work full time in the biblical counseling training by Zoom, running the Master’s programs in the two seminaries, and visiting Brazil once or twice a year. Currently, Allen is progressively turning over the leadership to a Brazilian pastor, but he will continue to be involved in other areas.
The story isn’t over.
Allen is writing it all down. Get a free chapter of “In Him” and follow the rest.