Jorge and Hermelinda are missionaries who serve with the Baptist Churches in the Dereham region of the United Kingdom. They are assisting churches of the Baptist Union of Great Britain reach out to the communities of Portuguese-speaking migrant workers in the region.

The Damasceno’s work involves visiting migrant workers, assessing needs and working with the churches to develop strategies to welcome and provide services for the migrants so that they may grow in the understanding of God’s love, truth and justice. The Damascenos previously served as missionaries in Albania. They are now serving in the United Kingdom as jointly appointed missionaries of International Ministries and JAMI, the cross-cultural mission agency of the National Baptist Convention (CBN) in Brazil.

 They write: The Gospel is and will always be the power of God to change people’s life and the Portuguese-speaking migrants in the UK is experiencing that. We received a request for help from a family that was desperately upset, because they were under a strong spiritual oppression.

We went to visit that family, which was quite sad and fearful. As we were sharing the gospel and showing that Jesus was the only one who could save them and free them of oppression. We felt the power of God moving in that room. The father of the family who claimed not to believe in spiritual things seemed so tough, materialistic, but as the word was at work, he suddenly opened his heart before the power of God and accepted the prayer of deliverance and we saw the love and mercy of God once again being poured on a family in such a great spiritual need.

After a week, all the family attended one of our meetings in the church. It was a great testimony to the community who knew the man and knew how much he was materialistic. He was known to the community as one of the first immigrants to arrive, was a man of business and a very influential person.

At the end of the meeting, the family invited us to visit them again because they still wanted us to pray for their home. We will continue to follow up this family. They have not yet completely surrendered to Jesus, but there is great interest in getting to know the Lord, so we will be investing with prayers and Bible studies.

At the moment this family has come and shortly we expect them to grow and change.

 In another town, about 110 miles from where we live, another group of Portuguese speaking immigrants, knowing the work we do in amongst immigrants in the UK, has also invited us to start teaching the bible to them. In January we began to visit them and we have a group of 15 people adults and ten children. They all come from a different background, some of them had gone astray from the faith and others had never got to know Jesus before.

 PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY

• For wisdom and grace, so we may be able to see the opportunities and seize them.
• For more workers. We need people that will feel called by God to reach out to the migrants.
• For the release of finances. We need more people involved in our support.
• For our family. Especially for Vinicius (13) and Isabelle (12) as they enter their teen age years.