True Education Calls for Industries

Brazil

Since last December, 2011, when SETI (Santo’s Evangelistic Training Institute) team moved into the property God had appointed as the place to establish the missionary training school, a lot of work has been put into it by the faithful workers that are there with the purpose to have the school running in the beginning of 2013. The plans to achieve this goal are simple: to create industries to make the school financially stable, and to repair the buildings to accommodate the students and staff members. Let us read some of the accomplishments they have made.

When you talk about industries at SETI, Giancarlo Miranda says, “There is much more behind becoming self-supporting through industries than just financial support. It creates a whole environment which promotes an efficient manual labor training for the young people. . . the training becomes so real that the students know exactly what to do to succeed in that particular trade. And this really promotes character building.” They started with the farm, following the inspired counsel that urges the schools to put forth “efforts to develop plans for the training of the youth in agricultural and other lines of industrial work.” (Counsels to Parents, Teacher, and Students, 317)

The chayote, ginger, banana and orange plantations that were there when the property was purchased have been kept, and a large portion of the produce is sold locally. God provided an old truck, good enough to take the produce to a local buyer. “Our chayote vines were producing plenty of fruits every week, and we didn’t have anyone to purchase them,” said Luciano Campos. “Felipe (Staff member of SETI) and I prayed to find someone to buy our chayote, and in the same week Felipe found someone who agreed to buy not only our chayote but some of our other products, as well.”

During the months of February and March, the SETI team planted more than a hundred fruit trees (some of the trees already had fruit on them), using the method God instructed through His servant Ellen White. The estimated time for all of them to be producing is two years. About twenty different varieties of locally grown fruit trees were planted. The objectives are both not to buy fruit from the market and to sell our organic fruit to selected customers.

In the month of February, another new staff member joined the team, Maria Porto. She is a God-fearing young lady and a gifted cook, with previous experience working in health food industry. It was not hard to determine what would be the next industry to be established at SETI. Since then, Maria, along with Rosinéia Ferreira, began a health food industry, producing whole wheat bread, granola, pasoca (a Brazilian sweet) and more. The products have been locally sold, and they have proven to be an excellent opening door to evangelize the community.

SETI is also receiving volunteers. Juareis and Rosilda Ribeiro and their 13-year-old daughter Juliana spent four weeks at SETI. While Rosilda and Juliana volunteered in the farm and kitchen, Juareis, who is a professional builder, helped to finish building an already started house. “It was a real benefit for my family and me to stay at Santos Institute,” said Juareis. “The peaceful environment away from the city, the everyday worship and Christian fellowship brought me closer to God,” he concluded. Juareis and his family were a blessing for SETI. This was the way that this family found to place their talents in God’s hand.

For the second semester of 2012, Santos Institute has more challenges to overcome. Here are some of them: to build a chapel for worship and events, to remodel a building to be a library and classroom, to remodel a building for dormitories. You can certainly help and be part of this project by volunteering, donating and praying for God’s blessing upon this work.

By Giancarlo Demiranda. Email: giancarlo@iceves.com. Donations to help SETI Institute can be sent to Mission Projects International, PO Box 59656, Renton, WA 98058.