The following is the story of how Ancient Faith Ministries came to be. Please note that the portion under "Adam Gonnerman" is written in the first person, as this is who is writing this summary.

In late 1992 I made a decision. Having been raised Catholic, at age 17 I decided I needed to be "Protestant." What had happened what that I had studied the Scriptures and discovered that salvation is a matter of God's grace and not of my goodness or efforts. Not knowing what else to do, I prayed to God and pledged my life to Christ (a couple of years later I learned about water baptism and was immersed into Christ biblically). My father, a very practical farmer, was essentially agnostic, while my mother was and is a devout Catholic. No one in the family had every openly left the Catholic Church before, but one evening late in December that year I approached my mother and with trembling hands and knees that seemed to have turned to jelly I told her what I was thinking. Her reaction? "Okay, where will you go?"

For a year I was an active member of a Presbyterian church, until the denomination's involvement in an ecumenical conference that worshipped a goddess named Sophia came to light. From there I moved on to a small non-denominational community church, which I attended until a year after starting college in Moberly, Missouri.

Attending both Moberly Area Community College (MACC) and Central Christian College of the Bible (CCCB) in Moberly, Missouri, I believe I got the best of two worlds. In the Community College I was challenged to think through my faith in a sometimes adverse or at least skeptical climate, while at the Bible College I was exposed to serious biblical scholarship. It was on January 9, 1995 that I was immersed into Christ for the remission of sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Later that same year I preached my first sermon ever. It was on legalism and delivered to a tiny Cumberland Presbyterian congregation. I bombed! God was good, though, and my second sermon ever was also for that same congregation, in January 1996, and it was generally agreed that I did a far better job that time.

For a few months in 1996 I preached for different independent Christian churches that were on the Bible college's list of churches needing supply preachers, until Hickory Grove Christian Church near Thompson, Missouri asked me to preach for them every Sunday. Staying with Hickory Grove until December 1997, when I enrolled at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, I believe I learned and gained more than the congregation I served. The brothers and sisters at Hickory Grove asked good questions about points in my sermons and their perspectives helped me look deeper into the text. Their love and support, most of all, confirmed my relationship with the independent Christian churches.

Something else happened in 1997 during two months in the summer when I was away from Hickory Grove. I went on a mission trip to Brazil, South America with a group of college students from different places in the United States. We were led by Rusty Thornely, a former missionary to Brazil and professor at Manhattan Christian College in Kansas. My main reason for wanting to do a mission trip was to have the experience. Certainly working with Christians overseas will broaden one's viewpoint and strengthen one's ministry. What happened, though, was that I sensed God's call to missions.

My second Sunday in Brazil I was at worship with the Flamboyante congregation in Campinas, Brazil when the oldest daughter of my host family sang a special song during communion. Though I had only that week begun to learn Portuguese, in my heart I understood the message. The title of the song is "Pra Cima, Brasil" ("Look Up, Brazil") and it talks about injustice in high places and poverty on the streets. Deep within I knew that this was my vocation. I was to be a missionary to Brazil.

During the remaining two months in Brazil I spoke about this with no one, but when I returned I made it my entire focus to prepare for mission work in Brazil. Finishing an Associate's degree at MACC I enrolled into Harding University's School of Biblical Studies (HSBS, now known as the Center for Advanced Ministry Training). At that time a student had to be 21 and meet certain other qualifications in order to be accepted, and once in 50% of the tuition was paid. In two years a student would be able to complete a fully accredited Bachelor of Ministry degree.

The day before classes started in January, 1998 I noticed a sign on the program's bulletin board. In bold print, it read: "COME WITH US TO BRAZIL!" Hardly believing my eyes I asked the secretary about it, and she explained that as part of the program students were required to do one international mission trip during the two years. That year the students would be heading to Brazil. She asked me if I was interested in going.

As it turns out, the HSBS program went to Belo Horizonte Brazil both years I attended, and I went both times. In October 1998 I also made a special trip to Brazil. My contact with the country was growing, and in both 1997 and 1998 I also made trips to the states of New York and Connecticut during breaks to preach for Brazilian immigrant churches.

On December 18, 1999 I graduated from Harding with a Bachelor of Ministry degree and was ordained to the Christian ministry the following day by the elders of the Christian Church of Jacksonville, Arkansas. In January 2000 I made a trip to a few cities in Brazil, and it was during this time that I met in Uberlândia the woman who became my wife, Christiane.

Christiane is one of eight siblings. Raised nominally Catholic but never christened in that church, Cris didn't begin thinking seriously about spiritual matters until her late teens when she experienced an unplanned pregnancy. Her sister Selma had moved to Belo Horizonte where she was baptized into Christ and then began talking to her family in Uberlândia about the Good News. There was no church of the Restoration Movement in Uberlândia at that time, but two ladies from the Church of Christ had recently moved to the city and began evangelizing other women. Soon there was a congregation of women and children only in Uberlândia, started and led by women. Christiane was baptized into Christ in late 1997, shortly after the birth of her daughter Nathalia. Very quickly she became active with the children's Sunday school and when the team arrived permanently from Belo Horizonte she began going with others to do evangelistic Bible studies with people in their homes.

The church in Uberlândia received occasional visits from leaders and members of the downtown congregation in Belo Horizonte, about eight hours away, until a mission team was sent over. All Brazilians, this team included Christiane's sister Selma and Selma's husband Marcelo. The church relocated downtown in Uberlândia and it was while there that Adam first visited the city and met Christiane.

In January 2001 Adam moved to Uberlândia and married Christiane the following month. With partial support from congregations in the United States, Adam also worked teaching English as a foreign language at a private language school. It was not always easy to make ends meet, but they got by. The church moved from downtown to a neighborhood called Tubalina and then finally to a neighborhood called Jardim das Palmeiras. Adam began evangelistic work in a neighborhood called Aurora, but when his brother-in-law Marcelo baptized an entire household in the Pacaembu neighborhood, Adam and Christiane went to help this new congregation. The Pacaembu enjoyed steady growth and continues strong to this day.

Against their wishes but driven by the financial realities of inflation, a difficult exchange rate and the loss of support due to a church's closure in the United States, Adam and Christiane moved their family to the United States in October 2003. By this time they had a son together, Jesse, in addition to Nathalia.

For a year and a half Adam and Christiane worked with a struggling congregation in New Mexico. The situation simply didn't work out. The expectations and demands of the congregation were quite high, and Christiane was suffering from both isolation and culture shock. Only the kids were happy. Though there were signs of life there, including two baptisms and a promising ministry to the marginalized developing, the church and its minister simply didn't fit well together. With the unexpected death of Adam's father in January 2005 and a growing realization that no one was benefiting from the arrangement, the Gonnerman's resigned and moved to New Jersey to be close to the large Brazilian immigrant community.

Marcelo and Selma continued on working alone with the church in Pacaembu. The only Christians with any experience, their faith and determination have been tested repeatedly over the past few years. Marcelo struggles to make ends meet as a part-time high school teacher and with a stipend from an American congregation that formerly supported the work of Adam and Christiane. This church, the Martelle Christian Church of Iowa, identifies strongly with Marcelo's outlook and has dramatically increased its support for the work in Uberlândia over the past year. With Marcelo's leadership, evangelistic example and sacrificial lifestyle the church in Pacaembu has grown, and recently a new congregation was planted in the Jardim Europa neighborhood.

The Brazilian Church of Christ in Newark, New Jersey (officially the "Church of Christ - Portuguese Mission") began in the mid-1990s with the vision of a handful of people. Over the years this church has experienced only small growth, even as the Brazilian immigrant population boomed. With no formal leadership but guided by the men, it was decided around 2000 or 2001 that a worker would need to come in to help out. Ricardo and Teresa Cornetione joined the work following Ricardo's graduation from a preacher training program in Campo Grande, Brazil. He and his wife were invaluable in helping Adam and Christiane coordinate and complete their move from New Mexico.

The Gonnerman family suffered many serious hardships due to the move. Adam dealt with depression over the death of his father and the ministerial setbacks experienced in New Mexico. Christiane began working as a housecleaner and Adam returned to the only other thing he knew: teaching English. With only one car Adam often spent the entire day from early in the morning until late at night at the language school while Christiane cleaned houses and worked out child care issues and homemaking. Following a brief stint as a legal assistant at a law office in Jersey City, Adam was hired by AT&T Mobility as a representative in the National Business Services division, where he continues working today.

Thank you for reading this far! There is more to tell, but what I've written is probably more than enough for now. If you have any questions about what you've read or about the work in Brazil or New Jersey, please let us know by contacting us through the webform on the "About AFM" page.