2025: A Year of Open Doors
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“For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.”
— 1 Corinthians 16:9
The year 2025 was deeply significant in our journey.
We celebrated forty years of marriage—and forty years of ministry.
Not even in our best dreams could we have imagined reaching this milestone, especially with our family still so present in the journey and our children now serving alongside us as partners in ministry.
Each day, then, gives us another reason to be grateful and to celebrate the grace of the Lord over our lives.
Rejoice with us.
A Calling Within the Calling
Along our pastoral and missionary journey, something began to change in 2013.
We came to understand that the Lord was calling us to hold together two dimensions of the Gospel that should never have been separated: the Great Commission—“make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19)—and the Great Commandment—“love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).
And we began paying particular attention to the neighbor who is a stranger.
Leviticus 19:34 says:
“Love them as yourself.”
In our contemporary world, many of these vulnerable strangers are people we call refugees.
For us, this became a calling within the calling.
In 2017, we founded Instituto Abuna—Abuna meaning “Our Father” in Aramaic.
Through Abuna, we have had the extraordinary privilege of welcoming, serving, and sharing life with people from many ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
Some come from communities where Christians are extremely few.
But statistics can never tell the whole story.
They have names.
Families.
Memories.
Faith.
Questions.
Losses.
Gifts.
And hopes.
Living together has opened doors for friendship, pastoral care, service, and Christian witness that we could never have planned.
And those open doors have not come without resistance.
The words of Paul that open this letter have often felt very close to our experience:
a great door...
and many adversaries.
By the grace of the Lord, and through the strength we have received from the prayers of so many of you, we have continued moving forward.
Open Doors and Adversities
That did not mean 2025 was an easy year.
Quite the opposite.
We faced significant pressures involving our finances, our physical and emotional health, our team, and the practical resources needed to continue the work.
Three members of our family underwent surgery—José’s mother and both of our daughters.
We suffered a major financial loss.
Two of our cars broke down: one suffered catastrophic engine failure, while the other had a transmission failure. This significantly limited our operations.
Then a church learned what had happened.
They took up a special offering, and with those funds we were able to purchase another vehicle.
Hallelujah.
Again:
a great door...
and many adversaries.
And grace along the way.
The People Along the Road
During the previous three years, our journey had brought us particularly close to people from several communities affected by persecution, conflict, displacement, or profound vulnerability.
Among them were Alawites from Syria; Hazaras, Pashtuns, and Tajiks from Afghanistan; and Rohingya communities from Myanmar.
Their stories are different.
So are their languages, religious traditions, histories, and reasons for displacement.
Some are Muslims. Some are Christians. Some come from communities marked by complex religious identities.
Many have lived through persecution, discrimination, war, or exclusion.
What matters most to us, however, is not a demographic category.
It is the encounter.
A young Alawite woman we once welcomed in Curitiba later stood with us at the airport welcoming another Syrian family.
A Hazara family we welcomed in Maringá eventually held their new Brazilian documents in their hands.
In another photograph, a Pashtun couple, a Tajik young man, and a Hazara man stand together.
In Afghanistan, the histories of their peoples may carry deep tensions.
Here in Brazil, another possibility became visible.
Fraternal life was possible, even across ethnic differences.
Beyond Brazil, through our partnership with Etnos Global, we also served Rohingya communities displaced from Myanmar, particularly through initiatives connected with refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
These encounters reminded us that behind every category there is a person.
And every person carries a story.
Highlights of 2025
Welcoming Refugees in Greater Curitiba
At the beginning of the year, after establishing a partnership with Comunidade Evangélica de Curitiba, we began welcoming refugees at Chácara Maanaim, in Campina Grande do Sul, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba.
It was there that we also began living in March.
The partnership gave us access to another building in the Mercês neighborhood of Curitiba, where we established our office and offered Portuguese classes to Syrian and Egyptian families.
During the same year, we assumed full leadership of CAEBE — Centro de Apoio ao Estrangeiro no Brasil e no Exterior, an organization founded by our dear friend and ministry companion Pastor Marcos Calixto.
Through CAEBE, now operating as another arm of Abuna, we served Venezuelan and Cuban families experiencing social vulnerability from a base in the Cajuru neighborhood of Curitiba.
We also served vulnerable Haitian families in the Sabará area on the outskirts of the city.
The geography was changing.
The calling was not.
Abuna Ambiental
Another important step in 2025 was leasing a small rural property in Quatro Barras, also in Greater Curitiba, to establish the base of Abuna Ambiental.
During the year, we renovated the house and repaired the electrical and plumbing systems.
We began planting fruit trees and a vegetable garden.
The goal was simple and concrete: to help provide vulnerable migrant families with nutritious, good-quality food.
We were also preparing to resume free-range egg production.
Sometimes service takes very practical forms:
land,
food,
work,
and dignity.
Marília and the University
After a process that lasted several months, we signed an agreement with UNESP — São Paulo State University.
The partnership opened opportunities, initially at the Marília campus, for students—especially those studying International Relations and Social Sciences—to participate in practical community and extension activities alongside Abuna.
For us, this represented another significant open door.
Not simply because we needed volunteers, but because serving others can also become a place of formation.
In July, I participated in a university forum where I shared Abuna’s work and we presented the new partnership to the students.
It was a very special time.
We sensed God’s presence among us.
Mobilizing the Church
One of the dimensions of our work that continues to encourage us deeply is the opportunity to participate in what God is doing through the church in Brazil.
Throughout the year, we had opportunities to preach, teach, awaken vocations, and encourage churches toward a more mature engagement with mission.
We ministered in churches in Curitiba, São Paulo, Brasília, Marília, and Presidente Prudente.
Again and again, we saw people asking how their own lives might become part of what God is doing in the world.
For this we give glory to God.
Around the Table in Kenya
At the beginning of April, through the generosity of friends and churches, I participated in a gathering of the Religious Liberty Partnership in Kenya.
Each year, the gathering brings together Christian organizations from different countries working for religious freedom and, particularly, in support of persecuted Christians.
Many of the people around those tables are experts whose names will never become widely known.
They work quietly and persistently.
Some defend persecuted Christians before courts and governments. Some accompany cases for years, seeking to protect people from imprisonment or death.
It is difficult to describe the atmosphere.
There was reverence.
Respect.
Fraternity.
And one conviction became very clear to me:
the church is alive and moving forward.
We see it in the power of the Spirit.
In the quiet courage of persecuted brothers and sisters.
In that part of the global church willing to stand on the front lines—praying, serving, advocating, and defending those who suffer.
Abuna is honored to have a place at some of these international tables.
A Season of Organizational Learning
During the second half of the year, we participated in an intensive organizational mentoring process led by GLOCAL Aceleradora.
For several months, we met weekly with specialists in areas such as law, accounting, communications and marketing, fundraising, team management, and organizational administration.
We learned a great deal.
We also formed new friendships that we believe will have a lasting impact on our organization and, ultimately, on the people we serve.
Our Syrian friends joined us for the graduation ceremony.
They celebrated with us.
That mattered.
Because organizational growth only makes sense if it strengthens our capacity to serve people well.
Special Operations
Two situations during the year deserve particular mention.
The first involved Maya, a young Syrian Christian who had recently graduated in civil engineering and was facing persecution.
In August, we organized a campaign to purchase her tickets from the interior of Syria to Brazil.
When she arrived, she was welcomed by relatives already living in Curitiba—people who had nearly lost hope of ever seeing her again.
The second involved “Graça”—not her real name—an African Christian widow whom we had been assisting for eight years.
At the time, she was living in hiding with her two children in a closed country in Asia.
In December, we organized an emergency campaign to cover the cost of surgery she urgently needed.
The necessary funds were raised and sent.
As we wrote this retrospective, we were waiting for the surgery to take place.
We asked our friends:
keep praying.
For Those Who Like Numbers...
One of the lessons reinforced during our organizational mentoring was simple:
what is not measured cannot be managed well.
We want to keep improving our processes so that we can steward with excellence the resources, gifts, opportunities, and people God has entrusted to us.
These were some of our numbers for 2025:
Countries where we were active: 3 — Brazil, Thailand, and Bangladesh
Cities or locations with ongoing work: 7
Refugees assisted: 340
People welcomed through our residential work in Brazil: 51
28 Afghans
23 Syrians
36 adults
15 children
People who moved from residential welcome toward independent living: 46
Team: 19 people, plus 12 volunteers
Portuguese classes offered: 224
Meals served: 3,856
Food collected and distributed: 6 metric tons
Coats, blankets, and baby clothes collected and distributed: 1,300 items
Behind every one of these numbers is a person.
A meal is someone being fed.
A Portuguese class is someone learning to find words in a new country.
A blanket means someone was protected from the cold.
A person moving toward independence represents a life being rebuilt.
We are deeply aware that these numbers—and many others we could have included—reflect what we often call the daily miracles of multiplication.
Everything we did, and everything we hoped to continue doing, began with the same posture:
placing our few loaves and fish in the hands of the Lord, like the boy in the Gospel story, trusting that he would do with them whatever he desired according to his infinite power, love, and goodness.
And there is another part of this story we do not want you to miss.
See yourself as part of the miracle.
Without you, this would not have happened.
A Final Word
Dear ministry partner,
Thank you.
We are deeply grateful to the Lord for having you behind us in this ministry.
Your prayers, generosity, friendship, and support strengthen us and encourage us to continue.
Our prayer is that, as you look back with us, you will rejoice in these victories and be encouraged to continue with us for another year of partnership and service to the Lord.
You are an essential part of what was accomplished.
There is still much to be done.
Many still do not know him.
Let us continue together.
May 2026 be filled with the joy and presence of Jesus.
In him, for the little ones,
José and Valdívia Prado
Curitiba, January 3, 2026
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