Projects

Rev. Raphael Voigt did not always want to be a pastor. He grew up Lutheran in Santa Catarina, Brazil, and worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst. Then, Voigt began volunteering with his church’s youth. He was a natural at youth work, and by 2014, he held a regional leadership role. A pastor friend encouraged Voigt, so he commenced seminary studies in 2015. His coursework exposed him to hospital visits, drug rehab center chaplaincy, and children’s recorder lessons in the shantytowns known as favelas. Voigt remained involved in favela ministry during his vicarage in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rev. Lucas Elberhardt Nunes is a testament to the generational nature of church planting efforts by the LCMS Office of International Mission. A native of Joinville, Brazil, Pastor Lucas’ Lutheran heritage is the product of church planting efforts of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (IELB). The IELB is the result of LCMS mission work, which began in Brazil back in 1900. Thanks be to God, the IELB has grown into the largest Lutheran church body on the South American continent.

Rev. Rafael Milagres’ path into the Holy Ministry has some parallels with Martin Luther’s. Rafael grew up a practicing Roman Catholic in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. However, he had a breakthrough as an adolescent Franciscan schoolboy when doctrinal inconsistencies led him to dig into the Scriptures and seek a church with more biblical underpinnings. As a result, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (IELB) became his church home. Milagres, who had considered the priesthood on and off throughout childhood, studied theology at the university level. Then, with some encouragement from his IELB pastor, he began his formal pastoral formation at the Lutheran University of Brazil in 2015.

Rev. Gustavo Maita grew up in the Church and felt the Lord’s leading into the pastoral ministry as a teen. He began his theological studies in Venezuela, served his vicarage in the Dominican Republic and graduated from Concordia Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received a call to serve as an alliance missionary in Puerto Rico from the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in 2017. Since then, he has shared preaching and teaching responsibilities at multiple church plants and capably executed his logistical role as Disaster Response Coordinator. Additionally, Maita provides long-distance disaster response consulting and in-person workshops for church leaders and laity in countries across the Caribbean.

Pastor Benjamin and Karina Flores, with their son Lucas, serve the Lord in Belize, Central America. Benjamin was born and grew up in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Benjamin was Catholic but attended the Lutheran High School in Cochabamba. After high school, he studied chemical engineering for three years but called the pastoral ministry. Encouraged by his Lutheran pastor, Benjamin began theological studies at Concordia Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2014. He transferred to and completed his studies in 2019 at Concordia the Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic.