More specifically, this means that ever since 2006 we´re serving God as full-time missionaries in Brazil in the area of social assistance to (street)children that live in high risk situations and need our help and God´s love so much.
From 2006 till the end of 2008 we were involved with YWAM (Youth with a Mission) in Belo Horizonte, a big city in the inland of Brazil. During our time there we worked specifically with pregnant street girls and teenage mothers and we did some training on working with street children.
Since the beginning of 2009 we live and work in São Paulo, a city of millions, where we´re involved with ABBA (Associação Brasileira Beneficente Aslan), a local missionary organization that has been working among the street children of São Paulo for over 20 years. As we believe that children belong to families, we are working together with the goal of placing street children back into a healthy family. This could be their biological family or a foster or adoption placement.
Besides that, we´re also active in some of the local slums in the city, where we try to deal with the root of the problem: supporting families and offering the children and teenagers a meaningful occupation of their days, so as to try to prevent that more families collapse and more children run off to the streets. In everything we do it is our goal to bring the Gospel to these children and their families who often live in hopeless situations. Showing them God´s love and telling them about Jesus, the cross and the hope that we can find in Him is our highest goal and our great passion. For more information, have a look at ABBA´s website: http://www.abbabrasil.com.br/
Besides the work in the area of social assistance, Caio is increasingly occupied with what he himself sees as his primary calling: preaching the Word of God. He is actually studying theology at the university ´Servo de Cristo´ here in São Paulo and is preparing himself for the ministry God is calling him to: teaching the Word of God to fellow-Christians. He preaches regularly at our own church and every now and then he´s invited to preach at another local church. So in daily life, he´s always quite busy reading and studying.
Caio was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, in a partly Christian family, that means, his mother is a Christian and raised both of her sons with the Bible. During his teenage years, Caio accepted Jesus and after he started dating Dorothee in 2002, his desire to serve God in missions slowly grew and he got involved in missions when he went together with her to work in Youth with a Mission in Belo Horizonte, in 2006. Caio studied communication and right now he´s doing a three year post-graduation course in theology. He loves theological books, music and surfing.
Dorothee was born and raised in Holland, more specifically in Houten, near Utrecht. She was raised in a Christian family that´s also involved in missions, so she got to know missions early on and already at a young age she had the desire to serve God in missions. During her teenage years she accepted Jesus and when she was 18 years old she traveled for the first time to Brazil to work with street children as a volunteer, for a period of six months. During this time she met Caio and shortly after that, they started to date. She studied child psychology at the University of Utrecht and also did a minor in Portuguese, so she´d learn more of the Portuguese language. In August of 2006 Caio and Dorothee got married and only a month after that, in September of 2006, they went to Belo Horizonte to work with YWAM. Dorothee loves reading, music, cooking and being creative.
