Meet Ministério JEAME

For over 40 years, Ministério JEAME (an acronym for Jesus Loves Minors) has conducted evangelistic services in 13 juvenile detention centers in São Paulo, Brazil, reaching 1,000 teenagers each week. JEAME is located blocks from a drug-infested area of São Paulo called Cracolândia, and they conduct regular street evangelism and prayer walks through the neighborhood. Follow-ups from these efforts include Christian discipleship and vocational training.

JEAME runs a community center to minister to teens released from detention centers. The center allows JEAME to support teens in new ways, including through a barber training program and a professional bakery course for teenagers at Centro Rio Tâmisa. These job skill programs impact the lives of teens by providing a source of income, community connection, and regular discipleship opportunities.

The country of Brazil is well-known for its sandy beaches, colorful carnival, lively music, and love of soccer. However, Psalm 74:20 reminds us that “the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence,” and Brazil is no different from any other country in this. It has astronomically high theft, assault, and murder rates, and drug trafficking is a leading issue both within the prison system and in the surrounding areas. Drug traffickers command control of slum areas, using the men, women, and children who live there as lookouts and drug runners.

Children are especially targeted, as legal penalties are lighter than for adults. In addition, the power, wealth, and respect they see in drug leaders are a powerful pull to young people growing up in the slums. Many children join gangs by age ten and are already carrying weapons by the time they are twelve years old. There is a desperate need for light and hope for the more than 220 million inhabitants of the country.

JEAME’s ministry is solidly Bible-based and bathed in prayer. It is well-known in evangelical circles in São Paulo and has the support of many churches. There are multiple examples of lives transformed through this ministry, including pastors and evangelists who were first reached through them.