Here we are… SEND US!

We are serving as long term missionaries with Surf Church Porto, and we would love to make you part of our mission.

We said yes to the call of Jesus to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) many years ago. Over the years we have had the privilege of ministering in more than 30 Countries, but always did so with the heart of one day being able to be full-time missionaries in a country. In April 2023, we did a scout trip to Europe to pray and ask where God wants us to live for His glory. As part of our scout trip, we visited Surf Church Porto, and we almost immediately started discerning that the Lord wanted us to move to Portugal. At the end of our time in Porto, the leaders of Surf Church Porto asked us to pray and consider moving to Portugal to serve with them as full-time missionaries. Arriving back in South Africa, we prayed and sought God’s will earnestly, and God gave us many confirmations and promises that it was His will for us to move to Portugal and join Surf Church Porto. After more than a year of preparing to move to Portugal, we finally arrived in Porto on 6 July 2024.

Since we made the decision to move to Portugal, we’ve been trusting and praying for revival in Portugal and Europe. We will serve with Surf Church Porto in reaching the community of Porto with the Gospel of the Kingdom, and also discipling God’s children to follow and obey Jesus. Furthermore, our heart is to establish a 24/7 prayer house where people can pray, worship, and meet with God. We trust that this prayer house will ignite the hearts of the people to devote their entire lives to living for God’s Kingdom and that many missionaries will be sent out from our midst into Portugal and the rest of Europe.

It was a process for us to say yes to God’s call and move to Portugal. We moved out of our house, sold and gave away almost all of our belongings and we resigned from our jobs (in South Africa André worked as an attorney and Marielle as a personal and professional consultant, coach and trainer). In doing so, we felt like the disciples of Jesus who also “resigned” their jobs to follow Jesus. In order for us to remain as full-time missionaries, we need a team of people who will believe in this mission and stand with us in prayer and financial support. If you would like to support us in prayer and/ or financially, please contact us.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” – Matthew 24:14

Europe was one of the first places in the world to hear, see and experience the Gospel of the Kingdom. Many missionaries were sent from Europe to other parts of the world, including South Africa. However, in the last 100 years faith and spirituality has declined to shockingly low percentages. Most young people in Europe claim not to be religious or spiritual and many don’t even know who Jesus is. In the past 50-60 years, people’s way of thinking has changed from believing in faith and spirituality to something called post-modernism. This idea says that everything is relative, including truth, and it values and elevates human knowledge, science and personal experience over truth. This leads to a decay in morals, and it causes confusion in people’s identity, purpose and meaning of life.

In Portugal, 90% of people say they are Catholic, but only 3% of that 90% actually practice their religion.

Will the next generation in Portugal know their Creator, Saviour and Lord?

Will they worship Him?

Will they live for His Kingdom?

Both our lives got radically touched and transformed by Jesus while we were students at university. Shortly after we started growing in our faith, God gave each of us the opportunity to go on short term mission trips, and it was during this time that we both felt Jesus calling us to become missionaries in another country. But which nation? Where in the world did God want to send us?

In 2016 at an international church and missions conference, God spoke to us about Europe, and it was during this conference that both of us answered the call to Europe. (We were single and unaware that both of us said yes to go to Europe).

The next year (2017), André went on a scout trip to join a possible church plant in the Netherlands, and Marielle joined a scouting trip to join a church plant in Cyprus. Both of us were ready and excited to give up everything and obey Jesus’ heart, but God asked us to remain in South Africa and keep on sowing and harvesting where we were. We started dating in 2018 and got married in 2019. During Covid lockdown (2020) we prayed together and asked God where He wanted to use us or send us. After loads of praying and exploring different opportunities we were invited to join Surf Church Porto (2023) and with many words and confirmations we knew that this is where God was sending us.

Since 2020 God has been igniting an urgency for prayer in our hearts. We have been growing in prayer and learning about many different ways, places and people of God moving through prayer. In 2023 we travelled to Italy, Spain and Portugal, to see what God is doing in these nations, and to pray about where He wants us. The first night we arrived in Italy, we were sitting at a restaurant in Ravello, with the most beautiful view over-looking the Amalfi coast. Suddenly, we saw a big red bright light shining behind the mountains in the distance. We wondered what it was, when a few moments later we realised that it was a red moon rising.

We immediately knew God was speaking to us, as one of the things that inspired us to pursue prayer is a book named Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig and Dave Roberts. In the first chapter of the book Pete Greig shares a vision God showed him one night while camping on a cliff in Cape St. Vincent, Portugal (the most South-Westly point of Europe). The vision was of an army of young people rising out of the different countries of Europe. This army ended up being people who pray God’s Kingdom as it is in heaven, down into Europe and started seeing the Kingdom manifest.

The first two years, we will focus a lot of our time and energy into learning the language and the culture of the Portuguese people. To be effective ministers in Portugal, we want to make sure that we focus on understanding the Portuguese people, so that we won’t only reach English speaking international people, but the Portuguese as well.

We will also spend a lot of time in prayer, trusting God to lead us on how and where to start a form of 24/7 prayer and worship.

Surf Church Porto, is currently lead by Samuel and Claudia Cianelli. We will work with Surf Church to reach out to the local community and to disciple and raise leaders so that many more churches can be planted.

And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. – Luke 10:2