Fabi and I were both born in the beautiful country of Brazil.
I immigrated in the United States in the year or 1989 and my wife in 1994.

We met in a prayer meeting at her grandma’s house.

I immediately knew that day that Fabi was going to be my wife. We got married on March 23rd of 1996.

What first started as a two young people passionately in love with each other, with so many hopes of living a Happy Marriage quickly turned out to be a Fallen Marriage.

Although we loved each other we just couldn’t figure out a way to live peacefully with one another. All the traumas I carried from the emotional and physical abuse I had experienced growing up ended up affecting my relationship with my wife and eventually causing separation and destruction in my marriage.

Our relationship got so bad that by our 8th Anniversary I decided I wanted a divorce. The only thing I could do to distract me from all the pain and the chaos was to work for endless hours.

My wife on the other hand saw a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel and she interceded for full restoration and prayed that God would turn things around for our family. She vowed to the Lord that if He would save our marriage and restore us we would in return help bring restoration and healing to other families.

It was just then when through my eyes all seemed lost that I had a LIFE CHANGING encounter with the Living God. You know, I only knew Him by hearing of Him but then I met Him in a very intimate and personal way. My blindness fell off and my eyes opened up to see Him (Job 42:5). That encounter caused me to completely surrender my life to God. He changed my heart and revived my love not only for Him but the love I thought I had lost for my wife. By seeing the radical change that took place in my life, and how I was pressing in for more of God, Fabi also decided to seek God for change and growth in her own life.

Together we started to pursue God wholeheartedly, our marriage started to get stronger and stronger, we started to prosper in our business to the point we got major breakthrough in our finances!

I thought this was God’s perfect plan for us. Until something unexpected happened in 2008 when I had another encounter with the Lord. That encounter wrecked me (in a good way). This time God was calling my wife and I to leaveNew York and walk away from all that was so familiar to us. We left friends, business, church and our beautiful home to attend a Bible School in Tampa, FL in preparation for the calling and assignment He had set before us. We took off in the year of 2008 with four of our kids on this “new” God venture. That was our very first step of faith toward our calling.

In Bible School we got to experience the Lord and His Word in a very powerful way. We were touched by the fire of God! Three years later, on May of 2011 we got to graduate with a Bachelors Degree in Theology from RBI, and since then God has opened up doors for us to minister in different places and nations. We have kept the vows that my wife did to the Lord by helping restore broken marriages and families, and we've trained and raised up on fire leaders to advance God's church and win souls for God’s kingdom.

For the last decade, Fabi and I together had also the greatest privilege and honor to serve as associate pastors to three different churches under the leadership of great Man and Woman of God.

All this time God was preparing, shaping and molding us for our calling and Mission. However it was in the waiting that we learned how to first disciple, teach, train, equip and impart into the lives of our very own children.

We know what is is to have your Family as your First Ministry. We’ve always taken this very seriously! Today we are able to reap the fruits of all of the investment we’ve made in their lives. Our five children love the Lord, and are rooted in God’s Word. They were set apart, appointed and anointed by God to preach His Word, to worship and play a diversity of instruments for His glory!

With all my heart I can say that AvivaFire Ministries International was birthed out from the personal encounters and experiences that my wife and I have had with The Lord, and the earnest desire we have to revive the fire of God's love in the hearts of young and old, families and leaders around the globe.