Naomi Keefe

Naomi's mission work

Naomi is working with the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. Since the start of 2012, Naomi has been working alongside the Peixinhos congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPB) and more recently with the IPB congregation of Beberibe.

Naomi is involved in empowering the local church to start to question what it is that God has called them to do amongst their communities in sharing the Good News of Jesus. Encouraging, training and facilitating them in this process of beginning to think for themselves and prayerfully work out what God has called them to do together, is not only challenging, but is also a long-term process. She is also involved in the production of contextualised, evangelistic and discipleship material particularly for illiterate and functionally illiterate families.

Naomi comments, “Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:27 addresses the local believers and describes them as follows, ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.’ The work I am involved with in Brazil is very much based on the theology behind this verse. God has called and equipped the local believers with the specific task of bringing glory and honour to his name in both the building up of the local believers and in reaching out to the lost with the good news of Jesus. Hence it is the local believers who are the body, and it is God who has appointed each one with differing gifts. I offer training and specific teaching material designed for working alongside poor communities. I am not the one doing the outreach, setting up the programme or running the project, as I am not a body-part of the local church. I am not a member of the local body, but rather have been sent out to help the local body work better, particularly in relation to reaching out to the poor communities with the Good News of Jesus in a biblical, culturally and contextually appropriate form.”

Naomi’s work can be best summed up as church-based and Bible-based community development and evangelistic outreach with the local body parts being involved in various outreaches including; reading room activities, Coffee with God Bible studies, Good News Club activities, football evangelism, film days, family visits, street evangelism presentations, nursing home visits/evangelism, etc.

All the various strategies and activities have the purpose of equipping and encouraging the local congregations to be the witnesses in their communities that God in Acts 1:8 has commanded them to be.  As Naomi comments “my prayer is that together we will continue to see children, young people and adults around us each day as Jesus Himself sees them “harassed and helpless without a shepherd”; “lost souls” for whom Jesus came “to seek and to save” and that we will have the same obedience to the “Heavenly Vision” as the apostle Paul.”

From 2005 to 2011, Naomi worked alongside the IPB congregation of Casa Caiada and local churches within the neighbourhood of Aguazinha, seeking to help these poor and marginalised people by sharing the gospel with them.

Before going to Brazil, Naomi was a Biology teacher at Hunterhouse College in Belfast. She spent two years (2000-02) as a volunteer in mission in the Valley of the Lord Orphanage in Recife, Brazil. She also has a Masters’ degree in Theology from Queens University Belfast (UTC) with specific emphasis on how best to work with children at risk in Brazil. Naomi´s home congregation is Sloan Street Presbyterian Church, Lisburn.

Latest Report July/August 2026

The month of June has been a combination of football and John the Baptist festivities with fireworks, traditional small bonfires outside in the streets, and off course pop corn, corn soup, corn cake, corn on the cob (basically anything with corn in it). 

This has meant both the Good News Club in Peixinhos and the congregation of Beberibe have had lots of opportunities to share the good news of Jesus. Using strategies of both football and the ‘John the Baptist’ festivities has meant the volunteers have been busy but also have had great fun presenting the gospel. 

The ‘Reading in the Park’ group were able to use CEF material with the theme “God’s team is the best team" and we ended up having what could best be described as an open-air Good News Club session. The children, their parents and guardians all learnt a memory verse, song and off course listened to the story time. Everyone came in their Brazilian football colour t-shirts. The children loved the sticker album of Bible heroes organised in the format of a football album which we handed out. The chocolate sweets ‘Brigadeiros’ also decorated with the Brazilian colours were also enjoyed.

Evangelistic events in both Peixinhos and Beberibe communities were really encouraging using the story of Mary Jones and her desire to have a Bible.

Using a coloured football with the colours yellow/gold, black, red, white and green to share the good news of Jesus and painting footballs with finger paints was great fun!

Explaining Ephesians 4:22-24, using puppets with football t-shirts and how we need to take off the old self and put on Christ was encouraging. It was interesting to see the reaction of both the children and their parents to hear how we are all born on the ‘Devils team’ and need to change teams. One young boy in the Sunday school class in Beberibe made the connection and shouted out “that’s because of original sin”. Great fun, but lots of hard work. Looking forward to meeting up with you all there in Ireland over July, August and September on various deputation meetings which this year also includes speaking at a Holiday Bible Club.

I will be on home assignment over the summer and available for deputation between mid-July and mid September 2026. Bookings can be made through the Mission Department at [email protected].

Prayer Points

• Give thanks for all the ‘fishing events’ and pray that many who heard the good news will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
• Continue to pray for the Reading in the Park, Good News Club, Coffee with God activities.
• Please pray for all the travel and the deputation meetings in Ireland as I share what God is doing in Brazil.