MAP Missionary plants Canada churches via restaurants, hobbies; equips church members ‘for the work of ministry’

Rafael Araujo “fell in love with the local church” while serving as a missionary in Argentina with his wife, and after “over ten years” of service, Araujo said they “felt a conviction that the Lord was moving us from missions to the local church.” 

“In our hearts, we have the desire to prepare missionaries in a local church to be sent to the mission [field]... So that's how we started to pray and decide, ‘Where are we going to go? How are we going to plant a church? Are we going back to Brazil [where I’m from] or are we going to stay in Argentina? Will we go back to Canada [where my wife is from]?’” said Araujo. 

While weighing the options of where to plant their church, the Araujos “felt that the Lord was calling us to go to Vancouver.” Arriving in 2015, Araujo said he was faced with the challenge of learning English while finding “work in a first world country” to “provide for my family and start this church when I have no knowledge of anyone [here]?” 

He began applying for restaurant positions, and one day, he told his wife he was going out to find a job and would come back home with one that evening. 

“I took the train, I went downtown, and I went to the Cactus Club, a big restaurant in the heart of Vancouver. I was interviewed by three chefs that day for the dishwasher position,” explained Araujo. “I got the job, and I started to work there… as I was finishing my degree in theology. The only thing I did was washing dishes, and I was praying, ‘Lord, what am I going to do now? I'm almost graduated. My English is getting better, but washing dishes is not the church you are asking me to plant,’ so I asked the Lord for opportunities.”

At the time, Araujo was “participating in some Facebook groups for Brazilians and Latinos and saw that people were looking for jobs.” He also saw the need for jobs in the restaurant industry. So, he became a recruiter for the restaurant in Vancouver and “hired over 20, 30 Latinos to the restaurant market.” 

“The restaurant saw my effort. They started to teach me how to cook, they promoted me to the cook line for this fancy restaurant… and I became a little bit known in the Latino community as the guy that, ‘If you need a job, you talk with him,’” said Araujo. “On my side of the restaurant, they said, ‘Raf, anybody that you send to us, we're going to hire.’ That created for me a very straightforward line… to help a lot of Brazilians and Latinos, and I started to have gospel conversations.” 

Araujo would meet his coworkers at the restaurant for “biblical debate or a political debate” and “after 1 or 2 hours debating, I would share a little bit of the Bible and slowly introducing [them to Jesus].” He said, “That's actually how Burnaby Born Again Church was born, from the kitchen of a restaurant.”

Celebrating slow and steady growth

During this time, Araujo got connected with Noe Treviño, director for the Center for Missional Engagement at Texas Baptists, and former director of the Missionary Adoption Program (MAP). 

MAP is a program that connects Texas Baptists churches with churches, associations and conventions worldwide to jointly adopt local missionaries native to those countries. These missionaries focus on evangelism, discipleship and church planting in their own context.

With MAP’s support, Araujo and his wife began hosting Burnaby Born Again Church services in a rented basement suite in Burnaby, a neighboring city to Vancouver, with “3 or 4 people because [Araujo’s] connection was the restaurant.” 

Araujo said the planting process was “very slow and very steady.” He said the most important thing to understand about church planting is that “some days nobody's going to show up.”

“I understand that the process is slow. You share your life, you earn people's trust… and they start to see in your life something that they want [and] you [share] that what we have that they want is nothing else than Christ, and you share those moments… and [then] there are a lot of nights that my wife and I prepare the coffee and actually pour all the coffee out because there's nobody to take coffee [on Sunday morning],” explained Araujo.

Araujo said rather than being discouraged, those weeks should be celebrated, and he and his wife “make sure that we show our kids that we are not disappointed.”

“[When my daughter asks], ‘Why is nobody coming?’ I say ‘We don't know, but we can pray together, and we share the message together,’” said Araujo. “My responsibility is to share the gospel, and who is bringing people is God… [so] we need to continue growing, because if we have a conviction that ‘God's leading us,’ we cannot be pressured by the numbers. We cannot be pressured by the results. We need to be led by The Word.”

Clinton Lowin, director of MAP and TXB Missionaries at Texas Baptists, commended Araujo for his focus on his family. 

“A key focus of his ministry is fostering growth through an emphasis on God-honoring marriage and family enrichment. This dedication to developing healthy families provides fertile ground for the entire church community to thrive,” said Lowin. 

MAP “set us up well to continue to do ministry”

In 2020, Burnaby Born Again Church “went from 40 people congregation to having 20 people” after many Brazilian members had to “go back to Brazil or relocate to different parts of Canada” due to COVID restrictions. 

“At that time I was also working with the North American Mission Board, and they asked me, ‘Do you want to close or what is going to be the next step?’ and [I learned in] my early stages in being a missionary in South America, [that it] is important, not just how we start but it's equally important how we finish,” explained Araujo. 

The Araujos “spent one year after we stopped doing service connecting people with some English congregations where they can serve” and be a part of “the church in Canada.” Once each of their members were connected with another church, they began to pray about where God was calling them next.

In 2022, as Araujo’s time with the North American Mission Board was coming to an end, he and his wife made the move to Calgary “with the same heart that moved us to go to Vancouver.” 

“We moved here, and we were praying ‘What now, Lord?’” said Araujo. “Being a missionary for so many years in so many different countries, that's how you operate. You take the step first, you surrender to Christ and keep asking ‘what now?’... and when we actually arrive here, then we start to understand what God called us to do here.”

Araujo said, “MAP was a big support” in helping him and his wife transition from Vancouver to Calgary and “set us up well to continue to do ministry.”  

“One thing I appreciate and I'm grateful for from MAP is they saw the Lord’s moving. They discerned with us that this change is not out of, ‘Oh, we failed here [in Vancouver],’ ‘No, actually, you succeeded here’... There are a lot of things that happened that God did, and it's time to celebrate those things,” said Araujo. 

Araujo said he is still in contact with most of Burnaby Born Again Church’s former members. 

“We still have some contact with people from Burnaby Born Again. There's still serving. They’re still growing [spiritually]. We often send a message, ‘Hey, we miss you guys, but the Lord is doing his work, and here we are able to restart again,’” said Araujos. 

Re-launching Junction Church, equipping members for ministry

Araujo said he was challenged with finding community while getting adjusted to life in Calgary. 

“One of my hobbies [is] I play a lot of board games, and I found a group in my neighborhood who plays a game I play in their basement every Friday, and I texted them, they said, ‘Yes, we taking new players, come join us,’... and I discovered in a group of 20 guys, I'm the only Christian there,” explained Araujo. “Some people do not even understand who Christ is.”

So, Araujo struck up a friendship with the group. 

“Last summer, I was able to baptize one of them, then another guy came to Christ, and that took two years [of] constantly, every week, hanging out with them and sharing the gospel there, and God did the work,” said Araujo. 

And with four members, Araujo re-launched Junction Church in 2024, after it originally closed due to COVID restrictions. 

Araujo said he still plays games with members of the church and even hosts tournaments for people from all over Calgary. 

“[Playing games has been] a big door to share the gospel with people, so that's what we keep doing,” said Araujo. “When they know that I'm a pastor and I'm beside them and we play a silly game [together], that's huge for them. Then I have their interest to continue to share the gospel.” 

He said it is important for the “church to be where people are.” 

“The way we do a Bible group or a church is not just for nonbelievers. We do church in a way that we can equip the church ‘for the work of ministry,’ as Ephesians says, because if the church is equipped now, wherever you are, you are a missionary, and you can share the gospel,” said Araujo.

Since its re-launch, Junction Church has seen eight people baptized and sees “close to 40, sometimes 50” for worship on Sunday morning. Araujo said while the church celebrates these things, he remembers that “numbers cannot be the thermometer” of how God is working.

“My big lesson that I brought from Burnaby to Calgary [is]... It's not about who did not come, it’s about who God brought in the room, and celebrating [them]. It can be two, or it can be 200, and our hearts need to be the same,” said Araujo. 

Araujo said as Junction Church continues to grow, he is now working on establishing a membership process, training some men to serve as elders and teaching pastors. He asked for prayer as this process is being developed. 

Treviño said Araujo is a “servant leader who always seeks to serve his congregation's needs.” 

“Whether it's spiritual guidance, biblical interpretation, physical needs like food or anything else [Araujo] is always ready to serve in any capacity needed,” said Treviño. “Seeing him and his family serve the people of Junction Church in Calgary is a beautiful portrait of incarnational ministry." 

To learn more about the Missionary Adoption Program and how you can support, visit txb.org/map.