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 May 2026

Working with the whole family together is something we try to do in Peixinhos, particularly on our Family Day. This time we took 17 families to the beach and they all had great fun! 

Each family had been given the material to make their own family kite beforehand. So, at the beach we had kite competitions which went down well. We also had a competition of learning a memory verse. The idea was that each member of the family had to participate in memorising the verse. The prize for this was a huge food-basket of food for a whole month. All the volunteers including our teenager volunteers, some of whom have part-time jobs had pitched in putting this together.

The family that won was that of Wilka and her husband with her 3 children (some of you may remember Wilka as one of our young teenagers many years ago when we were able to put her on a manicure course.) It was a great encouragement to see them manage this challenge and work together as a family.

During the month of May there are plans for training sessions with the Sunday school teachers and practices for John the Baptist day evangelistic events both in Peixinhos and Beberibe. The evangelistic events in the street hope to be held in June. We hope to use the story of Mary Jones and how she valued the importance of having a Bible to treasure in her heart. Our main verse is Psalm 119:11 with the theme being that of treasuring, hiding, guarding God’s Word in our hearts and what this means. 

The Reading in the Park, is encouraging and Peixinhos hope to start the Reading Room activities in May with reaching out to another group of children. As the majority of the Good News Club children now attend ‘Escola Integral’ which means that they are in school all day from 7:30am until 6pm. Peixinhos volunteers hope to start the Reading Room activities with a new group of children who have not enrolled in ‘All day school.’

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 the Family Day event.
• Please continue to pray for all the training sessions with the Sunday school teachers and volunteers.
• Please pray for the Reading Room activities as we take on a new group of children from the favela community.
• Pray that God would continue to work in the lives of the 20 folks who come to the Coffee with God Bible study.