Celebrating 50 Years of Miracles
conference > João Martins
Thursday
June 26, 2008
Pastor João Martins, completed a three-year degree in Theology and Christian Education in 1987, at Monte Esperanca - Bible Institute in Fanhoes - Portugal. In the same year, he started working as a counselor in Teen Challenge Rehabilitation Centre in Fanhoes, with his wife and his first born son. Some time after, he took the leadership of TC-Portugal Outreach Evangelism Team - "Operation Joshua".
In January 1991, he becames director of the first TC Crisis Rehab Center for men, in Lourel - Sintra, and in July he took the national leadership of Teen Challenge ministry in Portugal, the position he maintains until the present day.
TC-Portugal currently runs five Rehab Centers - four male centers and one female center - and one reinsertion center, two re-entry houses and 26 coffee-houses, spread throughout the country. "Operation Joshua" - Outreach Evangelism Team, works regularly with street people; drug addicts, homeless people, prostitutes and deprived children in slums. It also pays regular visits to drug addicts and terminal AIDS patients in hospitals.
Moreover, TC-Portugal operates a regular outreach ministry in prisons and primary prevention programs in public schools. Presently, TC-Portugal is actively involved, as well, in supporting the implementation of Teen Challenge ministries in African countries of Portuguese expression such as, Angola and Guinea-Bissau and in helping to re-establish Teen Challenge ministry in Spain by implementing a male rehab center in Galicia - Spain.
Besides being vice-president of Global Teen Challenge and president of FRATERNAL - a Portuguese Association of Pastors; João Martins serves, as well, as co-pastor of a church in Lisbon, as a counsellor and is currently finishing his third year of university classes for a Psychology degree.
João Martins is a well-known preacher and speaker in several conferences and Bible schools in Portugal and abroad. He's an inspired, passionate and far-sighted leader, who speaks with authenticity and stirring passion from the bottom of his heart and experience.
He and his wife, Isabel, have three children, Tiago, Marcos and João.