Bennie and Theresa DeMerchant
Bennie DeMerchant, left NB Canada for Saint Paul, MN in 1959 where he acquired his private pilot license, married Theresa Shomberg a Bible school techer from Wisconsin and graduated from ABI. After a short three year pastoral stage in New Brunswick they arrived as UPCI missionaries in Manaus, capital of the huge Amazon state in northern Brazil in 1965 where they live to present. Bennie combines evangelism tools of a Cessna 172 and 206 single engine seaplanes kept in a floating hangar in a lake off the Amazon near Manaus with a fleet of wooden boats, aluminum canoes, portable cement block forms and trained workers to plant churches in the Amazon cities, towns, villages, islands, lakes and among Indian tribes. A UPC convention Center has been built in East Manaus that acomodates up to seven thousand people for special events. Theresa DeMerchant, national director of Bible schools, coordinates the work of translating, printing and curriculum for 65 Bible school locations with 204 teachers, 1,121 registered 2-year students, and 4,500 alumni. This vital training work has been liberally supported by Ladies Ministries of UPCI since 1972. Many trained youth have left these schools to open up new works in many towns. DeMerchant was elected Bishop of the UPC of Brazil in 1989 presently with 32 districts and 1,200 churches and congregations. About 750 churches are in the Amazon Basin, the northern half of Brazil, a hot equatorial zone equivalent to the area of the USA east of the Mississippi River. Most áreas have no roads. The natural road is the rivers to many places reached in days by boats otherwise only reached by air. Full Throttle, (a Pentecostal Publishing House publication) records their adventures, challenges and fears in flying thousands of hours to open the worlds largest rain forest area for His kingdom.