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Biography
Bennie
DeMerchant was born near Perth-Andover, NB, Canada and felt the pull
towards missions as a small Junior class Sunday school boy and started
flying lessons in high school. Theresa Shomberg from Madison, Wisconsin
felt called to Brazil at seventeen years of age. They are graduates of
ABI, Saint Paul, Minnesota where Theresa taught five years and Brother
DeMerchant later got his instrument flight rating.
They were married in 1961 by the late S.
G. Norris, ministered three years in Atlantic District and appointed to
Brazil in 1964. After using commercial boats for first term in travel
to Amazon river towns, Sheaves for Christ helped Brother DeMerchant
acquire a Cessna floatplane in 1970 which he flew from Minnesota to
Manaus in ten days and took the Name of Jesus into the world's largest
jungle, the huge Amazon rainforest, an area equivalent to half of the
USA. This area now has about 600 churches and preaching points, divided
into eleven districts with 460 ministers and hundreds of workers. Bro.
DeMerchant has literally sat in airplanes two years of his life flying
in Brazil and is the field superintendent. The DeMerchants have two
daughters. Beth helps her husband George Sievers pastor a UPC in
Dublin, Texas and teaches Special Ed. Pamela DeMerchant is a computer
programmer and attends Royalwood Pentecostal Church, Houston, Texas.
The DeMerchants home city has over 100
UPCs that started in their living room in 1966. After a painfull bone
cancer disease claimed the life of their sixteen year-old son Bennie
Jr. in 1992, the Ladies Ministries helped Sister DeMerchant start a
Bible school in a local church near their home. In 1998 a larger Bible
school was built to accommodate up to 300 students. They strongly
believe in training and sending good men to teach and preach in new
areas. Last year 22,000 Bible school text books were printed to
accommodate many trained teachers and families sent out into new areas
to help start Bible schools. Trained men are long-term key to revival
and solid growth. Brazil sent regional missionaries to Mozambique and
Portugal to help in training in these Portuguese nations. Sis Theresa
is the national Director of the Bible Schools in Brazil with with fifty
five Bible schools and 800 students in Northern Brazil. After forty
years of labor facing fiery trials and problems, how tremendous to see
the hand of God give the increase. (I Cor. 15:58).
Birthdays
Bennie: 31 January, Theresa: 20 December
Anniversary
22 July
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