The Valerio Silva United Presbyterian Church

Background: By Rev. William Rogers

The second work site was at the Igreja Presbiteriana Unida Valerio Silva. The Valerio Silva Church is in a section of Salvador called Sertanejo. The name Sertanejo refers to the peasants of the Sertáo, the semi-arid interior of Northeast Brazil. The Sertáo is famous in Brazil for its periodic droughts and its desperate sertanejos driven to the costal cities in search of water and food. Needless to say, the Valerio Silva church, like the Quilombo Zeferina, is located in one of the poor sections of Salvador. Of course, 80% of the City of Salvador is poor, so, in that sense, the Bairro Sertanejo is not that different.

Most of the little churches that ITEBA graduates serve are among the poor. And one of the objectives of these congregations and their pastors is to serve both the spiritual and physical needs of their communities (if these can be so neatly separated). The pastor of the Valerio Silva Church is a recent graduate of ITEBA named Dagoberto Santos Pereira. A simple one-room church had been built many years earlier, with the walls and roof of a second story left unfinished. The dream had been for the church to serve its community with various kinds of educational and nutritional projects, but the dream was never quite realized. So the offer from friends in the United States to come and help finish the upstairs gave the Presbytery of Salvador, and the congregation, the incentive it needed to revive the dream and build for the future.

The Valerio Silva Church would become the second work site.

Update on Valero Silva.

Work began in 2000 and continued through 2004. The renovation is now complete and, in addition to completely finished upstairs, there is now a health clinic next to the Church.