Carolina Selles – Serve Asia Worker

Carol is a 38-year-old Brazilian with a degree in Technology and Digital Media with a major in Art and Technology.  She has worked professionally in marketing and digital web design and is currently working as the Coordinator for Communication in a Christian NGO called Compassiva which reaches out to Syrian refugees in Brazil.  She is also studying at the theological seminary Servant of Christ in São Paulo.

Carol has a heart for mission and over recent months has become burdened for Japan.  She would very much like to use her gifts in some way to serve in Japan for up to six months.  She will be going as a Serve Asia Worker to Japan in the second half of 2023.

Carol writes: “In the second half of 2019 I started drafting a project to develop at the NGO where I work. The idea was to create bags/backpacks/accessories from discarded jiu-jitsu kimonos, as the NGO gives jiu-jitsu classes to children and teenagers in the neighbourhood. And it would be a social product that would also help in raising funds for the maintenance of the project at the NGO. 

However, as I researched handicraft techniques, design, dyeing, embroidery, the history of the kimono, the history of jiu-jitsu, I was attracted to Japan and immersing myself in the culture and solutions, and a love for this nation began to sprout in a way I had never felt before. 

I already knew some data about Japan about less than 1% of the population being Christian and many people had not even heard about Jesus, but from my research I felt (literally) God drawing me to that nation.”