Danny & Emili Parmelee
Southern Cone Initiative, South America
Shortly after coming to Christ in college, I was given the opportunity to be part of a short term missions trip to Fortaleza, Brasil. While we accomplished many things on this four week summer project, the biggest impact was on my own life. It was in Brasil, at age 19, that I felt God calling me to full-time ministry. I returned to campus with a fire in my heart for the Lord, but also a clear call to prepare myself for lifelong vocational service to Jesus.
During college, God clarified my call to church planting. After graduation, Emili and I got married, and moved to St.Paul for me to attend Seminary. After completing my M.Div we moved to Milwaukee, WI to plant what would become epikos church. What started in our living room in 2004 grew to a multiethnic, multi-site church with over 2,000 people. I also remained engaged in helping plant churches locally and regionally with Converge. In 2017, I transitioned from lead pastor of epikos to the Vice President of Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica. This is my full time job to help raise up, train, and deploy church planters in MI, IL, IN, MO, KY, TN, AR.
Since that first missions trip, I was able to return to Brasil two more times. I love Brasilian people and the culture is amazing. In 2019 I’ve been given an amazing opportunity to combine my knowledge of church planting and passion for gospel advancement in Brasil. I will be the stateside team leader of Converge's Southern Cone Initiative. The Southern Cone Initiative is Converge’s church planting movement that focuses on metropolitan cities in Southern Brasil, Argentina, and Uruguay that have a population over 1 million. I will come alongside our Converge missionaries, sharing with them best practices in church planting. I will also be traveling to Brasil to help train and equip Brasilian church planters and coach them remotely using video conferencing. Another exciting part of this role is to help mobilize churches in the US to play a part in this movement. Your support helps to cover travel costs, translation of materials, coaching and training expenses, along with technology to coach remotely. Even small monthly gifts go a long way.