Chapter 01 – The Beginnings

The history of Leaders for the Nations Institute began in June, 2003, when I was in Haggai Institute Training in Advanced Leadership, in Maui, Hawaii. Although I had thought before in equipping teenagers or youth, that was the first time I strongly made a commitment to fulfill this vision. I can remember the table where I was when I wrote this goal. It was in the same place we used to have the coffee-breaks during the lectures. It was about 10 p.m. and a Brazilian friend took a picture of me at that moment.
When I returned to Brazil, after 30 days abroad, I started immediately to share the vision and, then, to lapidate it. The first person to join me was Raimundo Nunes Cardoso, a commercial pilot of Boeings. The second one was Leonardo Oliveira, a marketer young man. I had also the sympathy of my pastors of the Praia do Canto Baptist Church, in Vitória/ES, Francisco Mecenas and Usiel Carneiro.
I had written in one page a short description of the project and used to send it to friends. The purpose of the Institute would be to train young Christian leaders to become great leaders in their nations.
In the first twelve months we went a lot of times to the place where we wanted to build the headquarters of the Institute, in Pedra Azul (Blue Rock), a village in the mountains, far one and a half hour by car from the capital of the Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit) state, Vitória (Victory), where I live. We used to go there in order to look for a special land for the Institute.
After that both of my friends had struggles in their professional lives that forced them to take a break in our efforts toward the Institute.
During this time, while I was doing a discipleship training of 3 months, I had a dream. In this dream I saw a lot of sepultures in a place beside what seemed to be a great lake, or the ocean. In my dream I knew it was near of India. All the sepultures were with no cross. In my opinion, that dream seemed to show that people were dying without Christ, and we need to start the Institute in order to prepare more Christian leaders to carry on the gospel to their nations. I shared the dream with my teachers, Eugênia and Oseás. 
For the first time, in April, 2006, I invited 15 friends with whom I had shared the vision to meet in Pedra Azul, in order to start the Institute. Eight of them were there and we signed this commitment:

“We make the commitment to, guided by the Holy Spirit of God, make efforts to start the Leaders for the Nations Institute, a non profit organization, whose purpose will be equip young Christian leaders from all nations in order to them to become great leaders in their countries and in the world.”
Pedra Azul – Domingos Martins/ES – Brazil, April, 21st 2006.

 The following signed this document: Alcino Santos, Cláudio Baiense, Cláudio Melin, Edmilson Júnior, Jeferson Won Rondon, Marcelo de Deus, Raimundo Nunes Cardoso e Rodrigo Marçal. We established three teams: Legal arrangements, Web-site and Land acquisition. Now, the statute is ready for the Meeting of Constitution of the LNI, the site is almost ready to be launched and the Land is subject of the next chapter.

Chapter 02 – Buying the Promise Land

We have at least three people that were not in Pedra Azul to sign that document but are also founders of the Institute: Leonardo Oliveira, Usiel Carneiro e Oséas Oliveira. The last one joined us in a curious way. He was looking for a land in the Pedra Azul region. Then, he found himself walking in a specific land that, he didn’t know, we were trying to buy. The owner said to him: look for a person in Vitória who is trying to buy a part of this land, his name is Jeferson and he is from the Baptist Church in Praia do Canto. So, Oséas remember that I had already shared the vision of the Institute with him. He called me and I confirm that we were talking about buying that land. We met, and he joined the team that was responsible for buy the land. We became four: I, Cláudio Baiense, Nunes Cardoso and Oséas Oliveira.
And it was just Oséas that finally found the land that we eventually bought. We were almost making a purpose to the owner of the other land, near a little hotel called Aargau, when, in a Sunday after the service in church, we received a call from Oséas. He told us he was in the Mountain of the Lord, in Pedra Azul, in a land much better than the one we were seeing. At that same afternoon we got there and we had the same feeling.
When I came back home, I went to the church getting there when the night service had already started. I talked at the door with pastor Mecenas about the land and that we heard there that the owner of that “mountain of the Lord” was attending our church. Then, he pointed a man inside the temple who could be the owner. I went there and confirmed: he was the owner! What a strange and fast way God uses!
In that week we met Guilherme Theodoro, the owner. I frankly told him about the Institute and that we didn’t have the money to buy his land! Certainly he thought: I’m loosing my time with this crazy guy. But I also told him that we had a plan. We would divide the land in two: one for the LNI and the other for a number of people that wanted to have a land in Pedra Azul region. And the selling of the lands for that people would pay for the entire area.
We had almost two months of negotiations about the price and then we had an agreement to buy the land in 45 days, or to give up. Then we started to make a lot of arrangements in order to offer the lands for the potential buyers. We spent our own money in these arrangements, risking loosing it if the acquisition didn’t go to a happy end. We had 45 days of great work and stress but we succeed!
Four months after the meeting of April 21st we have already a wonderful land with an amazing sight of Pedra Azul Rock, and the Institute hasn’t spent even a penny. God blessed us in such a way that we had also a profit of about US$ 35.000 with the strategy we used to buy the land. This money will be used to start the first actions of the Institute in fund raising and we plan to transform it in US$ 450.000 to build the auditorium.
 To God all the Glory!!!
 
Jeferson Won Rondon de Souza, Sep 07th 2006.