Email: gotm@accm.org

Brent Freeman grew up on a farm near Mansfield, Ohio, attending church but never hearing the gospel story. In his junior year of high school, they moved to another town, switched churches and Brent heard the story of Jesus - saving grace. It wasn't until his first year in college that he committed his life to Jesus. In pre-med. classes, he was confronted with the issue of evolution verses creation. He studied the scriptures on his own and was also influenced by Christian friends who led him to a new life in Jesus. He finished a degree in Zoology and went to seminary at Grace Brethren College in Warsaw, IN. There he met Debbie.

Debbie grew up with a God fearing mother and gave her life to Jesus at an early age at crusade that was in their hometown of Johnstown, PA. After high school, she became a Registered Nurse and then left her hometown to get her degree at Grace Brethren College. She married Brent in 1977 and both graduated a year later. They returned to the family farm in Ohio. Now Brent's brothers were milking 120 head of Holsteins. It was Debbie's dream to live on a farm. Brent bought her a pair of big yellow boots so she could get involved. She got her chance the first night they stayed there and the cows got out. She awoke quickly, put on her new boots and went out ready to fetch the cows. The cows were on the other side of a particularly sloppy part of the cow lot. Debbie was selected to go through it because of her new boots!

While living at the farm they were involved in a Bible study with Jim Haring from the Ontario Apostolic Christian Church and they started to attend that fellowship. After being in that church for about three months they heard of the need for a couple with training in agriculture/medicine/seminary for the medical boat ministry at PAZ. It fit them to a "t". Prior to arriving there they helped temporarily at the Nepomuceno Boy's Home, as the administrators returned to the USA. They were there from 1987-1990. They spent one year with PAZ on the Amazon and then they moved to a town in northeast Brazil about sixty miles from the Atlantic Ocean and founded Green Olive Tree Missions (GOTM) in late 1992.

GOTM is an educational ministry raising up Christian workers who are especially grounded in the areas of the Christian home and Christian parenting. There have been many facets to their ministry over the years including agricultural extension work, addressing health and nutrition needs, and literacy training for poor adults and their children. All of these educational endeavors are taught in conjunction with the chronological study of the Bible.

For the past few years, their primary focus has been on two ministries. The first and foremost is the permanent child-care of displaced children who are reared in a family setting along with the Freemans - other children. They have ten "foster children", age two to fifteen, who are being discipled in the things of the Lord, along with their own eight children (four by birth and four by adoption), age eight to twenty-one. Several of the children have special needs. All of them are homeschooled. The goal is to see these "arrows" (Ps 127:4,5) develop, strong and balanced, and be shot out straight and true into the Lord's service, as they grow into maturity.

The second aspect of the Freemans - ministry began in 1998 when they started a primary school for children from disadvantaged homes in the surrounding area. The Freemans believe that the Scriptures place the responsibility for rearing and educating children on the parents. To this end, the mission school seeks to equip the parents of these children to take on more of their God-given responsibilities, as they are able to do so. This is done, in part, by requiring the involvement of the parents in school activities in exchange for the costs of the children's education.

The school families attend a weekly class in which they are taught the Scriptures, as well as some fundamentals of reading and writing. Mothers take daily turns helping the classroom, preparing school lunches, and cleaning the facilities after school. This gives ample opportunity for parents to see firsthand exactly what their children are learning. It also enables the mission to give these parents training in hygiene and nutrition, and to give advice on loving discipline. In a statement that could be applied to GOTM as a whole, Brent and Debbie say "our desire is to closely shepherd the families of each of our students with the ultimate goal of bringing them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ."

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