Fuller Group Will Head to Brazil for Seminary Celebration

Later this month, a contingent from Fuller Seminary in Pasadena will travel to Brazil to celebrate a milestone that marks a long and meaningful partnership. The event on March 21-23 will commemorate the 30th anniversary of South American Theological Seminary (SATS), founded in Londrina, Brazil, in 1994 by two Fuller graduates and now a cornerstone of theological education in Latin America.

 “We anticipate the assembly of national and international guests, united in appreciation for SATS’s contribution to nurturing men and women for God’s mission,” said Jorge Henrique Barro, general director of SATS, who co-founded the seminary with his brother, Antonio Carlos Barro. Both hold PhDs from Fuller and Antonio was honored in 2015 with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Fuller Alumni Council.

The vision for the Bazilian school began in 1989 amid conversations with noted theologian, missionary, pastor, and author Paul Pierson, dean emeritus of what was then Fuller’s School of World Mission (now part of the seminary’s School of Mission and Theology). Today, guided by the motto “Preparing lives to serve God’s Kingdom,” SATS (or Faculdade Teológica Sul Americana) has thrived, graduating approximately 5,000 students and currently educating 1,800 more. 

Those attending the March celebration from the Fuller community will be Meritt Lohr Sawyer, a member of Fuller’s Board of Trustees, and her husband, Steve; Paul Pierson’s son, Stan, and his wife, Megan; and Fuller supporters Marcel and Sylvia Pontón. Meritt Sawyer will bring greetings from Fuller Seminary as the event’s keynote speaker.

Paul Pierson, Fuller alum and former Fuller faculty member Charles Van Engen, and current faculty Amos Yong are among those who have either lectured at SATS or spoken at one of its international conferences through the years. 

Other Fuller alums who serve on the SATS faculty include Marcos Orison (PhD) and Priscila Barro and Sueli Silva (both Master of Arts graduates). In July 2023, Jorge Henrique Barro returned to Fuller’s Pasadena campus for a sabbatical at the seminary’s  Global Research Institute, where he completed significant research for his book, The Mission of God as a Paradigm of Pastoral Ministry.

He recently expressed gratitude for Fuller’s partnership during the past three decades. “Our heartfelt thanks are extended to Fuller for its critical role in our journey, providing a nurturing environment for our aspirations to take root and flourish.”

For more information on SATS, visit https://satsbrazil.org (English) or https://ftsa.edu.br (Portuguese).

Fuller Theological Seminary was founded in Pasadena in 1947 in Pasadena, California, by Charles E. Fuller, a prominent radio evangelist known for his program “The Old Fashioned Revival Hour,” and Harold John Ockenga, a pastor and theologian from Boston’s Park Street Church. The vision for the seminary was to create a school on the West Coast that would train evangelists and missionaries, as well as pastors who were intellectually sound, culturally attuned, and solidly evangelical

Today Fuller is one of the largest multidenominational seminaries in the world with a global enrollment of more than 3,000 students in its master’s and doctoral programs.