John and Neila Yelle

Missionaries to Brazil

John and Neila Yelle
Missionaries to Caxias do Sul, Brazil
Status: On Furlough

Contact Infomation:
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Sending Church:
Victory Baptist Church
1311 Bankhead Drive
Weatherford, TX 76086
Pastor Rob Catuto

John and Neila have been Independent Baptist missionaries in Brazil since April 1992. They have three adult daughters, Joneia, Leila, and Katherine. Joneia and her husband, Jeremy Bennett, are working together with the Yelles in church planting and camp ministries. At age 20, John received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. In March 1987, he recognized the Lord's call on his life and surrendered to the Savior's will to be missionary. A few months later, the Lord laid it upon his heart to go to Brazil.

Neila grew up on the mission field of Brazil. She was saved as a child, and as a teen, she acknowledge the Lord's will for her to return to Brazil to work in the ministry. John graduated from the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, in December 1990. Neila is a 1987 Massillon Baptist Bible College, Massillon, Ohio graduate.

The Yelles works their first term in Manaus with Neila's parents, Joe and Elaine Hawkins. After three and a half years, the Lord directed them to Caxias do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. At that time, Caxias had a population of around 290,000, and no independent Baptist churches existed. They moved there in January 1997 and soon began their first house meetings. In 2015, the Fundamental Baptist Tabernacle became the city's first independent Baptist Brazilian church. In 2014, they began a new work by holding a weekly in-home Bible study with an unsaved family. Today, the Victory Baptist Church meets regularly four times a week in rented space. They desire to plant more churches in the region and establish a Bible Institute and a Baptist camp ministry.