For the last twenty-five years, Jan and I personally and our ministry, Family Foundations International (FFI), have been working together with Jorge and Marcia Nishimura, their extended family, and the ministry they founded, University of the Family (UDF) towards the goal of transforming the nation of Brazil. Over these years of partnership, I have observed what I consider to be a very unique transformational process taking place within the extended Nishimura family, their family-owned company, The Jacto Group, and the small town of 22,000 in which they reside, Pompeia, S.P., Brazil. The result of this process is that this one entrepreneurial family is creating a transformational model impacting all 7 cultural spheres of influence in society within their community that potentially could be duplicated in many towns and cities throughout Brazil—and perhaps in the communities of many other nations as well.

While I have attended many Christian conferences on city transformation, I have found very few Christians who are actually transforming a city by taking leadership and investing resources in the infrastructure of these seven key spheres which impact the entire ecosystem of the city. In Pompeia, Brazil, however, the Nishimura family, in partnership with others, is doing exactly this.

The more common model I have observed among Kingdom-minded entrepreneurial business families is that they operate businesses that generate a profit and then contribute substantial portions of that profit to ministries doing Kingdom work through donor advised funds or other charitable vehicles. This is an awesome model of business that I greatly applaud and encourage!

However, an alternate model that the Nishimura family has chosen is to operate a businessthat generates a profit and then to use substantial portions of that profit to invest directly in the ecosystem of their city, thereby becoming prime influencers in all seven spheres of influence in their city. Their goal is to create the best small city in Brazil by year 2038, the centennial anniversary of the founding of the city. This, then, creates a model that can be easily duplicated in other cities throughout the nation of Brazil.
A unique aspect of the positive impact we are having upon the city of Pompeia, Brazil, in partnership with the Nishimura family, has to do with the Nishimuras’ servant leadership in humility, vulnerability, and a willingness to allow God to do a deep spiritual and emotional work in them individually and as a family first—before they try to impact others in the city.

The first ministry course that we (FFI) brought to Brazil through UDF was a course called “Ancient Paths” (Jeremiah 6:16) through which, in a safe environment, we expose deep emotional childhood wounds in individuals and families that many times result in self-sabotage and relational conflict or tension in adult family, church, and business life. For the first decade, we trained leaders and multiplied this course through UDF to many churches throughout Brazil.

Then in 2007, Jorge Nishimura realized that, while we were helping thousands of families in churches around Brazil through the ministry of UDF, his own extended family, including three generations of about 45 people, was experiencing much emotional wounding and relational conflict themselves, without effective solutions. That was when Jorge asked me if I thought we could bring a similar healing process to the extended Nishimura family as we had been offering to church families through the Ancient Paths course. Part of the concern in our first family meeting was that many of the family members were not yet committed followers of Christ, and our process within the Ancient Paths course entails much prayer and presentation of Bible scriptures and concepts.

However, much to our delight, we discovered that, when presented the opportunities for prayer and repentance without pressure, no one in the family was opposed to prayer and help from God. In that first family meeting in 2007, we saw tremendous personal emotional healing, repentance, apologies to each other, profound forgiveness, and reconciliation of relationship between second generation brothers and also between parents and children.

We began to introduce the concept of generational blessing with profound affect. One deeply moving part of this first meeting was when 97-year-old, first generation patriarch, Shunji Nishimura, was able to give his blessing to his sons in the second generation for the first time in their history. The entire family was then able to bless, thank, and pray for Mr. Nishimura in response. He not long afterwards passed away in 2010.

This first family meeting of this type was so successful that I was invited to continue similar meetings with the extended Nishimura family every couple of years. In each meeting, I have observed the members of this family becoming more open and more vulnerable with each other. In 2013, I introduced the idea of creating a very simple “relational covenant,” detailing how the family members agree to treat each other and the prescribed remedy when someone breaks the relational covenant. This agreement has proven to be very effective in helping the family to deal with any ongoing emotional or relational conflicts that have arisen.

Of course, there have also been many other consultants with other emphases that the Nishimura family has worked with in developing their family and business generational legacy strategy and protocols.

However, three or four years ago, Jorge and his niece Alessandra Nishimura requested that I conduct the same sort of “Ancient Paths” style emotional and relational healing seminar for the Jacto Group top corporate executives and their families. Initially some of these executives were quite skeptical about the potential spiritual nature of this company event, since many of them were not committed believers. However, because of the humility, transparency, and servant leadership of the Nishimura family in having already embraced this process themselves, the corporate executives were willing to attend the weekend retreat with their families.

This retreat was met with tremendous results in reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing within the families of the Jacto Group top executives. In his description below, Jorge has outlined how this same “Ancient Paths” type of ministry has now spread to many levels within the company and then out to the surrounding community through the various vehicles the Nishimura family has created.

I have observed two key transformational principles the members of the Nishimura family have followed that are resulting in their city being truly changed:

1. Allowing God to first heal and transform one’s own life and family first before trying to impact others.

2. Implementing long-term consistency of purpose, vision, and investment.

Proverbs 10:17 in the Amplified Bible tells us: “He who heeds instruction and correction is (not only himself, in the way of life, (but also) is a way of life for others. And he who neglects or refuses reproof (not only himself) goes astray, (but also) causes to err and is a path toward ruin for others.”

Over the last 25 years, the members of the Nishimura family have consistently gone before others to allow the Lord to bring healing and transformation to their own lives and family relationships first. They have not just initiated projects to improve their city and invested money in them, but rather, they have become involved personally in consistently leading through example. In addition, they have continued to lead and perpetuate the initiatives they have begun with consistent effort and investment for over 25 years.

The practical outworking of this one Brazilian entrepreneurial business family working together with a North American Christian ministry to create a culture of blessing, first in their own family and then in the community, is now resulting in a transformational prototype in which all 7 spheres of society are being positively impacted within the ecosystem of the city. This model of transformation may then be duplicated in many cities throughout Brazil and elsewhere.

By Craig Hill, Littleton, Colorado, U.S.A.

——

The remainder of this white paper is written by Jorge Nishimura.

As we move forward with the dream of transforming Pompeia into one of the best small cities in Brazil, we are discovering that there are still extremely relevant areas that were not on our radars. The 7 areas of influence—family, church, business, education, arts and entertainment, media, and government—are evolving, some faster and others slower, but I think we need to improve. And one of the things we are discovering, which was not clearly on our radar, and which strongly impacts people’s growth potential, is what the market calls soft skills.

Craig Hill had previously observed, as a church pastor, that there were members in his congregation who absorbed his teachings and grew spiritually while other members, who received the same teaching, remained stagnant. Why did this happen? In search of understanding, Craig found that the members who were stagnant were those who carried deep conflicts in their inner lives that needed to be addressed. These people, unfortunately, were unable to reach higher levels in their faith, in their professions, and also in their family lives.

People who carry deep conflicts in their inner lives that lead to stagnation need to find emotional/spiritual balance in order to grow again.

There are many fronts that need to be developed in order to transform our small city into an excellent city. But I will focus in this White Paper on the subject of the emotional/spiritual balance that has gradually transformed our community.

What I am going to share can be illustrated by the drop of water that, when falling on the surface of a standing water tank, forms a series of ripples emanating outward from the center.

The first ripple formed reached pastors and leaders of our local church. The impact was so profound that we were encouraged to take this revelational teaching to others.

The second ripple was taken by the University of the Family to thousands of churches across the country. More than 300,000 people have participated in and been blessed by the FFI “Veredas Antigas” or “Ancient Paths” course.

The third ripple was an attempt to bring relationships back to our entrepreneurial family. For a variety of reasons, members of the second generation of the Nishimura family had experienced deep personal conflicts, and through the ministry of Craig Hill, hurts, wounds, and pains were brought to the surface and healed. The family environment has improved a lot, breaking with the emotional/spiritual stagnation that hindered the development of our entrepreneurial family.

The fourth ripple was the desire of our business family to offer employees and their families lessons that had blessed us so much. Through the creation of the Chieko Nishimura Family Development Institute, we started offering free courses and seminars on various topics related to family strengthening. And one of the most sought-after seminars has been about internal conflicts.

The fifth ripple was the identification that our top managers were also in need of checking their emotional/spiritual balance. That’s why we invited executives and their families to spend a weekend at a resort being taught by Craig Hill. According to the testimony of one of the executives, that weekend had been the best gift he had received from the company.

The sixth ripple is starting this year. In February 2021, we signed a partnership agreement between The Family Institute (IDF) and the municipal government of Pompeii to bring the transforming principles of the Word of God to municipal schools, the social and family protection network, and the public health network.

I have a dream to see the transformation of Brazil. And the way that seems most reasonable for me to contribute to this is to develop an experimental laboratory in Pompeia that, if it works, could serve as inspiration for transformation in other cities in our immense country.

By Jorge Nishimura, Pompeia, S.P., Brazil

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

Toward Creating a Prototype for City Transformation

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