INTERVIEW | INFOR MISSIONS

Pastor Calby Paiva is a Brazilian missionary, naturalized as an American citizen, who has lived in the United States with his family for thirty years. He serves among Latino immigrants and leads important missionary and institutional initiatives.

In 2014, he founded SEMIPAN – the Pan-American Missiological Seminary; in 2018, he established the ministry Church for All Nations and the International Mediation and Arbitration Chamber (IMAC).

He is our guest today in the INFOR MISSIONS BULLETIN.

IM – Pastor Calby, thank you for your availability. To begin, how did your missionary calling beyond borders arise?

CP – First of all, I am the one who should be thankful for this excellent opportunity to share our ministry through this digital platform. I would even like a copy of this interview to publish on our mission’s website.

The answer to your question is somewhat long, but necessary.

I usually say that my missionary calling came together with my own conversion. At the age of 17, I already knew the ways of the Lord from childhood, but during my teenage years I became an orphan, losing both my father and mother. Alone in the world, I drifted away from the church.

From the age of 14, I worked as a bus fare collector in Belém, Pará, for Arsenal Transportation, with authorization from the Juvenile Court. One day, a robber boarded the bus, stole the wallet of an elderly passenger, and jumped off through the back door just as another passenger was entering. The man who was robbed, speaking with a strong rural accent and in great distress, began shouting inside the bus and accused me of being the accomplice of the criminal — a man I had not even seen, except from behind as he ran away.

Although I was completely innocent, when we returned to the place where the robbed man had gotten off — the Ver-o-Peso Market — a traffic officer believed his account and took me to the Belém Police Station. I was placed in a filthy cell, where I experienced one of the most traumatic moments of my life.

There, in a cell with 17 highly dangerous inmates, unjustly detained but imprisoned like the others, I saw things I will never forget: injured men, abused prisoners, people crawling on the floor with swollen, infected hands and feet from being beaten by investigators with paddles to force confessions. There were criminals of every kind — murderers, rapists. When I told my story to a fellow inmate, he warned me in a way that left me terrified:

“On Wednesday, the newcomers are taken to the interrogation beatings. You will be beaten badly, because they will want the name of your accomplice.”

 

At that moment, I was completely lost. Without even knowing what the real thief looked like, I saw myself condemned for something I had not done. I was working; that was my workplace. I could never control the behavior of passengers on a crowded bus.

 

That was when, quietly, I knelt in a corner of the cell and prayed a simple but sincere prayer:

 

“Lord, if You truly exist, find a way to get me out of here. If that happens, I will return to church and serve You anywhere, until the last day of my life.”

 

After 33 hours in that infernal place, my release order arrived, and I was freed in a miraculous way. Today, I can say that I am still trying to fulfill that promise.

 

IM – What a powerful testimony! And how did your release take place?

CP – I lived alone in a rented room near the bus garage of the company where I worked. At that time, there were no cell phones, and few homes had landline telephones, which made communication very difficult.

I had a sister (she passed away in October 2025 at the age of 86), a schoolteacher, who lived in another neighborhood of Belém. That day, she prepared vatapá — a traditional dish from Pará — and placed it in a lunch container for me. She asked her son, my nephew, to go to the end of the bus line to deliver it.

When he arrived and asked the company supervisor for me, he was informed that I had been arrested.

As soon as my sister learned this, she contacted a family friend, Congressman José Elias Emim, former mayor of Igarapé-Açu, who immediately sent his lawyer to the police station. After speaking with the police chief, my release order was issued at once.

IM – How God works through people to answer a crying heart…

CP – Exactly. That imprisonment was undoubtedly the worst experience of my life. And the fact that my nephew went to bring me food on that specific day — during my work shift — something that had never happened before or after, was divine providence.

Looking back today, I can say it was also the best experience. It was the pressure I needed for a genuine conversion and a serious commitment to God.

 

IM – Bringing this to the present day: what do you expect from SEMIPAN 2026?

CP – In 2015, we held SEMIPAN in Argentina and Paraguay. In 2016, in Brazil. We traveled through many cities from North to South, delivering relevant missionary content to churches. The results were extraordinary.

Many ministries awakened to missions. The ministry Church for All Nations, which has already baptized hundreds of people in the Indian Ocean, rivers, and lakes of Africa, is a direct fruit of this vision.

SEMIPAN 2026 will be different. It was designed especially for leaders of churches, conventions, and ministries involved in global evangelization. Before, SEMIPAN went to the churches; now, leaders will come to the United States to receive training, connections, and opportunities, returning to their communities as multipliers.

The meeting of leaders from different cultures and realities will provide an exchange of experiences, strategic alignment, and strengthening of global missionary work.

IM – In practical terms, what results do you expect from this gathering?

CP – I expect two fundamental results for the challenges of the last days:

First, that more people will be willing to go to the mission field.

Second, that others will commit to sustaining, supporting, and standing behind those who go.

Missions only advance when there are those who go and those who sustain

IM – How can people register to participate in SEMIPAN 2026?

CP – All organization will be handled by IMAC, which needs to know who is coming, how many will come, and what needs exist in order to provide full logistics.

Those who wish to participate, especially from other countries, are strongly encouraged to express their interest as soon as possible. This allows us to notify the U.S. consulate to facilitate visa applications, arrange hotel reservations, purchase airfare, provide arrival assistance, and offer full support.

Our goal is that every participant has a transformative and unforgettable experience at SEMIPAN 2026. All information is available at:

www.semipan.com

IM – To conclude, do you expect a large attendance?

CP – No. In the current climate, unfortunately, the topic of missions no longer excites many believers, leaders or followers. The modern religious system, which prioritizes having and despises being, works silently against missions.

However, this increases the value of those who will truly be interested — those who treat Kingdom matters as they should be treated. We do not want this event to resemble typical missions conferences, where many preachers and singers perform to “entertain” the audience with motivational messages, catchy phrases, and no real missionary strategy.

This event is not gospel entertainment. It is a meeting to define strategies to reach the ends of the earth.

It is the preparation of the Last-Hour Reapers.

For this reason, we do not prioritize quantity, but quality.

Still, if by September we are able to awaken a good number of participants with the quality we seek, that will be wonderful and very welcome.

There is room and work for everyone in the Harvest.