Maria Emmir Oquendo Nogueira is the co-founder and responsible for all the teachings in the Shalom Catholic Community.
Emmir is married and has four children. She was born in Fortaleza (Brazil). She has lived in Rio de Janeiro since she was 5 until her twenties. Her education was given by the Lourdine and Ursoline sisters, as well as in a university of Jesuit priests. When she came back to Fortaleza she undergraduated in Literature and Linguistics and specialized in the teaching of English for foreigner students, linguistics and phonetics, as the “extended student” of Michigan University.
She belongs to a catholic family and has never been apart from their faith. Nevertheless, right after her married in 1973, she only lived her faith on Sundays. Until 1976 when she was inveted by her husband, Sérgio Nogueira, to make a short course about christianity. In 1977 both of them made the Seminar of Life in the Holy Spirit and they started to support the young people in the diocese of Fortaleza
Her personal experience with God got her to love praying, the word of God and the poor ones. She got close of the jesuit father Felipe Prévost who became her spiritual director. She also got close of Father Caetano Minette de Tilesse, he was a theologian of the Charismatic renewal. He was known due to his work among the poor ones in the Cristo Redentor neighborhood, in Fortaleza. In that neighborhood, Emmir worked with the poor ones and learned to open herself to the charismas of the Holy Spirit.
In 1978 she met Moysés Azevedo in the apostolate with the young. They became big friends and united by the love of God. Later they would be inspired by God to establish the Shalom Catholic Community. They had the dream of evangelize the young for the Glory of God. In 1986, she joined the Shalom Life Community and made her final promisses in 2012.
She is the author of many spiritual articles, books, biblical studies and human formation. Great part of her time is dedicated to the teaching through media, preachings and conferences in Brazil and other countries. She lives in Aquiraz, at Diaconia, where she works with all the teachings inside the Community.