In the mid-80's, a group of young people wanted to make a dream become a reality: expressing the love of God in a cheerful and creative manner. In this group, there was a designer - Márcia D'Haese - who used to draw a little ant to decorate her notebooks. There was also a young man who had a gift to write - Carlos Tadeu. And many other people offered to help creating the first stories.

They first named the little ant "Zecao" (Big Joe), but soon the group found it was a very strong name for such a small and fragile creature. Then, they suggested the name "Smilinguido" in order to remark the fact that, besides being small and fragile, it could be an instrument through which God could show His power and sovereignity. Because the power of God "is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12.9).

That's how the character and his name were created. Since that day, many important events have occurred. Among then we can remark when this ministry was incorporated with Luz e Vida Publishing House (1989). From then on all the products that were created have been under the supervision of this publishing house.

Although more than twenty years have been gone, all the people who took part in the creation of the character and the distribution of the products (more than eighty today) have a commitment to Christian faith and dedicate themselves and put all their efforts into the mission of drawing people near to God.

Altough God doesn't work anything so small and fragile, it was Lord Jesus who called Saul of Tarsus and changed his name to Paul (small) in order to use this man to be a blessing to many people (Acts 9) and write most of the New Testament.

Smilinguido represents human fragility and reminds us that man can do nothing without God: "for apart from me ye can do nothing" (Jn. 15:5).