Brazil: Remote Amazonian Region Experiences Revival, “In the First Six Months of This Year We Baptized 14,500 People”
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Brazil’s isolated northwest Amazon region is experiencing a remarkable spiritual revival with an unprecedented number of local residents putting their faith in Christ and new churches being planted through the missionary activity of evangelical believers, CBN News reports exclusively.
Having heard of the revival, CBN sent reporters to the Amazon River, a region of more than 6 million square miles of South America and home to 30 million Amazonians.
“The Amazon River here in the northern part of Brazil is filled with hundreds of these small tributaries that in essence snake through the jungle, and over the many years evangelical Christians have been traversing these waters in an attempt to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the Amazonian people,” the CBN team explain. “The Catholic Church held a near-monopoly in the region. Today, evangelical Christianity is reshaping the region’s spiritual fabric, leading to new converts and churches,” they said.
Missionary Josué Bengtson, pastor of the Belem Foursquare church, the first Foursquare church to be planted in the region, told CBN: “Those early days were definitely much, much more difficult than today.”
“Back when we started evangelizing in this region, we had just a few workers and, in some municipalities, pastors had to walk 10 to 15 km to open a congregation,” Bengtson added.
“In the first six months of this year we baptized 14,500 people. Our goal for this year is to baptize over 30,000 people,” Bengtson said.