 Brazil Mission 2007
by Peter Cavanna
Week One: Miracles in Minas Gerais
November 2007. My three week visit to Brazil was truly wonderful, with literally hundreds of testimonies of healings and many who came to know Christ as their Saviour. The first state of Brazil I visited was Minas Gerais, where I was privileged to share the good news about Jesus in seven different cities over seven nights. Here is a summary of what happened.
The first miracle I witnessed in Brazil was a weakened lady who began to walk in Jesus' Name. This was in the city of Uberlandia, where fifteen precious souls came to the Lord, including a drug addict. The next evening, a further ten people accepted Jesus in the smaller city of Uberaba. This was a wonderful meeting, as my interpreter and I prayed for large numbers of people and it seemed like everyone (who could be tested) was healed, for around ninety minutes - something like thirty people. Another frail lady walked unaided on the platform, much to the thrill of everyone, while another testified that her stomach growth had vanished while I had been preaching. Someone with back pain was cured while they were waiting to receive ministry, while others were set free from migraines, cancer, and ear problems. Many were being healed as families, which was so wonderful. I prayed for the sick for three hours, from 9.30 pm until 12.30 pm.
The third evening I visited Conceicao das Alagoas, to preach in the sports' stadium for a combined Baptist/Methodist crusade. This was a difficult meeting, not just because of the heat and the strange flying insects (!), but because of the large numbers of people who wanted prayer (perhaps more than a hundred). It was almost impossible to minister to so many people, and it made me re-evaulate the egotistical desire to preach to large crowds! Around five people came to Jesus as Saviour and there were certainly half a dozen or more healing testimonies. In the midst of all this, a mother asked for prayer for her little girl who was stone deaf. As I prayed for her in the crowd, the girl began to smile and signed to her mother that she could now hear! Of course, I would love to have been able to verify this properly but there were so many people, it was not possible. Who knows what Jesus did there?
On the fourth evening, I made a brief but thrilling visit to the city of Araxa (pronounced Ara-sha). This was a church that had a special touch of God upon it and was one of my favourite meetings in Brazil. Six hundred people were present and the service went out live on the internet to the city, and I was conscious of that while speaking. In the church, ten people came forward to be saved, including young people, which was so thrilling. But then the miracles began! Wow - the healings in Araxa were almost inumerable to report. Did almost everybody get healed that night? Maybe! Around twenty testified to being cured of back pain before I began preaching, and as my interpreter and I went down the healing line at the end, it was difficult to find someone who was not healed - hallelujah! A girl who was deaf in one ear received her hearing back, while a man who was blind in one eye began to regain his vision. Lots of children were healed in this meeting too. As I left the service to get on a 11.25pm bus to go to the next city, I felt that I had experienced one of the greatest manifestations of healing so far in the ministry.
Arriving in Ubaporanga, the local churches had hired a large High School yard as the venue for the service. A brilliant Brazillian Christian "pop group" preceeded my time in the pulpit. This meeting did not have quite the strength of the previous ones, but it was an awesome privilege to share the Gospel with hundreds of people on a hot Saturday evening, large numbers of whom were not saved. God was faithful to save three precious souls and then to stretch out His hand to heal at least twenty people, who were able to give live testimony to the goodness of Jesus. Some were healed in their seats by he Holy Spirit. There was a "festival/party" atmosphere at this meeting, and so once I had finished preaching, the people returned to their socialising and eating. At the front, it was good to continue to pray for the sick people, quietly and with no show. After the chaos at Conceicao, it was helpful that out of the multiple hundreds of people present, only a small number came for prayer! Jesus was faithful to heal many of them.
The sixth evening and meeting was a Sunday night, and Ebenezar Baptist church in Contagem, Belo Horizonte was packed out. It was a night of awesome miracles, quite comparable to Araxa! I had a truly excellent interpreter here as well and he told me that he had not seen this many miracles before in Brazil. A blind woman began to see again and was able to grab the interpreter's finger to demonstrate what was happening. A number of people were healed before I began preaching. A lady who had suffered a stroke recovered right in front of us and began to move her arm again freely, glory to God. The healings went on for hours, and fifteen people gave their hearts to the Lord Jesus.
My final meeting in Minas Gerais was in the city of Ipatinga. This service was a challenge for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was getting very tired and the temperature was 32 degrees in the meeting, not helpful when weaing a thick suit! Secondly, I was a little unnerved by the confession of my interpreter as we drove to the meeting that he wasn't a committed Christian! I wondered how it would work out, as the interpreters and I had worked as a team before. However, these problems made me want to press in to see something wonderful happen. And it did. The Lord opened the ear of a deaf man once again. He testified that he has been deaf in the single ear for twenty-eight ears, and it was an indisputable miracle of Christ. I wonder what my interpreter made of that? Three teenager lads came to know Jesus as Saviour and the miracles continued. The pastor's wife had been suffering with pain throughout her body for years, helped only by very expensive medicine. Jesus healed her and everyone was so excited. Another lady came for prayer, and had come for prayer seven times during the week. On this seventh time, the Lord touched her and she went home free, a good lesson in perseverance and a reminder of Naaman, an Old Testament story I mentioned regularly in my meetings. There were probably twelve testimonies of healing and I left Ipatinga rejoicing, although exhausted. Tomorrow, I would go to another state and so an aeroplane journey across Brazil was ahead. It had been an amazing week. What would the Lord do in Mato Grosso?
Week Two: Miracles in Mato Grosso
I met South African James Petrossian in Belo Horizonte airport as we were both flying to Mato Grosso to continue holding crusade meetings in Brazil. James is a bold evangelist with a good anointing and we engaged a man in the airport lounge and prayed for his injured leg. Leaving James, I arrived at Cuiaba airport late on Tuesday afternoon, in readiness for the evening meeting there in the city of Varzea Grande. This was a smaller meeting and we experienced a short power cut during my sermon. In the dark, my interpreter and I lifted our voices and discovered that the Holy Spirit was not short of power, even if we yearned for those cooling fans to start moving again! There were a number of back healings and a lady with bad knees was healed and began running around. My lasting memory of Varzea Grande is the look on the teenagers' faces as they witnessed a stroke victim receive God's touch: healed right in front of their eyes. I won't forget their look of thrill and shock in a hurry - I was pretty stunned myself! One young man committed himself to Jesus as Saviour that night too.
Leaving Cuiaba, I flew again to another city: Campo Grande. It was raining there and reminded me of England. The pastor's packed in as he came to get me from the airport, and I tried to "bump start" it by pushing the car through Campo Grande's rainy city streets. Well, I came to serve! I only just made it to the meeting in time. This was again a smaller crowd (maybe two hundred and fifty people) in a Quadrangular Church - a denomination descended from the American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. This was a more performance orientated service - the miracles occured by calling people onto the platform, and some were "slain in the Spirit"; which was unusual in my experience for Brazil. Sadly, no-one was saved in this meeting, although maybe they were all Christians present.
I left Campo Grande to take the overnight bus to Rondonopolis. The meeting there was wonderful, a little taste of how things had been back in Minas Gerais. There were lots of people healed early in the service. One lady was a rich blessing - she came for prayer for her knees and she was healed at my word of command, but in some shock and disbelief, she almost fainted into her friends' arms as she realised that a miracle had happened in her body. It encouraged me that even when there is doubt, God can still move! Another man came and asked for a blessing. He was knocked down and began speaking in other tongues, much to the amazement and delight of my interpreter. People in this city began to feel "fire" in their bodies. One girl was thrilled as Jesus healed her painful thigh, while another was cured of a permenant state of dizziness. Two came forward to committ themselves to Christ as Saviour.
The following morning, I was picked up at 5.30am and took a twelve hour journey by bus to Pontes e Lacerda. This journey seemed to go on forever and this was undoubtedly my most fatigued time in Brazil. At Pontes, I literally held on to the pulpit at times, for fear that I was going to faint! But the church was great - a full house, and there must have been around twenty testimonies to healing, largely related to freedom from pain or immobility, with four people responding to the Gospel message too. I was amazed at the numbers of children/young teens who were actively involved in the worship in the service. It was a long way to travel, but there was a fire burning there. There is revival at the uttermost parts of the earth!
Once again, I caught a 5am bus and began another twelve hour journey to my next destination: Lucas do Rio Verde. In this city I saw more back healings than ever before, with no less than nine people saved too! Hallelujah! In this meeting, a little girl was healed of deafness and pain in one of her ears, while many testified to cures from arthritic knees. Others began to experience some partial liberty, their healings not being completed then and there. The meeting concluded long after midnight and I was led outside to join the barbeque party going on outside!
The city of Sorriso was also a blessing. Seventeen people came to know Jesus as their Lord in this large meeting and there were numerous accompanying miracles. I had one more meeting in Mato Grosso and Jesus always saves the best wine until the last! I could barely find the city of Sinop on my Brazil map, but it proved to be a very special place to me. The church was Presbyterian; not normally a large church in the UK, but this one was in rich blessing. By seven o'clock, the five hundred seater venue was full, with a hundred standing. A large screen was erected outside in the street and a further four hundred people sat on the provided plastic seats to listen to the Word of God. What an amazing Jesus we have! Something between fifty and sixty people came forward for salvation as I made the Gospel call, many of them pouring in from the outside. I had never seen anything like it. Of course, God demonstrated His power to heal once again. A young man, clearly deaf in one ear, received a very obvious miracle and his face beamed with delight as he now had two good ears again! A lady who had suffered terribly with an injured spine (and five surgeries to try to fix it) began to bend. The reality of her miracle proved too much for her and her friends, and they wept together, sobbing with joy. Another lady with poor vision, began to read the church signs without any problem. This was impossible for her before! She joined the twenty to thirty others in sharing testimony to the goodness of Jesus!
After the meeting in Sinop, I had half a day to rest and I enjoyed it to the full, in preparation for one final week of crusade meetings in Brazil.
Week Three: The Final Cities
My final week of meetings in Brazil was slightly curtailed by the failure of an internal flight from Cuiaba to Curitiba to make that journey. Consequently, in the last seven days of my time in South America, I was only able to preach and minister four times in three cities. My adrenalin and fervour-filled spirit was frustrated by this but I am sure that my body deeply appreciated it!
After a gruelling thirty hour journey (two planes and two long distance buses), I found myself in the small city of Barracao at just after five in the morning. The host was another Quadrangular church and the Lord's goodness began long before the meeting. I had persuaded the pastor and interpreter to take me to the small Christian bookshop where I met a lady with a frozen shoulder. In just seconds, she was freed by the Lord Jesus and began swinging her arm around with amazing new liberty. The pastor was excited and told the folks this in the evening, and I began ministering healing to those in pain before I preached. Many were healed straight away and came to the platform to share their stories. Interestingly, the vast majority of those in the service were from Argentina (we were right on the border and visited Argentina the next day). Despite my English speaking, and the Portuguese interpretation, these Spanish speakers understood the Word of God very welll. It stunned me to see around fifty people come to the front to repond to the Gospel (many teenagers) and the pastor told me afterwards that a solid half of them were first time decisions for Jesus. Many were also Argentinian, praise God!
The following night, due to the changed schedule, I was graciously invited by another evangelist (American Evan Wiggs) to pray for the sick in his meeting there in Barracao, this time without the help of an interpreter. Thankfully, I had picked up enough Portuguese to be able to say "Pain go immediately, in the Name of Jesus!" and it seemed like almost everyone was healed of their pains and a deaf lady received her hearing. Wonderful!
At just after one o'clock in the morning, I began the journey to Apucarana. The church there was new and seemed to like to have a "lot of action" in their meetings. While I was preaching, an evil spirit threw a man to the floor and he lay there as though dead! I ignored these foolish antics and brought my Gospel appeal. They had a lot of leaders there and they joined me in praying for the sick. A large number of people were healed from pain, and four extra names were added to the Book of Life - Amen!
It was now Sunday as I arrived in my final city of Promissao and, although struggling with some health issues (due to bad food), I settled down to enjoy my last two days of ministry. Over the two nights in "Calvary Baptist Church" we saw over ten people come to faith in Christ and many others healed too. Many spinal problems were healed "live" in front of everybody. Around twenty people came to line up for prayer and, as I walked down the line, every single one of them was healed and testified to it. I was staggered!
On my final night, I preached a devotional message about being in love with Jesus, not just serving Him. The service (and the whole mission) ended with the church (four hundred people perhaps) kneeling at the altar, crying out to be filled with the Father's passion for Jesus Christ. God's Spirit was visiting us. Promissao was a special place, and I couldn't help myself but weep as I told the pastor and congregation how wonderful their worship was. There was something blessed from God upon that church. The service concluded with additional healings. I prayed for the sick for hours.
Praise God!
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