Brazil Mission Trip

Each year, BCI Faculty Member Pastor Larry Creamer, leads a group of evangelistic missionaries into Brazil. Each time, he returns with a powerful testimony of God’s activities and His impact in the river communities of the Amazon Basin. Here is Pastor Creamer’s report of the 2011 trip…

Preparing People to Meet Jesus in Manaquiri and Barro Alto

A pastor goes back to his hometown to visit family. He sees a sight that breaks his heart, a Baptist church building locked and empty. Although life is much more convenient in the capital city of Manaus, he and his wife move back to the smaller river community of Manaquiri to open the doors of this church once again. He knows this community and the need for a strong witness to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As he prays for God’s help, teams are making commitments to work on the river through the ministry of Amazon Vision Ministries. As Charles Stafford consults with the area leadership they request a team to go to Manaquiri to help this pastor reach his community. Charles assigned the team sponsored by the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention led by Larry Creamer to work with Pastor Edison.

That is how we found our team consisting of people from Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, Illinois and Florida in this town of 13,000 people on February 25, 2011. God allowed us to go to this building which people walked by every day and saw little or no activity and hold a medical clinic serving hundreds of people over the next few days. At this clinic we saw the physical needs of people met in a town where a small medical clinic was understaffed and overwhelmed. But at this clinic not only were the people touched with the love of God physically but also it became a birthing center for the kingdom of God as many people prayed to receive Christ as our team faithfully shared the gospel with those who were waiting.

Our children’s team led an EBF (Vacation Bible School) on Sunday morning with activities, songs and a clear message of God’s love and invitation to follow Him through our Lord Jesus Christ. The sound of children laughing and singing brought life to the simple concrete church building.

There were two large schools and several smaller schools in the town. We made arrangements to have the team speak in each of these schools. Before it was over the gospel had been shared with about 1,000 students, teachers and administrators. One of our objectives in this town was to discover the opportunities God was opening up for this pastor. Pastor Eli, who runs the boat ministry for AVM, and I went to one of the larger schools to speak with the director. She had already given permission for our teams to speak to the classes and was delighted with the message our team was sharing. I was invited to address the whole school and pray for them on Wednesday morning at their assembly in the gym. Pastor Edison came with us and received an invitation to come and address the students each week. The director shared with us that when the school opened all of the area pastors, priests and community leaders were invited to come partner with the schools. No one came. We see that God has now provided a wide open door for Pastor Edison to minister to this school with over 500 students.

Soccer is a big deal in Brazil. Last summer I was introduced to the Mission Ball (https://themissionball.com/). This ball, produced in several languages, has the plan of salvation, the Ten Commandments, and other scripture passages printed on it. I purchased several of them to take with the team this year. Men are the hardest people to reach in Brazil. As we usually go about our visits during the day the men are working. While we visited in the community we discovered that the town had several adult men soccer teams. On Saturday, we took a boat across a small neck of the lake and climbed the high path to the community soccer field. We had the opportunity to share a brief gospel message with each team and presented them with a Mission Ball. On Sunday afternoon there were two games, one with a team from a visiting community and we had the opportunity to present a ball to each of the four teams. The ones on our team able to make the trek up the steep hill were present at the games and shared with the family and friends sitting and standing around the field. God had some wonderful divine appointments ready for our team and some powerful ministry took place and people prayed to receive Christ as Savior and Lord. Pastor Eli told me that we had shared with more men that one afternoon than are usually reached on several mission trips.

There are always enough needs to justify staying at any given place on the River for an extended time. Yet, we wanted to make the most of the time we had to impact as wide an area as possible. Pastor Eli and I went out on Monday to see what communities were in close proximity to Manaquiri. We were told about one not far away in Lake Manaquiri but it turned out to be a very small community. We then when about 15 minutes up the Manaquiri River back toward the Solimões (Amazon River) to the community of Barro Alto. We met with the leader of the community and received his enthusiastic welcome to come to his community.

We held our last clinic at the church on Wednesday morning and moved to Barro Alto that afternoon. We took the rest of that afternoon to let the team members and translators rest.

The next morning we were in full swing with the medical clinic set up in an unused room at the school that sits on a high bluff overlooking the river. The children’s team held activities in the community center with over 40 kids attending and the evangelism teams began visiting house to house in the community.

As we began to work in this community the reality of a spiritual darkness began to emerge. Through the medical clinic signs and tales of violence in homes became evident.  Alcoholism and immorality were rampant in the community. We held our first church service in the community center on Thursday evening with Jack Janssen presenting the salvation message through what we call “the water demonstration” where a stained cloth become white again. The service was chaotic with many distractions within and outside of the community center which was a building with half walls all the way around and a roof. Yet, we had a good number of people respond to the message that night and approach our translators to give them their names as an indication that they had received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

God then began to draw us into the lives of a family through a series of events. A young shy boy named Tiago (James) caught the attention of Tesha Howard, one of our nurses.  He had obviously suffered some physical abuse. We became concerned about him and had plans to visit with the family. In the mean time his older brother was rushed into the clinic one afternoon after chopping off a part of his index finger with a machete. Tesha was able to stop the bleeding and he was sent to the clinic in Manaquiri for further treatment. While Cristiano was at the clinic our medical personnel observed a detachment and harshness from the parents that was cause for further concern for this family. It was determined that we would visit the family the next day and confront them with how they were treating their children. That morning as I prepared to present the morning devotion, God greatly impressed on me to share how, even in this situation, we were to present the gospel as the only real way people can and will change their behavior.

We visited the home and the mother and some of the children were there. The father was away working. We learned from her and then from a neighbor that they had a hard life in almost every way. She admitted that both her and her husband had treated the children harshly. She also told of having left her husband for several months during the previous year. Pastor Eli took the lead on this visit and lovingly and powerfully shared the gospel with this young lady and she responded by receiving Jesus Christ as her Savior and Lord.  The husband was working and would be for the rest of that day so we made plans to come back the next morning which was Sunday when he would not be working. They lived just behind the community center and our children’s team would be having activities for the children at 9:00 that morning. We did return and had a chance to share with him. He responded to the message by receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  Both Pastor Eli and I then shared with him that he was now equipped to lead his family in a new way as he grows in his walk with our Lord. That night the whole family attended the church service and joyfully participated.

As our evangelism teams visited house-to-house they also discovered a young lady who had been led to the Lord a couple of years earlier. God had prompted her to not only grow in her walk with Him but to begin to teach the children of the community as well.  She holds a Bible school each week with about twenty children attending. We did everything we could to encourage her and left some Bibles and other materials with her to help her in her work. We looked at her as our “person of peace” in this community. (Luke 10:5-6)

I mentioned the chaotic first worship service in this community. The second service on Friday night was not much different. Stan Hanes presented the God/Man visual in sharing the gospel message. Again, there were many distractions but again a good number of people responded to the invitation to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

We did not have a worship service on Saturday night because the community was having their Carnaval celebration. I planned to preach at the last service on Sunday evening. I have to admit that after the first two worship services, both having involved some object lessons that usually help to keep attention; I had some apprehensions going into this service.  Even though I have preached in almost every conceivable setting in Brazil over the past 23 years, I expected this to be quite challenging. God led me to preach from John 10:10 with the emphasis that Satan, the thief, has a plan of destruction for you and God has a plan for life and you have a choice to make. As before in the services our translators led the kids in some interactive songs and then had them sit on the floor right in front of me. There were no chairs or benches in this place so people had to either stand or sit on the floor. Several of the adults also came closer and sat on the floor. I was prepared for the chaos from the nights before. About halfway through the message, I suddenly realized that the chaos was not happening. The crowd was so attentive it was almost scary. I was able to share the message and again a good number of the people there responded to the invitation and chose God’s plan for their life. As I reflected on this later I realized that we had witnessed something only God could do. He had changed the spiritual atmosphere of a whole community in a matter of days as the gospel had gone out in word and deed, as our evangelism teams led by Bill Lassiter and Stan Hanes visited nearly every home in the community and close proximity, as our medical team led by Debbie Janssen served faithfully and as our children’s team led by Jack Janssen filled the children’s hearts with songs and scripture.

By the end of our trip we had the names of over 200 people who prayed to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. This does not include responses from the over 1100 students who received a gospel presentation. Our medical team documented service to 459 patients and gave out $1500 worth of medication. A Brazilian dentist who was with us for the first few days also saw 35 patients. Many clothes were distributed to needy families. The team also passed along money given to us by our churches and individuals to build bathrooms for the church building at Manaquiri. We also gave away more than 100 Bibles to new believers.

We thank God our Father for all of the prayers, financial support and encouragement which made it possible for us to be used of God in his work in these two communities.

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