The 6 million square miles of Amazon jungle in northwest Brazil have been experiencing revival and baptisms like never before.
Roughly 30 million Amazonians living in Brazil have been hearing the gospel in a new way this year. Previously predominantly a Catholic area, evangelical Christianity is spreading.
One of those recipients of the gospel is Ramos, an 83-year-old man who lives on a bamboo boat on the Amazon River.
"God is everything for me. God is my father and without Jesus I'm nothing," said Ramos in an interview with CBN.
About 60 per cent of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, winding with many rivers and tributaries. Missionaries like Pastor Josué Bengtson who spent decades spreading the good news through the river's intricate network. Now he's the pastor of Belem Foursquare Church.
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"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," says Bengtson. "Today, almost all medium-sized churches in the Amazon have a small boat."
There are over 3,000 Foursquare churches across the region, ministering to the Brazilian people including in remote locations.
"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."
Another missionary that has worked in Brazil for over 32 years is Esequiel Santo, who felt the pull to share the gospel when he was just 15 years old.
"One of the biggest challenges was the isolation and getting used to living among the indigenous or riverside communities," Santo said. "But God was with us in the work, we saw lives being transformed, so many people heard the gospel and now we are seeing the fruits."
Some trips he took to reach some of the most remote communities would take 35 days of travel alone, including on a plane, canoe, and by foot.
"The Catholic Church has a lot of difficulty in training new priests, so it is very common to see Catholic Churches in the Amazon but not enough priests to lead congregations," says José Eustaquio Alves, a leading Brazilian sociologist. "A priest goes once a month or once every semester to the Amazon and is often far from the community. Evangelicals, on the other hand, quickly train pastors who integrate into the community and for a long time."
With so many being baptized and reached with the word of God, Alves believes revival is taking place in the jungle.
"For many years, people looked at the Amazon and only saw rivers and trees. Today, people are beginning to remember that there are people living there who need to be taken care of, need to hear the gospel and whose lives need a transformation. The church is making this revolution happen."