Igrega Batista Central Belo Horizonte, Brazil
April 2014
Reports: The Elijah Challenge in Brazil
Thriving Central Baptist Church in the city of Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil, has 1,000 cell groups with 8,000 participating members. Their Senior Pastor Paulo Mazoni invited us to train his cell leaders with The Elijah Challenge. Their goal is to have 30,000 active members by 2017, and this is quite possible if each of their 8,000 believers is trained to heal the sick as Jesus did and as he commanded his disciples to do when he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God in Luke 9 and 10.
The two-day Elijah Challenge Training was attended by most of their 1,000 cell group leaders. During the demonstrations of healing at the sessions, many were healed by the Lord as witnessed by the many testimonies. (Some of course were not healed as well.) On the first evening, around a dozen people young and old suffering from heart conditions were running back and forth at the front of the spacious sanctuary after being ministered to, each testifying that they felt fine. One middle-aged sister with a chronic heart condition who had undergone heart surgery came to the meeting with no physical strength to speak of. After being ministered to in Jesus’ name, she was able to run back and forth at the front of the spacious sanctuary a few times. To complete her testimony she picked up Pastor Paulo’s wife Juliana off her feet, holding her up for five seconds. She could not have done any of these feats earlier before being ministered to. And she said that she felt fine after all the physical exertion.
Two trained Cell Supervisors went to minister to a woman whose cancer had spread unchecked throughout her body and brain, rendering her blind in both eyes. The two trained sisters laid hands on her and rebuked the cancer in Jesus’ name. At this the Lord restored her vision and she was able to see and read.
Senior Pastor Paulo Mazoni plans to follow up on what the Lord has begun to do through this Training. Healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God will become an integral part of the life of the church—just as the Lord commanded his disciples in the gospels. If the trained cell group leaders in turn train the people in their cells, then a large army of believers equipped with power and authority over disease and demons can be raised up to witness for Jesus Christ in the 1,000 cells, from door to door in the city, and wherever else the lost are found.
Luke 10:9 “Heal the sick and tell them, ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you.'”
Trained believers ministering to the sick & infirm (above)
Woman’s hand is miraculously healed (above)
Other people healed by the Lord line up to testify during early phase of ministering healing (below) 
r
Listening to the testimonies of miraculous healing from the stage above