Ricardo Bueno is The Elijah Challenge Coordinator for Brazil, married to Thaís with daughters Rebeca and Manuela. He first trained with The Elijah Challenge in 2010.
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Jesus said: I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (John 4:35).
And he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37).
After two weeks on missions in the Northeastern Sertão of Brazil we concluded that the fields are truly white, ready to be harvested, but the workers are still very few.
Between July 17th and 31st in 2018 we were on an evangelistic training expedition in three towns in the Sertão of Ceará State.
The first event was in the city of Juazeiro do Norte where we trained about 500 people attending the 4th National Congress of Evangelization of the Northeastern Sertão, which is an awakening movement for the Brazilian Church in order to reach the Sertão for Jesus, at the invitation of Pastor Jonathan Ferreira from the Valley of Blessing. Among the disciples trained there were many pastors and leaders from various regions of Brazil.
Jesus was faithful to His Word and healed many sick people who participated in the Congress. Among the most common reports of cures were stomach pain, esophagitis, nausea, back pain, knee pain, joint pain, bursitis, shoulder, tendonitis, gastritis, hand pain, tingling, cardiac surgery pain, among others. Praise God!
After the Congress we went to Café da Linha district, belonging to the town of Milagres, which is about 50 kilometers from Juazeiro do Norte. There for five days we trained the Ministry of the Kingdom Church, under the care of pastors Oziel and Gisele, and it was a tremendous time of growth for the church. Café da Linha is one of the 15 sites in the town of Milagres where there is some evangelical presence, surrounded by other 98 sites that are like rural neighborhoods in which there is no evangelical presence all. In some of these places there are about 3000 people with no disciples of Jesus to announce the Good News of the Kingdom.
In the Northeastern Sertão, idolatry predominates and there is a very strong presence of witchcraft as well. There are countless towns in the Sertão without any evangelical church. And when they exist the evangelical population is hardly greater than 3 or 4% of the population, at most.
During the training and evangelistic meeting countless healings and deliverances took place for the glory of the Name of the Lord and for the Kingdom of God to be expanded in that region. As a result several people gave their lives to the Lord Jesus. During the door-to-door visits countless sick people were healed and a 12-year-old teenager who had problems with alcohol and self-mutilation was set free for the Lord’s glory, later surrendering her life to Lord Jesus. A sister in Christ who suffered from much joint pain and loss of movement due to chikungunya was instantly released from pain and movements returned. God is so good!
Still in Café da Linha we visited a lady with her whole body atrophied due to witchcraft, breast and ovarian tumors, spinal and lower back pain, one leg shorter than the other and total loss of movement. While we exercised authority over the demons who imprisoned that lady, we experienced something tremendous. All tumors disappeared, the pain ceased, the left leg that was about 0.5 inch smaller than the right grew as I held her heels side by side and she felt her body being unlocked. Due to the fear of having been atrophied for more than twenty years she began to walk a little when held by us, and we believe the healing will be complete, in the name of Jesus.
In addition to The Elijah Challenge Evangelistic Training, the sisters from Café da Linha were trained with a Child Ministry training conducted by my wife Thaís.
Thaís in the middle
We also visited another site, called Sítio do Morcego (Bat site), which used to have no evangelical presence, but where today there is a congregation of the Ministry of the Kingdom Church. There I shared a word of encouragement based on the passage of the Gadarene who, after being set free, is sent by Jesus to preach to his own people.
Then we went to the district of Rosário, also belonging to the town of Milagres where we were welcomed by pastors Elson and Lydia and we equipped the disciples of Jesus shepherded by them in the Peniel Missionary Church to heal the sick exercising power and authority given by Jesus and preach the Gospel in a fruitful way.
Still in the church, during the training sessions, countless brothers and sisters were healed by Jesus of stomach pain, eye pain, allergies, migraine, leg pain and soul ailments. It was a precious time out there.
On Saturday afternoon we went from house to house and in the evening we held an outdoor evangelistic meeting near the Catholic temple of Rosário. There I preached a message of repentance and salvation and some people were healed and set free. At the end of the meeting a young girl with intense toothache experienced immediate healing and rejoiced in the Lord.
Lastly, we went to Brejo Santo, a nearby town, and gave an overview on the principle of power and authority at the Christian Liberty Apostolic Church under the leadership of Pastors Vone and Tatinha. It was a night of many healings among them toothache, headache, stiffening of the neck, spine, anguish, sadness, pain in the knee. Glory to God for all He has done.
We praise our God and Father for the wonderful opportunity He has given us of serving Him as a family, also for the many deliverances, for extending the family of faith getting to know many men and women precious for the Lord and seeing again others and for having celebrated in the mission field our little princess Manuela’s 1st birthday party.”
“For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:36
Love in Christ Jesus,
Ricardo Bueno
August 2018
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Our mission to reach Northeast Brazil
Thaís holding Manuela and Ricardo with Rebeca