By Ezra and Joanna Brainard
Pedro lives in a village of homesteaders, about 10 miles outside our town, down a muddy clay road. Crajari is one of many farming villages in our municipality. Unlike most of these villages, however, Crajari is not on the river and often is accessible only on foot or horseback.
Around here, Pedro and his family are known as Ribeirinhos, a term that means “little river people.” Descendants of early European settlers, the Portuguese-speaking Ribeirinhos are not an Indigenous people, but they lead similarly primitive lifestyles, they share some of the same superstitions, and many have married into Indigenous families. Ribeirinhos are predominantly nominal Roman Catholics, but most have a synchronistic belief system—a mixture of Catholicism and Indigenous superstition.
Yet Pedro is no longer bound by these superstitions. Like Cornelius of old, he was God-fearing even before he came to understand the Gospel, and when local missionaries began holding services in his village, he also had a vision. In his dream, an angel came to him and told him to make sure he and his family read the Bible and listened to the preaching because through the Scripture and the preaching of it, they would find the way of salvation.
Pedro, unable to read for himself, urged his literate family members to read the Bible, and he faithfully attended the missionaries’ meetings. Slowly but surely, Pedro came to understand the gospel message. In 2020, shortly after we came into the picture, we had the joy of witnessing this dear believer publicly demonstrate his faith by baptism in his mother’s fishing pond. (His mother was a devout Roman Catholic.)
The challenges of illiteracy and lifestyle
Like Pedro, some 20 percent of the population in our municipality is illiterate. Pedro lost his father when he was a teenager, and as the eldest son, he worked hard to help provide for his family so at least his siblings could get an education. His children and grandchildren have varying degrees of literacy.
The Ribeirinho lifestyle offers little need or opportunity for reading. Reading just isn’t necessary to plant and harvest manioc and plantain, to fish and hunt, or to prepare and sell farinha (a food staple made from cassava). Additionally, literature is not easy to obtain, not even in the city. Books are expensive and in short supply.
Sadly, some of the most readily available written material is published by the region’s cults, of which there are many. For example, the Israelite Church of the New Universal Covenant, a Peruvian cult rapidly gaining popularity here, gives away lots of pamphlets in Portuguese and Spanish.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists also freely distribute their books and study courses. If you show up in the home of a poor family that expresses interest in the things of God (and there are many), you may not find a Bible at all—for those are expensive—but you will find a Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society booklet or an Ellen G. White book.
Being illiterate presents Pedro with a challenge, but he does not let it become an excuse. Despite chronic pain and other health issues, he makes a significant effort to never miss a prayer meeting when one happens in his village, and he listens to any Bible teaching he can find. Pedro continues to grow in his hunger for God’s Word. His desire is so strong that when we were on furlough in 2022 and a pastor showed up in the village promising to start a church, Pedro gave him some of his land. Pedro and his family even started constructing a building next to their home. Pedro was so excited to have a church house next door, where he and his family could regularly hear the Scriptures taught.
The more we learned about this “pastor,” however, the more concerned we became. We prayed for Pedro a lot but couldn’t do much more than that from a distance. We didn’t have direct contact with Pedro and didn’t know enough about this man to say anything particular. God mercifully allowed Pedro’s family to see the man’s true colors: he was shown to be a wolf preying on the poorest believers with promises of prosperity if they gave to his cause. It ended up being a teachable moment, though it was a difficult way to learn.
The challenge of weak doctrine
Over the last 100 years, the Gospel has spread rapidly throughout the Amazon, and church buildings that missionary teams built are a common sight to anyone traveling down the rivers. This is largely thanks to the Assemblies of God in Brazil, which is very outreach-minded and quick to send even fairly new converts to start churches in remote villages. Many people have come to Christ through the Gospel being spread this way.
While very evangelistic, the Assemblies of God is not as strong on doctrine. Many of these fresh converts are left without discipleship, without a grounding in God’s Word, and without a sturdy defense against the abundance of cults and false teachers, such as the one Pedro encountered. Some fall prey to these cults. Others may recognize that the teachings are wrong but do not have a solid answer as to why. This leaves them in an unsteady, vulnerable place, clinging to the truth but unable to defend it.
The National Catholic Reporter has projected that evangelicals will become more numerous than Catholics in Brazil by 2032.1 That would, of course, be a huge feat for a South American country should it come to fruition. While Pentecostal denominations like the Assemblies of God have been instrumental in many coming to faith in Christ alone for salvation, a great many more Brazilians are simply participating in what might be called a cultural revolution. We rejoice when the Gospel is preached, whether in pretense or truth, but we mourn the baggage of poor doctrine and what is, generally speaking, a more emotionally than biblically driven religion.
The prosperity gospel has deep inroads in the culture of Amazonian evangelicalism. The thought that God will heal any sickness, resolve any problem, and grant prosperity if you just “have faith” is rampant, even among believers who do not hold the entirety of the prosperity-gospel error. When God answers prayers differently than what was hoped for, true believers accept it. Yet that difference fused with the prosperity gospel’s ideas contributes to a mentality that God is just like the corrupt local government—making big promises without fulfilling half of them. This perspective demoralizes even true believers and leads many people to give half-hearted mental assent to the Gospel, as it appears untrustworthy.
Tools for the challenge of remoteness
When we first arrived in Benjamin Constant, we planned to focus our ministry on remote villages even farther up the Amazon River (and we still hope we can do that one day). We came here thinking that the abundance of churches and the number of professing believers in town indicated less need for laborers right here. But we have become increasingly burdened about the huge need for discipleship, Bible teaching, and resources for believers in this municipality alone—including Benjamin Constant and the jungle villages, such as Pedro’s home, Crajari. We have found a few tools to be helpful in this regard:
• Audio Bible players: These “Bible talkers” are solar powered and easy to navigate. We carefully distribute them to individuals who are hungry for the Word of God but unable to read it, such as Pedro.
• Emmaus correspondence courses: Around 20 courses have been translated into Portuguese, with more in the works. We use the Emmaus app for group Bible studies and recommend it to individuals.
• King of Glory: This resource from ROCK International has been a big blessing. We use the King of Glory film, book, and study guide.
We also try to make Bibles more accessible in our area, especially large-print Bibles since poor vision is common. We sell Bibles as affordably as possible, accepting homegrown produce or eggs as payment. We give some Bibles away if needed. However, we avoid giving away expensive Bibles because many would be tempted to turn around and sell them for quick cash. We also always look for other sound biblical resources in Portuguese to give away or sell cheaply. The main challenge, greater than cost, is the logistics of getting anything shipped here. We live in a remote and isolated region—only accessible by air and river travel, mostly the latter—so getting anything shipped here is just plain difficult, not to mention costly.
Wisdom for the right strategy
The problem of discipleship and Bible teaching continues to become more evident to us, but developing the right strategy to tackle it is hard. We need wisdom. We also need God’s strength to persevere. Seeing the needs is overwhelming, and the results from the labor of discipleship are mostly seen over time. By God’s grace, we’ve witnessed some fruit, but there’s so much work to do. Pray that God will send more laborers from afar and nearby. Pray that He will raise up men and women who are grounded in the Bible and apt to teach and disciple others.
Pray for wisdom! Pray for perseverance! Pray for laborers!
Ezra and Joanna Brainard are commended from Emmaus Bible Chapel in Ferguson, Missouri.
Originally published in Missions magazine, June 2024. For more content, sign up for a free subscription (US) to Missions at CMML.us/magazine/subscribe
