‘It is our mission to evangelize every child in every nation, and we will not stop when obstacles arise,’ says CEF Vice President of Administration Fred Pry
ST. LOUIS — For Christians in Brazil, their faith community is rapidly growing day by day. A recent CBN news article reported that “evangelicals are poised to outnumber Catholics as the largest faith group there” and noted how Brazil is on the brink of a religious change, as something spiritually profound is unfolding.
Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), a worldwide organization dedicated to evangelizing children with the Gospel, has been training leaders to share God’s word throughout Brazil. CEF dispatched a team to a remote island in Brazil to bring the Gospel to children and their families. They took planes, ships, a ferryboat, small boats, cars and motorcycles and even buffalo-hauled carts to bring the good news to the children of Marajó Island.
“For CEF, there is no place too isolated or challenging to reach children with the Gospel,” says CEF Vice President of Administration Fred Pry. “It is our mission to evangelize every child in every nation, and we will not stop when obstacles arise.”
Situated where the mighty Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean, Marajó Island is the largest river-maritime island in the world. It is larger than the country of Belgium.
CEF of Brazil cooperated with Brazilian evangelical church members to form a team of 51 members to visit more than 40 places, including garbage dumps and shelters for children at risk, and several quilombos (communities originally founded by fugitive African slaves).
The project was a success: CEF trained 375 teachers, held 71 Bible clubs and reached 2,546 children. Nearly 700 indicated they received Jesus as Savior.
“The CEF team felt overwhelming emotion when they witnessed children learning about Jesus for the first time and accepting Him as their Savior,” says Pry. “Seeing the joy that children experience is a wonderful reward for enduring hardships and sacrifices to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have never known it.”
Through this project and the continuous outreach to evangelize children in Brazil, CEF has been able to see amazing results.
Recently, a Portuguese Children’s Ministries Institute® (CMI) in São Paulo, Brazil began with 31 students. Twenty-five have already expressed their desire to become CEF workers. Twelve are from indigenous ethnic
groups in the Amazon, where the government restricts access from outsiders. Now Amazonian children can be reached with the Gospel.
A spokesman of the CEF National Director for Brazil also reported that “Nearly 800 from Brazil and other countries attended the first in-person CEF Congress since COVID-19. It was a special time in God’s presence, hearing His Word through CEF President, Rev. Jeremiah Cho. Participants returned home inspired to reach millions of children in Brazil.”
Just 4 years after CEF was founded, CEF of Brazil began in 1941 with two British missionaries, Rev. Harry Briault and his wife, who were already serving in Brazil for another mission board. When CEF founder J. Irvin Overholtzer visited them on a 1940 tour of South America, they were so impressed with his approach to evangelizing children that they asked to become CEF directors for Brazil.
Today, CEF of Brazil operates Good News Club® all over the Portuguese-speaking nation.
Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), which was founded 88 years ago, has been establishing the Good News Club® in countries around the world for decades. Clubs are thriving worldwide, in countries including Australia, Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda, and many more.
In 2023, through the combined ministries of CEF, more than 25.2 million children worldwide heard the Good News. More than 577,000 teachers were trained around the world.
For more CEF news, see the ministry’s latest edition of the online magazine Impact.
CEF is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been dedicated to seeing every child reached with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, discipled, and established in a local church since 1937. CEF is located in all 50 American states and in most countries around the world, with over 3,500 paid staff and tens of thousands of volunteers around the world.
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To interview a representative from Child Evangelism Fellowship, contact [email protected], Beth Bogucki, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, Dawn Foglein, ext. 100, or Daniel Moyer, ext. 104.