Brazil

At a church planting congress in 1998, representatives of Latin American nations set the very ambitious goal of planting a total of 500,000 new Christian churches by the year 2010. Dawn Ministries has published a progress report on their web site, which shows that the target will be reached if the development continues at the current rate. The following is an extract of the church planting targets set by all nations at the 1998 congress:

Nation	Churches planted since 1992	Church-planting goals
Brazil	20,000	180,000
Argentina	4,000	28,000
Uruguay	1,000	2,000
Chile	2,000	20,000
Peru	11,000	40,000
Colombia	3,000	30,000
Venezuela	9,000	25,000
Panama	2,000	7,000
Mexico	8,000	50,000
Dominican Republic	4,000	12,000
Costa Rica	500	2,000
El Salvador	5,000	7,000
Guatemala	12,000	7,000
Cuba	6,000	6,000

Five nations have already reached their original target and set new national targets. Guatemala, the first Latin American nation to have a process based on the Dawn strategy following their initial Congress in 1984, reached the target of 7,000 new churches in only five years. They then set another target of a further 5,000 churches, which has also already been reached.

Guatemala: 42% to 72% evangelical
Recent data published by a secular research group in Guatemala shows that over 42% of the population are members of an evangelical church. A further 30% declare themselves to be sympathetic to the evangelical movement. Church leaders are currently discussing what their new goal should be.

Venezuela: 25,000 churches soon
For years, church growth in Venezuela was the lowest in the region, as was the percentage of evangelicals in the population. A Dawn Congress (Amanacer) was held in 1992, at which church leaders set the aim of growing from 4,900 to 12,000 churches in only 12 years. They went to work, and reached their target 4 years earlier than planned. Their new aim is 25,000 churches by the end of 2005.

Uruguay: from 30% atheist to 10%
In the small nation of Uruguay, 30% of the population considered themselves atheist in 1996. Between 1996 and 1999, 1,000 new churches were planted, three years faster than planned. In the meantime, only 10% of the population consider themselves atheists.

El Salvador: 37% evangelical
Church leaders in El Salvador set a target of 2,000 new churches and 30% of the population evangelical by 1990. Research showed that 37% of the population considered themselves evangelical in 1993, and that over 4,000 new churches had been planted.

Cuba: Target reached 'too early'
Following 30 years of Communism, Cuba had less than 800 churches, the same number as at the start of the Communist revolution. By 1998, Cuban Christians had already reached their aim of planting 5,000 new churches, most of which were house churches. That was two years before their target, 2000.

Source: Dawn Ministries

German missionary Irene Menzel works in Brazilian cities, where life is hard. In one issue of "DMG informiert" ('German Missionary Fellowship Reports'), she writes "Manoel was in jail for drug-related crimes. During one visit, he listened attentively to God's word, and later completed a Bible study correspondence course. Following his release, he was tired and discouraged. One day, youths accused Manoel of having stolen a bicycle. 'If you don't give it back, we'll kill you!' The threat was real. Manoel wanted to go directly to the police to protest his innocence, but that was not as easy as it sounds. A police car soon stopped outside my door, with four armed policemen and the girl whose bicycle was stolen. I tried to convince policemen that they were on the wrong track, without success. They raced off, with me in hot pursuit. Arrests are not exactly gentle here. They had soon almost caught up with Manoel, but he kept running. They shot in the air a few times and continued their chase, but soon gave up. Later, Manoel's wife Railene came, weeping, because the young girl's relatives had threatened her, too. Back in their house, I prayed with her. Manoel had gone into hiding, but we found him and together called on God for help.
Manoel ate lunch at his mother-in-law's house. Suddenly, the house was surrounded, and the police burst in, searching every room. Everyone screamed, his mother-in-law fainted, and Manoel was handcuffed and dragged off to jail. 'Now they will beat him,' said Railene, desperate. We prayed, and a neighbour, a pensioned judge and lawyer, took up Manoel's case. At the identity parade, the young girl became nervous and contradicted herself. Manoel had a good alibi, and was finally released. He had not been beaten. It's definitely worth praying in desperate situations, and trusting God completely."

Source: Irene Menzel, Brazil, in "DMG informiert", the newsletter of the German Missionary Fellowship