Welcome!

 
Toggle
Print

RHEMA Brazil: Setting the Captives Free

brazil“If God calls you somewhere, His grace is there. He’ll make a way for you.”

When Bud and Jan Wright graduated from RHEMA Bible Training Center in 1983, there was no question where they were headed. Nearly three years earlier, the Lord had told Bud, “I want you to go to Brazil and take My Word to My people and set them free.”

“The Lord didn’t give me a city,” said Bud. “He just said ‘Go to Brazil.’ ” After graduation, Bud and Jan arranged a three-month visit to a mission there and bought their airline tickets.


Often when people take their initial steps to fulfill God’s plan for their lives, it looks as though there’s no way that plan will ever come to pass. And that’s what happened with the Wrights.

Three days before they were to leave, they had $151—not enough for two people to live on for 90 days. The few people who had said they would help them never did. And the one pastor they knew told them his church could not support them at that time. So the Wrights simply put their trust in God to meet their needs.

Wrights







RBTC graduates Bud and Jan
Wright
are reaching out and
making a difference in Brazil.

FAST FACTS
Bud and Jan are 1983 RHEMA Bible Training Center graduates.

» LOCATION

Campina Grande, Brazil

» MINISTRY

112 churches planted by graduates and ministry staff 30 Bible schools 3 ministry schools

» DID YOU KNOW ?

RHEMA Brazil has more than 10,000 graduates.


Before they left for Brazil, the couple attended a family reunion where something truly remarkable happened. Although Jan’s relatives believed differently from Bud and Jan, they gave them an offering of $441. “We supernaturally lived on that money for three months,” Jan said.


“We went to Brazil and visited a city,” said Bud. “Of course, that wasn’t where God wanted us. He just wanted us to get down there.” After three months when they were back in the States, they applied for a permanent visa but didn’t qualify. “You had to prove your income for one year,” said Jan. “We didn’t have any proof of income. We didn’t have any.”

Four months later the Lord prompted them to call the Brazilian consulate. As Jan explained their situation, the official said, “Wait a minute . . . we’ve got a new visa—a missionary visa.” They picked it up on their way to the airport for their flight to Brazil. Jan said that was the only time she heard that document referred to as a missionary visa.

Entering Brazil with that special visa made obtaining a permanent visa easy, said Bud. “If God calls you somewhere, His grace is there. He’ll make a way for you.”

The Wrights arrived in Brazil with only a few suitcases and minimal financial resources. But God gave them favor as they began to walk out His plan for their lives. Twelve people came to their first meeting. And as Bud and Jan preached the Word, it was confirmed with accompanying signs. The 12 soon grew to 100, and on September 15, 1985, their church, Word of Life, was born.

For six-and-a-half years they worked in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and the seventh largest in the world. Then the Lord began dealing with Bud about relocating to northeastern Brazil—the poorest section of the country. They visited most of the nine states in that region, finishing up in Campina Grande with no further leading about what to do next. As the Wrights looked down on the city from the balcony of the hotel, the Lord said to both of them, “Campina Grande is your next work.”

Campina Grande is now RHEMA Brazil’s base. But it took the Wrights overcoming a lot of roadblocks to return. One woman “prophesied” to them that their time in Brazil was over. Some of their supporters in the U.S. thought leaving a city of millions to start a work in one of 360,000 was a mistake and stopped giving. “They said, ‘You’re out of the will of God,’ ” recalled Jan. Bud added, “People look at the city; they don’t look at what God says. But now I can see the hundreds of ministers who have come out of that state.”

RHEMA ANGOLA

RAISING THE DEAD

In November, RHEMA Angola held its second graduation ceremony in the newly opened Convention Center in Luanda.

With heads held high and joy and excitement radiating from their faces, 260 graduates proudly walked across the stage to receive their diplomas.

Even before graduation, one student had the opportunity to put into practice what he was learning. One day when he arrived home after school, he was surprised to see a large group of people in his house.
He soon learned that his sister-in-law had died. He immediately began praying in the Spirit and at the Lord’s direction, boldly commanded life to come back into her limp body.

She opened her eyes and sat up but couldn’t stand.  The Holy Spirit reminded him of Mark 11:23. He knew that whatever he said would happen, so he commanded his sister-in-law to get up. She immediately got up and began jumping up and down.

Over 20 people witnessed this miracle. All of them, along with the woman raised to life, received Christ as their Savior that day. And from that group of people a church was formed. The message of faith is truly bringing hope and healing to this once war-torn nation.



The Wrights set out to start a church and a Bible school in each state capital in the Brazilian northeast. Although they knew they were in God’s perfect will, it took one year to start a church in Campina Grande. A businessman promised them the use of a building but kept delaying and eventually sold the property. So the Wrights rented a building for their group of believers to hold services, trusting God to provide the rent.


Bud said the Lord told him that if he would organize and run his churches and schools as much in line with the Word as possible, He would bless them. And that is what is happening. Today, RHEMA Brazil oversees a church or Bible school in the capital cities of all but two of the nation’s 26 states and has a Bible school in Brasilia, the federal capital. The schools have graduated more than 10,000 students who have fanned out across the nation and into other parts of South America and the world. Graduates and ministry staff have planted at least 112 churches.

RHEMA Brazil opened a Bible school in Africa—in Luanda, Angola, another Portuguese-speaking nation. Three years ago a Luandan pastor asked the Wrights to open a RHEMA campus at his church. Bud was ready to say no, “But all of a sudden, I could hear the man in Macedonia calling, ‘Come and help us’” (Acts 16:9). RHEMA Brazil now shuttles instructors monthly across the Atlantic to staff the school. They also operate a third-year ministers school in Luanda which opened in 2010. “RHEMA Angola even wrote a song,” Bud said: “‘The Word of Faith Has Come to Angola.’”


Bud used to ask God why He called him, a farmer and truck driver from rural Alabama, to do such a work in Brazil. “I was sure there were people better educated than I was, and people who knew more than I knew. He never would answer me.” Some years later he heard a minister say that healing evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman had asked the Lord why He had called her to such a responsible ministry. The Lord’s answer to her was, “Because you obeyed Me.” “That spoke to me,” Bud said. Then God told him, “I spoke to a lot of people, but you’re the only one that obeyed me.”