South Am e r ica 's big, bustling B ra z il is experiencing an evange lica l rev iva l tha t has lasted more than two years . Here's a fir s t hand account of how God is v is iting th is country w ith both sp iritua l and phys ica l healing
By J. Edwin Orr
A t the New Year of 1952, Rev. William Atwood Dunlap of Wheaton and Princeton was at tending a conference at Forest Home in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. He had just completed two years as minister of youth in the Buena Memorial Presbyterian Church in Chicago, recognized as one of the largest and most evangelical in the Middle West, the Church where Os wald Smith and Louis Evans were ordained. Being a Los Angeles man, he had returned to look for a church in a more congenial climate. It was at the Forest Home conference that I met young Dunlap. I had just returned from a 10-day visit to Brazil and I told him about the signs I had seen there of an imminent revival. Dun lap’s greatest ambition was to witness or share in a true revival, so he and his wife and son packed everything and headed for Rio de Janeiro. He went against all the advice of his friends, including some with the Presbyterian missions in Brazil. I was back in Brazil when the Dunlaps arrived. The only opening for either of us seemed confined to lecturing in English to pastors and theologians only. But one Sunday night, in the city of Sao Paulo (larger than Los Angeles) Dunlap and a Presbyterian pastor found themselves dealing with 104 inquirers in a meet ing of 300. This proved a beginning of revival.
that an American minister had come to town, they called at the hotel to pay their respects. But Dunlap told the interpreter that he was too busy praying for social calls. The pastors adjourned for a little coffee, and re turned in an hour, fully expecting that the Norte Americano would have completed his devotions by then. Get ting no answer to their knock, they peeped in, and discovered the visitor lying on his face upon the floormat, interceding with God for revival in his own soul, in the churches of Bauru and in Brazil at large. They tiptoed away, and one im mediately said: “ I always thought that those Norte Americanos were a proud people and efficient, but there was that young man praying on his face!” The four pastors sought the quiet of a parsonage, and there poured out their hearts to God for Bauru. Two enemies were reconciled. Revival had begun. Within a few days, Dunlap was preaching to a thousand. Within a month, the Spir it of God had added more to the churches than in the previous 20 years. Within three months, there were more attending the prayer meet ing in the Presbyterian Church at six each morning than there had been believers of all denominations in the town. And the other churches shared equal blessing. Last word was that the four pastors had formed a team and were evangelizing the whole dis trict.
The meetings in Sao Paulo lasted three months, and scores of churches were packed out in turn. At the commencement of the reviving, Bill Dunlap felt deeply convicted that he was in no spirit to lead revival meet ings, so he left his comrades in the movement in Sao Paulo and took off for Bauru, a smaller city in the in terior where there were four Protes tant churches and a constituency of 800 believers. A score of young Pres byterians had invited the Norte Am ericano to lead them in an Easter Retreat, during which Dunlap hoped to find the mornings free for prayer. When the four Protestant pastors (of as many denominations) heard
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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