INTRODUCTION

The Work of God in Guinea-Bissau

BAFATA 

"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace" (Galatians 1:15).

In the year 1932, the then director of the WEC-International Mission, missionary Norman P. Grubb, was deeply touched by the Spirit of the Lord with great weight by African countries with as yet unreached peoples.

Moved by the spirit of compassion and motivated by the love of souls, Norman Grubb placed on a large bulletin board a map of the African continent, focusing on nine countries, including Portuguese Guinea. Daily in the prayer room the team looking at those targets would cry out to God for pioneers raised up to go and plant churches in these areas so deprived.

The Gospel reached Guinea-Bissau in May 1940 through a British missionary, Bessie Fricker; thus beginning the evangelization of Guinea-Bissau.

After her came others from various denominations such as Michel Tarrante and wife, Gene McBride and wife, Isa Arthur, Lily, Norman Cauberth and wife, and several others. Missionaries from different nations and denominations arrived and worked together, thus founding the Evangelical Church of Guinea-Bissau, however they limited themselves to staying only on the coast and islands, leaving the interior of the country to be evangelized.

                                  In 1951, a child named José Ferreira was born in the interior of Brazil in the State of São Paulo, who, very early on, God would call him to do a specific job for Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau).

 

 TESTIMONY 

  I was born on a Wednesday at 10:30 pm, August 20, 1951, the moon was at its fullest stage. The midwife who helped my mother give birth was called Mrs. Gertrudes, a 34-year-old practical midwife, the city where I was born is Presidente Bernardes SP in Brazil. The place was at our residence on a farm called Fazenda dos Ramos very close to the city and the house was made of wood and divided into two bedrooms, living room, kitchen and laundry area at the back where we made the main entrance with a bathroom and followed by a spring arbor, outside there was an outbuilding that was a pantry and storage for tools and things of little use in the daily life of the house. I was the couple's fifth child followed by four sisters.

The work in Portuguese Guinea was established with many struggles and persecutions, mainly on the coast of the country and on some islands.

                                                                

                                   (Pastor José Ferreira 1964

             In 1964, the Lord Jesus called the boy José Ferreira specifically for work in Bafatá in western Portuguese Guinea, (Guinea-Bissau).

Isaiah 45–2 I will go before thee, and make straight the crooked ways; I will break the bronze doors, and break the iron bars.

                     José Ferreira 1979 twenty years after the call

 

                                     Preparation and departure

                                 Bafatá Evangelical Church

                                                  History

 

                    Pastor JOSÉ FERREIRA born in Brazil in 1951.

July 1963, with a simple and wonderful gesture, Jesus entered my life. When I, at 9.30 pm on a Wednesday, small, thin and extremely shy, I happened to pass near the house of a believer who at that time, to the sound of an old accordion, sang the hymn of the Christian harp 151 and said: “Speak Dear Jesus, speak to me today...” This sentence was enough for me to feel the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and feeling an immense love surrounding me, I surrendered to this love and with my heart all open Jesus came in and took over my life.

                             Iovercame my shyness and with an act of courage I reached the door of that house, where the sound of that melody came from, and knocked insistently, thus interrupting the song. I was promptly attended to by that man who, scared, opened the door and, wanting to understand the reason for my visit at such an inappropriate time, said: well, no? In a few words I brought him up to date on the events and I could see on his face a wide smile and a jet of heavenly light that immediately gushed, illuminating that countenance.

                             I was invited in, and he told me more readily about Jesus and his immense love and told me that I had just been saved and that from now on the Lord would always be with me, I got down on my knees and he prayed with me, for I had believed. with heart and mouth confessed that Jesus was my Lord and savior. From that memorable day onwards I started to walk with that brother to the church thus beginning my journey with Jesus here on this earth.

The following year, still feeling the joy of that blessed experience of being born again, Jesus graced me with something amazing that I would never forget for all my life.

                              One beautiful morning, I went as usual to work in the fields, however, since the early hours of that day I felt the presence of Jesus in my life in an unusual way my heart was burning everything was good, beautiful, I felt light as a feather something inexplicable was happening it was like I was in heaven, wherever I went that holy and blessed peace accompanied me. Already in the coffee plantation we started the harvest work, it was around seven in the morning, I remember perfectly well that I saw the red sun rising behind the dark green forest of the coffee plantation and that my sister would come to me and say : “If it's not okay, go home”. And he pushed me by the shoulders so I started walking downhill towards the path that would take me back to our house. That's when an ecstasy hit me and the Holy Spirit swept me away and took me to a completely different place. A strange people speaking a language I didn't understand, the houses were rounded covered with grass, many children the skin color of the people there was grayish black, and I walked the streets of that place as if it were a dream and I didn't understand anything. At one point I heard the voice of the Lord saying to me: “You will be a called pilot was beside me doing parties, so I got up quickly hitting the sand that I had glued to my clothes and trying to understand what had happened. After thinking for a while, the only conclusion that came to me at that moment was that something amazing and wonderful had happened to me that I couldn't understand. From that day onwards my life was not the same, because when I remembered the vision I had I felt as if I was spiritually returning there so I was afraid to go and never return, then I had to think of other things to be able to get out of it. situation, and so it was a constant “come and go”.

The days went by and the episodes of feeling that I was being taken away were spaced out so I learned to control the situation and I could already remember everything that the Lord will show me without that concern.

However, I couldn't share it with anyone, because there was no one I could trust and even if there were they wouldn't understand me, after a lot of thinking I decided to talk to that believer who became my father in faith and I went to look for him, I explained everything to him in detail. that he had in his heart. He listened to me patiently and told me, "Jesus baptized you with the Holy Spirit and gave you a vision of what he's going to do in your life, but don't tell anyone yet until He talks to you again."

At that time I prayed a lot about the vision and I thought about Jesus, but when I was careless thinking about other things, the enemy would come and say in my mind: “You have to go to Africa, He said you have to go, Africa , Africa goes to Africa”. At the time I didn't realize I was the enemy, I thought those thoughts were mine even so I started to feel scared, very scared, because I didn't know how to go to Africa. Which way was it? How would it be? I would walk anyway. I imagined that Africa was “Behind the door of my house”. Sometimes I looked to the side of the rising sun and thought that if I walked away in that direction I would definitely get there. So I started trying to forget about everything and lead life normally, because this thing in Africa took my peace and my life became almost a torment.

Until one Sunday night, when in our church a missionary was talking about missions, I was there in the crowd of brothers listening to that sermon, and suddenly he quoted the word Africa, so I felt like my blood ran cold in my veins. Had he discovered my secret what that man knew about Africa? I felt fear, great fear and there, be silent, wait to hear more things from the mouth of that man who continued to preach, running here and there, who stopped for a moment in silence, and pointing his finger to the side I was saying with great authority :

“My child, fear not”. I will go before thee, and make the crooked ways straight; I will break the bronze doors, and break the iron bars.

I will give you the hidden treasures and the hidden riches, that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.

From that hour onwards I rested in God, felt peace again and sought the way to Africa. I started to be interested in everything related to the Continent and African culture, I was discovering that mysterious and missionary world on the African Continent.

Fascinating, I just didn't know that God would be silent and would only come back to the subject sixteen years later.

                   But I remained silent, not even my family knew what God and I had to do at the right time.

                      One night I slept and I had a dream, where I was in that weird town that I had seen sixteen years ago, someone said, Bafatá. I woke up with that name in my mind, as it was the first time I had heard this name, I thought it would be one of these newly emancipated countries. So I began an arduous search of maps and encyclopedia, but all in vain.

                         I learned through a CEBIME bulletin that the AMEM Mission in Belo Horizonte was sending workers to Africa, so I immediately wrote to the directors and was eagerly awaiting their response.

                       One hot summer afternoon, I was praying in my room interceding for Africa and that enigmatic name Bafatá, standing by the window that faced the open street, as it was very high outside, due to the heat it was occasionally open, and I there crying out, stretched out on the floor of the room, I heard the noise of someone passing in the street and I saw a letter come flying through the window.

Certainly the courier in his daily haste did not want to put the mail under the door, preferring to throw it out the window. When I caught sight of the sender from Belo Horizonte, my heart leapt with joy.

                              I opened that long-awaited envelope and inside I found nothing less than a letter and a brochure. First I saw the flyer with a photo on the front where a crop of ripe wheat hung its full bunches, and the headline read "GUINEA BISSAU LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES."

                              I stayed there contemplating that photo with the words and I loved the name Guinea-Bissau. Is this where God had in mind to send me? If I will go Lord, here I am, send me. After the moments of digression, I finally opened the pamphlet and to my surprise there was a map of Guinea with the curious name Bafatá, at last the secret was revealed, it was the name of a city in Guinea, a Muslim region, ground of the Fula tribes and Mandingas that the gospel had not yet arrived.

    

Finally, the Ferreira family arrived in Bafatá in 1985 (Luciane, Márcia, Vanilda and José Ferreira).