Powerful move of God in Guinea Bissau

By David Hoffman — Originally published in CBN News and slightly edited by Gateway News

God is moving powerfully in Guinea Bissau, a 70%-Muslim northwest African country with a population of two million people where Islam is making a strong push for religious and cultural dominance.

Very recently, World Harvest, a ministry led by US evangelist Jacob Ebersole, held several outreaches across Guinea Bissau where currently only 11.7% of the country identified as Christian. I became aware of this recently through a social media video of thousands of young people storming the streets and singing praises to Jesus. By delving deeper and reaching out to the ministry leading the evangelistic efforts I discovered some incredible testimonies as powerful events are taking place in that nation. I also reached out personally to Jacob Ebersole to interview him, as well, to hear his take on what is happening.

President helps crusade team
One of the most noteworthy testimonies had to do with the president of the country intervening to help get the crusade stage across the border and into the country. The president of Guinea Bissau is a Muslim, but he was instrumental in contributing to the crusade meetings coming together.

All throughout northern Africa, Muslims persecute Christianity. Any nation that holds to Islamic Law (Sharia) demands sharp penalties, even as extreme as death, for any Muslim that converts to Christianity. But when World Harvest’s crusade stage was stuck at a neighbouring border, the president of Guinea Bissau personally arranged for the country’s border security to make sure that it arrived safely in the capital city in time for the Gospel crusade meetings. It is truly a testament to the power of God that the president of the country personally saw to it that the crusade would begin on time. And if that was not shocking enough, he attended the first night of the Gospel crusade.

A large portion of Guinea Bissau has not yet been reached by the Gospel. The nation falls within the 10/40 Window which is a geographical area of countries that are the “most unreached with the Gospel”. An unreached nation is one in which many of its inhabitants have never had someone share the Gospel with them. 

Bold proclamation of Gospel
With the current “Islamic evangelisation” push into Guinea Bissau, Christianity, already a minority in the country, could begin to diminish. Christians in the nation are taking this very seriously and are beginning to rise up in boldness to proclaim the Gospel like never before while they still have the opportunity and freedom to do so. 

One example of this occurred after a simple prayer meeting on the crusade field when thousands of teenagers spontaneously began to take to the streets in the capital city of Bissau. They proclaimed the Gospel and sang worship songs from one end of the city to the other. The young people in the nation are on a mission to take their nation back for Christ.

The first night of the crusade was a massive success. Ebersole said: “The President himself attended the first night as thousands came far and wide to hear the Gospel. Some even traveled in canoes and boats on rough waters from islands off the coast to be a part of this. I’ve never seen anything like it before. We’ve had the privilege of being on the front row witnessing a move of God that seemed impossible at every turn. I’m literally still in awe of this entire thing happening. God is writing a story and it’s not stopping. One of the greatest testimonies we heard was that this crusade has stiffened the spines and strengthened the hearts of other believers in the city. One lady said…’something is going on, people are saying the name of the Lord all over the city now whereas before this wasn’t happening.'” 

Night after night, tens of thousands cried out to Jesus in repentance and faith at this open-air crusade, and the story is continuing. Just from these outreach events, there were over 18 477 documented decisions for Christ. There were thousands more that occurred in the day to day evangelisation of local Christians. 

Genuine decisions
In speaking with Jacob Ebersole about the meetings, he told me that they really take steps to make sure that the numbers they report are accurate and not over-inflated. He also said he “really tries to go out of the way to keep people from just making flippant decisions for Christ.” It is always his goal to preach in a way to dissuade false conversions or people just getting caught up in making an emotional decision. 

As the Gospel campaign across the nation continued, Ebersole stated that he saw another unprecedented event occur. Hundreds of young people spontaneously traveled to the next town for the next crusade. Many of them had no food or housing pre-arranged, but they felt compelled by the Lord to go on a whim to help in the evangelization efforts for the next crusade which happened to take place in a heavily Muslim city. 

“Many witnessed what happened in the capital city crusade but it didn’t stop there. Hundreds from that crusade literally followed us HOURS away to the next city in Gabu, Guinea Bissau! This is something I’ve always dreamed of witnessing and we got to see it with our own eyes. One influential businessman said that no one would come to a Gospel crusade because the city is almost 100% Muslim, plus it was during Ramadan. After the crusade, that same man was shocked seeing that many came and hundreds of Muslims cried out to Jesus. He said we came to the ‘Lions Den’ and had a great victory. He said he has never seen anything like what he saw the Lord do there,” Ebersole said.

How remarkable! In the west, our media and news consumption generally centers around bad news. The Gospel is “Good News.” We should be filled with great joy. In our nation, it is easy to get excited about anything that seems to be even a spark of God moving. However, we should be ecstatic to see the Lord moving in other nations. Especially nations that are unreached and dominated by other religions.

Zambia crusades
Immediately after the crusades in Guinea Bissau, World Harvest began crusades in Zambia, a central African Country. Over 200,000 people attended the crusade in Lusaka, Zambia. And after a stirring message of repentance, people of every age flooded the altar to lay down their idols and addictions! The video on social media reminded me of Acts 19:19-20, “And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.“

Every true move of God always is marked by deep and action-filled repentance. People rushed to the altar to throw bottles of hard alcohol, drugs, witchcraft items, idols, and many other things into bins that were going to be burned. There were over 45 000 documented salvations.

“We believe and we’re praying this is going to put a dent in West/North Africa where the gospel needs to be preached the most,” Ebersole said.

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