A series of Holy Week broadcasts, which ran April 7 to 14, reached new audiences throughout Latin America and around the world, say the series’ organizers. The event, sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Brazil, was broadcast on radio, television, satellite, and the Internet, reaching an estimated 10 million people in auditoriums, churches, community halls, and private homes.
Holy Week evangelism in Brazil is a tradition that has been made even more powerful with the advent of satellite broadcasting and the Internet, says Williams Costa Jr., director of ADSAT/Novo Tempo, the Adventist television station that helped broadcast the event. He says that, for many years, Adventists have conducted evangelistic series throughout Brazil during Holy Week, focusing on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. “But by using satellite, a program that was already established, has become so powerful,” says Costa. “The results are fantastic. Everyone can invite friends who are interested or who are studying the Bible.”
Figures released by Globo.com, the Internet site that hosted the Webcasts, showed that on the opening Saturday night alone, more than two million hits were registered during the sermon presented by Adventist Pastor Neumoel Stina. The Portuguese-language series was also aired by radio and cable television across Brazil, and by satellite throughout Brazil and other countries in South America, and into North and Inter-America.
Novo Tempo also ran Holy Week programming in Spanish, airing an evangelistic series conducted earlier this year in Havana, Cuba, by evangelist and writer Alejandro Bullón. The Spanish language series was broadcast via satellite to Spain, Australia, and parts of Asia, as well as covering North, South, and Inter-America.