Bill Hamilton stood at the busy street corner, warily looked over his shoulder, and prayed that no one was watching. "By the blood of Jesus," he said aloud, "you have no power here, Satan." Bill kicked all the elements of a spiritist ritual down the storm drain: the food for the spirits, the smoking cigarettes, the alcohol and candles. Then he quietly returned to his Rio De Janeiro apartment. Later that night, Bill's then-3-year-old daughter, Amelia, woke up crying hysterically. Inconsolable for almost an hour, Amelia, was finally lulled back to sleep by a Christian video.

"Satan was attacking the weak link in our family," Bill says of Amelia and her tumultuous night. So the American missionary returned to the street corner with a new plan. He concluded that the demons on this corner didn't know every language; they aren't omniscient like God. And in this case--being in Brazil--they speak Portuguese, not English. So Bill reprimanded the evil forces in their native tongue, and his family was fine.

Bill and Aida Hamilton and their multinational staff team stand at a crossroads between the dark and deceitful world of spiritism and the light and truth of Jesus Christ. From the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro, famed for its sunny beaches and hedonistic Carnaval, they point college students to God.

Although Brazil is widely known as the largest Roman Catholic country, most of its population is at least sympathetic to spiritism, if not outright involved in divination and occultic practices. Spiritists believe they can receive guidance and instruction from spirit gods and the dead (see "What is Spiritism?", page 20). "Spiritism is not considered unusual here," says Bill. "In fact, there is even a respect for it among nominal Christians."

In 1994 the Hamiltons arrived in this city of 6 million as seasoned campus staff members--Bill worked on U.S. and Brazilian campuses for 16 years while Aida, who is from Suriname, almost single-handedly opened the campus ministry in Trinidad. "I've always been fascinated with other cultures," says Bill, a native Californian. "As a kid, I pored over the pictures in National Geographic. When I finally woke up to the idea of serving God in another culture, I thought it would be fun." Fun, yes, and a new challenge for a man who considers himself "very ordinary."

"I'm not a walking Bible, a 'rah-rah!' leader or a [ministry] specialist," Bill explains. "You wouldn't necessarily pick me out of a group and say, 'Now here's the man to lead the charge in Brazil.'"

But God not only picked the Hamiltons to pioneer a campus ministry among the spiritists of Rio, He also prepared them. In a country where relationships are most prized, Aida's warmth and Bill's authenticity help them quickly make and keep friends. "As soon as Bill makes a mistake," says Madai Cabrera Tristan, a 22-year Brazilian staff member, "he comes back and asks for forgiveness. The fact that he's so honest and transparent actually causes people to want to be closer to him. It's impossible to get really mad at Bill."

Another trait familiar to many Brazilians and which Bill has adopted--to his dismay--is lack of attention to time. Aida calls him "overly optimistic" about how quickly he can get from one place to another in bustling Brazilian traffic. To combat this tardiness, Bill has set up a system of fines for latecomers to staff meetings (including himself)--the cash pool will provide a special dinner for the team. "We're going to eat really well," Madai admits sheepishly.

Overwhelming opportunities face the Campus Crusade for Christ staff members in Rio. "I was content just to direct one campus," says Bill, who co-labors with 10 other campus staff members (mostly Brazilian nationals) located in Rio and São Paulo. But God had extraordinary plans for the "ordinary" leader. A 1996 strike by professors at the Universidade Federal Fluminense shut down the university and nearly shut down the ministry. UFF students, ever flexible, took the unexpected hiatus as an opportunity to begin reaching out to other universities. Today Bill oversees solid works on five different Rio campuses, and has set his eyes on reaching all 75,000 students in "The Wonderful City."

Unlike the United States, where more than 35 percent of young people pursue an education after high school, only one percent of Brazilian youth are able to do so. "Being in the minority," says Hank Hornstein, director of Campus Crusade in Brazil, "college students are even more strategic than usual, because they are more certainly the future leaders in business, politics, the media and every other area."

Bill's approach to reaching these future leaders is nothing flashy, just solid Campus Crusade basics, like telling students about Christ, helping them grow in their faith, and sending them out to reach others. And they pray intensely, knowing that only God can free a people so trapped in spiritual deception.

When someone mysteriously destroyed posters put up by Alpha and Omega (the name of Campus Crusade on South American campuses), Bill and his team went to their knees. When they learned that an occultic spiritist group was to blame, they took it seriously: "We prayed that God would intervene and get rid of the group competing for the hearts and minds of students," Bill remembers. Soon after, the Oregon State University graduate had the unexpected opportunity of sharing the gospel with the group's president and vice president. Something nearly unbelievable happened next: The founder of the spiritist group inexplicably turned up dead.

"We didn't pray that would happen," Bill says, "but it definitely put a stop to the group."

The Hamiltons take an equally aggressive approach to helping Christians stay on track. A couple of years ago, when key students in the movement began dating non-Christians and even drifting away from the faith, staff members and Alpha and Omega students "prayed them back" to the Lord. "We weren't going to roll over and let these guys slip away," Bill says. "God was not satisfied with them putting Him second and compromising." By year's end, all 10 of the wayward students returned to Christ.

"There are always new gimmicks and tools for reaching people," says Aida Hamilton, who met Christ through Campus Crusade as an international student studying in Houston, "but you can't ever let them replace prayer, personal evangelism, and one-to-one and small-group discipleship. If you stick to [those disciplines], you're going to see God do amazing things."

Amazing things like walking into a university classroom and explaining the gospel, a public venture inconceivable in the United States. But most Rio professors welcome Alpha and Omega students (who may show up unexpectedly), inviting them to talk about knowing Christ personally and invite classmates to weekly meetings and Bible studies. One bold young woman included her testimony and even challenged her architecture class to follow Christ.

"[Students] are incredibly open to the gospel," says Maggie Beekee, an eight-year staff member from Trinidad (where Aida discipled her) who recently joined the Hamiltons in Rio. Maggie, whose Portuguese is still progressing, explained the gospel to 24 students in two weeks. Six accepted Christ. Six more would like to talk further. "We need to take advantage of the harvest," says Maggie, "before it falls to the ground and rots."

Bill and his team find the openness to the gospel almost unbelievable, especially in light of Rio's reputation for raucous revelry, not to mention the spiritism. "It's like the Bible Belt being in Las Vegas," Bill says. The only explanation, he knows, is the sovereignty of God. "Perhaps ordinary people with an extraordinary God are the best combination," Bill says.

Gilberlei Oliveira da Silva, a graduate of UFF and a new staff member, couldn't agree more: "I know God is sovereign, but if Bill had not obeyed God, my whole life would not would not be what it is. My life today is the result of my involvement with Campus Crusade and with Bill."

Last summer Gil, as he's known, joined Bill and 38 students in a four-week outreach to Cape Verde, a series of islands off western Africa. The first international mission project for Brazilian students saw approximately 11,000 Cape Verdians respond positively to the message of Christ. Using the JESUS film and one-to-one evangelism, the students shared God's good news with 35,000 Africans. "Their boldness level grew greatly," says Bill. "When we returned [home], the students jumped right into sharing their faith in classrooms."

This year, backed by the experience and enthusiasm generated by the Cape Verde project, Bill plans to venture out to six more Rio campuses. And next year? Well, there's 1.4 million Brazilian students in other parts of the country just waiting for another "ordinary" person to tell about his extraordinary God.