This & That from the Trip

In making this post about our HS Ministry Trip, I discovered something -- in trying to make it easier for me to post, I actually made it so you have to read it in reverse. Sorry! I'm still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of blogging.

I wanted to share some random shots from the trip with you. It was an incredible trip and I could spend hours sharing all the stories and memories that were made. I hope you enjoy taking a peek at our trip. Thank you for your prayers during that time. We had a great time, but are also very glad to be back as a family of 6 under one roof.
~~~
We shared balloons with the Indian children. They loved playing with them.

There are TONS of donkeys in the State of Maranhao. It was not uncommon for the bus or the truck to have to slow way down because there were donkeys on the road.

This cat lived in the Indian village with the missionaries. Her name is Enfermeira, which means Nurse. Her unique eyes, one light blue the other light green, earned her a lot of photo opportunities.

This parrot is one of two that the missionaries had as pets. They spent their days out in the tree by the house and their nights inside the house. They were beautiful.

The Indians do beautiful bead work. Many of the people were wearing elaborately designed necklaces and bracelets. We felt a bit embarrassed at having them make the simple Wordless Book Bracelets when their talents are far and above that task. The saving grace of our simple bracelets was the message of Saving Grace that they proclaimed.

Here's a look at plumbing at its simplest. The water comes out the faucet and then runs out the drain onto...your feet. Makes brushing your teeth a bit more challenging. This was the sink at the sitio where our retreat was. It was next to the bathroom that we affectionately called the Bat room, because the first time we opened the door, a bat flew out. The door to the Bat room is the wooden planks you see in the background.

Here's a picture of a little school house in a village on one of the roads we took into the jungle. Makes me count my blessings in regard to my children's education.

Donkeys weren't the only thing on the roads in Maranhao. We drove through this small herd of cattle one day.

It was a great trip and one that we'll always remember.

Service Project

We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon (May 6-8) painting and cleaning at the Carl Harrison Center for Biblical Training.

This Center is being opened next year to train Indians so that they can then go back to their tribes and minister. Carl Harrison was the key Bible translator with Wycliffe who helped bring the Word of God to the Guajajara Indians. The Center is being run by MEIB -- The Evangelical Mission to Indians of Brazil -- a Brazilian mission organization to the indigenous people groups of Brasil.

We cleaned out an enormous building that will be the chapel. After everything was swept, including all the corners to rid them of spiders, the inside of the building was given two coats of white paint.

Another building that will be used as classrooms and cafeteria was primed and painted.

Lots of primer and paint found surfaces that weren't necessarily going to stay at the Center.

Lillian helps her mom get into the "Indian" spirit by "painting" her face for her.

On Thursday they introduced us to a third building that needed cleaning out, sweeping, and priming before it could be painted. This building will be the dormitory for the students.

Some of the kids taking a well deserved break from painting and cleaning.
~~~
We didn't get the job finished, but the MEIB mission will have far less to do now in preparation before they open the Center for their first students.

~~~
One of the cool things that we discovered was that a young man from the village we went to will be attending the Training Center when it opens. It was neat for us to think about helping to prepare the Center for someone we had just come to know.
~~~
Friday was our day to play. We began the day with a trip to town to do some shopping. We decided Barra needs to improve their shopping. Most of us came away with little to show for our shopping efforts. That afternoon we took a ride some distance from where we were staying and then floated back on the river, with the help of some truck inner tubes.

It would have been an awesome adventure if it wouldn't have rained (cold rain) and if there hadn't been these little fish in the river that seemed to have fangs when they bit you. It was like getting electrical shocks whenever they grabbed on. Yikes!! Thankfully not everyone was attacked by these little critters, but those of us who were so fortunate were glad to see the end of the tubing trip.
~~~
The trip back to Belem was uneventful.

The kids slept for a good chunk of the trip and the rest was filled with card games, practical jokes (you have to be careful if you fall asleep on a bus full of HSers), songs, silliness, and memories. We arrived, safe and sound, back in Belem at 10:30pm on May 10th.
It was a wonderful trip!

Visit to the Indian Village

On Monday, May 5th, we once again loaded up into a large truck and headed about an hour and a half away for an Indian village. We were invited by the Brazilian missionaries in this village to present a program at the church there. The Indians are part of the Guajajara tribe. Missionaries, both Brazilian and American, have been working with the Guajajara Indians for many years. Last October the translation of the Guajajara Bible was completed and dedicated.

Praying for our journey and ministry at the village.

The Guajajara are beautiful people.

Dennis and Curtis visit with some of the men.

We arrived late morning and after giving the village a gift of food for their dinner, we played games with the children.

The guys threw an American football around with the boys and the gals played hand games and sang songs with the girls. Dividing by gender was the culturally acceptable way to interact with the villagers.

There was one young boy who could throw a perfect spiral. His arm made our guys jealous. :o) However, he couldn't catch the football, as you can see in the picture.

Fun with hand games and chants.

This is Daniela. Her father will be going to the Center for Biblical Training for Indians next year so that he can minister to the believers in his village and evangelize in those villages near his.
~~~
After eating our own dinner, the guys went to play soccer with the men and boys of the village. The gals met at the church to make Wordless Book Bracelets with the women and children.

Singing the Wordless Book song.

These little girls show us their Wordless Book bracelets.

The women and children outside the church.
~~~
After that, we all hiked back to the river that flowed near the village.

Emi and some children on a large rock near the waterfalls.

The villagers had a great time laughing with/at our kids as they swam back and forth across the fast moving river. The river was fun and refreshing and a great way to interact with the villagers.
~~~
Following supper, the village church had a service. We had a portion of the service where we shared through puppets and song. We had to alter our original programming since only the adults and older children spoke Portuguese.

Singing with the puppets.

Some of our puppeteers behind the scenes.

Here are our kids teaching a song about how Jesus is with us through all the storms of life -- When the Storm Rolls.

The Indians enjoy the puppets and songs and our group enjoyed being there and experiencing a part of Brazil we had never had the opportunity to experienced before.

We left the village at about 10pm and traveled back to Barra under the canopy of God's star filled heavens. It's incredible how many stars you can see in the pitch dark night with no lights for miles around.
Awesome!

High School Ministry Trip

On May 1st, at 6:30am, we began our journey to Barra do Corda in Maranhao, the State next to Para (the State we live in). We got off to a rather interesting start when only 15 kilometers away from our school, we were stopped at a Federal Police check point. May 1st was a holiday and apparently the folks at this check point were enjoying making people's holiday start with stress. They claimed they needed certain documents from the drivers before we could proceed. The bus company's boss came out with the needed documents and then the lady in charge came onto the bus and proceeded to tell us in the a very polite way (and with a huge smile on her face) that our trip was over and they were confiscating our bus. Hmmm... Not quite what we had in mind. We knew it could happen since there was a bunch of people standing at the check point who had just gotten off a different bus right before that bus was confiscated. Ten minutes after we all exited the bus (praying hard for a simple resolution), the lady's boss showed up and told her all the documents were in order and we could go. Praise the Lord, we were on the road again -- two hours after being stopped.

At 1:30am on the 2nd, we finally arrived at our destination. We had a few other "bumps" along the way, including an hour+ of driving the wrong direction (the driver "knew" where he was going) and then an hour+ backtracking to get to where we needed to turn, plus spending half an hour driving around Barra do Corda trying to find the place we were staying, and once we got to our destination, getting our bus stuck in the mud. Let's just say, we were all VERY glad to hang our hammocks and climb into them once we arrived.
~~~
Our first three days were spent at a retreat with a youth group from a church in Barra. We trekked into the jungle in the back of a couple of pickups and arrived at a rustic, but beautiful sitio (country home/farm) located right on a refreshing river.

The ride out to the retreat was incredibly fun. The roads were dirt and mud, and the further we went into the jungle, the narrower and rougher they got. It reminded me a lot of my growing up years in Sierra Leone.

Some of the kids had never ridden in an open pickup truck before. It was an adventure for all of us.

We were all far from clean when we arrived at the retreat and so were thrilled to be able to cool off in the river.

The girls hung their hammocks in one large sleeping area. It was wall to wall hammocks. The gal next to me was nearly on top of me. But when you sleep in a hammock, you can't move around much anyway, so folks can sleep pretty close together and not get too bothered...unless of course someone snores. :o)

The guys sleeping area doubled as the large group meeting area, so during the day, their hammocks were tied up so we could set up chairs for meeting. Oh, and they weren't so far away that we couldn't hear their snoring. Ha!

The river was used for many things. There was a slide made of cement that was a lot of fun for sliding down. They ran water down it and if a person soaped up their swimsuit, they could really sail down and into the river. Aways down stream, there was a place to get out and then a path back through the jungle to the sitio.

The river was used for washing our clothes, our dishes, and our bodies. We tried not to dwell on the health aspect of that too much. Thankfully it was a very fast flowing river and the soap, etc...sped downstream quickly.

Here's Dennis sailing off the end of the slide.

There was a Guajajara Indian village across the river from the sitio. There was always a group of Indians (on both sides of the river) watching what was taking place at the retreat.

We had a great weekend focusing on Disciple Making and what it means to be a Disciple of Jesus. The weekend was filled with games, small group times, large group sessions, mini dramas, and more. Arriving back in Barra do Corda on Sunday afternoon, we had time to clean up and then went to church with the youth group that had joined us on the retreat. Trevor Collazo (HS teacher) and three of our gals led the worship portion of the service.

After the worship portion, we went with the children and did a program for them using puppets, singing, and a flannel graph Gospel story. It was a lot of fun. Following church we went out for pizza in town with some of the young people from the church.

The children at Children's Church.

Presenting the Gospel Message through a Flannel Graph Story.