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.
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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.