To all my hair?
Jungle Journey
When I recieved my call to serve as a missionary in brazil I immediately thought of walking through the Amazons, crossing rivers, and battling snakes and alligators. Fortunately, depending on how you view it, I don’t have much “jungle” in my mission. But… there is some.
Looking constantly on our map I knew we were close. Our Uber driver was getting a little anxious as our road disappeared with each passing second. Abruptly he slammed on the brakes, the “road” a dirt stretch had disappeared, we were on the edge of a more than 45° slope into the jungle. I got out of the car to evaluate and I knew immediately I was in no condition to ascend the “cliff” on our way back. Disappointed, I sat back in the uber and we left. This was our second attempt to reach a family who lived out of the bounds of civilization. The first attempt, halted by a flooded river, the presence of alligators and the setting sun. Regardless of our defeat, I told myself I wouldn’t give up trying until we had reached their house.
The third attempt was planned, well. We brought a member of the church who had been there before, left with plenty of daylight left, and I was physically prepared after spending more weeks recovering. This time when our Uber dropped us off at the slope we descended with confidence, passing the river on wood planks we found nearby creating a makeshift bridge. We continued until we we reached a swamp filled with capybara. As I walked following our GPS our friend told me to stop suddenly, I looked around not seeing anything. He told me the right in front of me was a large pond filled with alligators not just mud, as I looked closer I could barely distinguish but the sparse foliage changed creating a circular shape I soon realized as the pond he had described. It was covered in water plants that were hardly noticeable from the shrubbery that covered the mud to the l pond the alligators made their home.
We continued on our trek through the dense jungle until we finally found the overgrown path and found our way to the family.
Rivers In Diverse Paces
One of the unfortunate consequences to Brasils poor pre planned infrastructure is the sheer amount of flooding that accurs during the rainy season. Bridges break, houses flood, and people get sick. This week the rain started, it rains, and rains, and just to make sure you got wet, rains some more. Even with an umbrella, rain jacket, and waterproof boots you get wet. Water fills your boots when you have to walk through the flood higher than you calves, wind blows the water at you wetting you running down the inside of your rain jacket, and the umbrella serves more to protect your face from the water. Despite all the I couldn’t be more happy to be here on the mission helping the people here.
Art Of The Month
Promised Blessings
When the lord promises “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matt 7:7) He means it.
As we worked one day we had very little sucess, we found the streets empty and none of our friends were home. As the day turned to afternoon and afternoon to evening we had yet to teach one lesson or even find one person. Stopping to pray we asked our father in heaven to help us with His work. The next person we had scheduled answered and immediately we could feel he was responding differently, his usually flipant nature had shifted to one humble and ready to learn. During this very touching lesson on his porch it happened that one of the other people we had been teaching and we’re unable to find for some weeks passed by, seeing us and joined the lesson, this then happened a few more times and from the time till the end of the night we found all the people we were looking for and had lessons, spiritual, and frequently.
Finally Fluent?
After months of dedicated study the tests have finally correlated with my claim from one of my first weeks here, that I was “fluent”. As I learn more I see I have so much more to learn and practice. Portuguese when spoken well is a beautiful language with conjugations for formal and informal settings. Each verb can have more than 36 conjugation, many irregular. I have by no means mastered all but i’m happy with the results. I continue working on improving my accent an pronunciation.
Amazing Grace
The most beautiful doctrine of Christ that we have is the one of the universal resurrection. Through the sacrifice of Jesus all will be redeemed from death, made alive through Christ.
The act of His infinite atonement give us hope to see the ones we love once more, but to also participate in His glory. I know that my Reedmer lives.
