Growing Pains

I like this tree. There are a lot like it here in Brazil. The cleared ranch land that surrounds it today was most likely very different when it was growing to that height. Like most trees in the jungle, it probably spent most of it's early life striving to reach the distant heights of the canopy, where it could get sunlight. So much of it's focus was upwards that it spent no energy putting out lateral limbs. No telling what forces caused that bend towards the top. Whatever it was it must have seemed overwhelming at the time.

Our family is in the midst of a difficult time. Brin especially has had some difficult days. It's hard to identify any one cause, but the result has been almost overwhelming. We leave in a few days to renew our visas in Santarem. I'm hoping it will be the break we need and will return with new life. Please pray for us over the next few days.

Fun with Grandma and Company

For the last week or so we've been entertaining Diane and Tara (Brin's mom and sister) and Emily (a friend of Josh's family). We've been showing them all the sights of Altamira as well as giving them a little picture of what our lives are like here. They leave tomorrow and we will be sad to see them go.

A True Jungle Missionary

Naldo piloting the motorboat up a jungle creek at dusk.

Brin and Emily jumping from the Maranata II


We've had a busy couple of weeks. On the heals of our trip to Maribel we left for a short trip on the river. We did have one day rest before leaving again, but we also picked up some more guests (Brin's mom, sister and a friend, Emily).

This river trip was unique in that we traveled in a small boat up a creek for about 30 minutes to the village. As we left it was just getting dark, on the return trip it was pitch dark, except for the stars that we occasionally glimpsed through the jungle canopy. Upon getting home, Brin and I commented on how much the trips had taken out of us. Then we realized that Pastor Naldo had gone on both trips as well. The difference was that along the way he took time to minister to countless people. Not only does he seem at home on the river (after all, he was born on the river and raised "drinking milk out of a turtle shell" as Pastor Clenildo jokes) but he also has a natural ability (and desire) to connect with the people.

It's easy to forget that people like Naldo have lives outside of the work here. Fortunately his wife was able to go along with us on the river trip. Even as I write this Naldo is probably planning his next trip to a remote village. We are privileged to be working alongside men like Naldo whose passion reminds us why we are here.


To learn more about Pastor Naldo read this post from back in April .

Bem Vindos

Can I even tell you how excited I am?! My mom is here along with my sister, Tara! Along with them came Emily who lives with Tom and Connie in St. Louis. Josh is really outnumbered but I am going to have a ton of fun. We headed off to the river right away so more stories to come soon.

btw: the girl in the picture with the blue shirt is Meredith Kubacki who came along to the airport for the ride.

New Creations

One of the communities we visited

Brin and I are back from an evangelism trip into the interior to a location named Maribel. Maribel is our farthest work. It takes 3 days by boat in the rainy season, and about 8-10 hours in a vehicle. Because of the remoteness we expected to see lots of wildlife, and we weren’t disappointed. Among other things, we saw (and/or tasted) paca (a large rodent, the size of a small pig), a snake, a jaguar, a jungle cat (smaller than a Jaguar), and Brin and some girls on a team saw a crocodile while bathing in the river. It was dark and they were stark naked, Brin adds. In nearly every village we visited we saw a flock of butterflies at the beach.

It would be a stretch to call the communities that we visited “villages”. Most were just a few houses at most, separated by vast jungle and river. We visited 4 such locations, in each place we were warmly received. We held services in the evening and Tim saw people with health problems each morning.

An evening program

Pastor Naldo prays with some of the locals

Pastor Clenildo, from our church in Altamira, tries to bring a group at least 3 times a year to this area, providing discipleship to the believers and always leading more people to the Lord. We saw several people make commitments to the Lord. Pastor Clenildo is such an effective evangelist and pastor. It seems natural to him to visit a family, trade hunting or fishing stories, tell jokes, but always challenging and encouraging them from the Bible.

So many faces stand out to me as I think back over our trip. Each of them telling a story about a hard life lived in isolation and separation from the rest of the world. As I watched Clenildo teaching about the parable of the wise builder and the foolish builder I was reminded of the seemingly impossible task of discipling people so remote. Clenildo seems unaffected by those doubts and concerns. He takes every opportunity to encourage them, fully expecting the result to be changed lives. Here is one example of the challenges before him; I walked up to him once finding him writing out the alphabet and the sounds each letter makes. After a moment, I realized he was giving a discipleship booklet entitled “New Creation” to a man that could not read. I was witnessing an ad hoc literacy class.

Pastor Clenildo disciples (and teaches literacy)

During one of the services, Orlando, a man who came with us on the trip got up and gave a testimony. Orlando married Teresa, a woman who grew up in this region, and years ago they were living on a ranch near Altamira when Clenildo lead them to Christ. It is because of Orlando and Teresa that Clenildo now works in the Maribel region. When Orlando, a rough looking middle-aged rancher, began to share with the group, I knew he was speaking from his heart. It was apparent that he was not comfortable with public speaking. He went on to share about how Clenildo told he and his wife about Jesus, how they struggled to give their lives to Him, and now make frequent trips back to this area because we wants others to experience the same hope that he has.

Orlando

Although I didn’t understand everything he said, I understood his heart. I saw in him a new creation. I didn’t know him before he knew Christ, but now he is gentle, kind man with a body that hints at the hard life he has lived. It was then that I realized that discipleship in this context is possible, that new creations can result from this difficult work.

I was reminded again of the butterflies we had seen earlier. Metamorphosis is a marvel of God’s creation and a metaphor for what happens when a life encounters Christ. That miracle is not dependant on sophisticated methods or access to the most modern spiritual training. In the end it’s still a miracle. Something simple becoming something new and beautiful. -JTP

Nikki and Brin inspecting the butterflies

Cleide's Big Day

Mia presenting Cleide with a frosting kiss

Cleide jumping on the Bergen's homemade trampoline

Vatapa and Rice, a traditional Brazilian birthday dish that we served

We hosted our first brazilian 15th birthday party. Brin spent most of the day in the kitchen with 3 or 4 brazilian ladies cooking and conversing in broken portuguese. She spent most of today recuperating from the ordeal. Cleide, the birthday girl, was surprised and I think a bit overwhelmed. We were happy to host the party, knowing that her mother would not be able to give her a proper party. I'm glad our girls are still several years from that all important age of 15.

To tell you a little about Cleide.... she lives with her mom, who is on disability. The check from the government is too little for her to live on and often late. Cleide helps watch our two youngest in the mornings (much of what she makes helping us goes to support her and her mom). But more than that she has become part of our family. She is one of the few Brazilians in Altamira who speaks English almost fluently. She has picked up English mainly from being around missionary kids and their families. We know God will use Cleide in the future. She is already learning to play the guitar (in the hopes of playing in the worship band) and she has just recently begun to help with translating. Probably within the next few years she will be helping with teaching English at the English school.

This morning when Cleide arrived at our house she was still beaming. I often see young girls like Cleide that probably have very few people in their lives that show them Godly love. Someday Cleide may have a role in talking to some of those young girls about the love that she has experienced in her life, and pointing them to their loving, heavenly Father.

On the subject of language learning…

The other day our neighbor came over to borrow something from our shed. Because she has been around North Americans so long she has picked up a few English words. She knew that my Portuguese is in progress so she thought it would be helpful to ask her question by throwing in the one English word she knew. Which was “key”. She wanted to know where to put the keys when she was done. I got the Portuguese just fine, however it was the new word “keehs” that threw me off. I realized it would have been much easier for me had she just spoken completely in Portuguese than try to decipher her strongly accented English word. And then, oops, I realized I do that same thing all the time in my English class. I sometimes will be explaining a topic or grammar rule and will switch back and forth between the two languages. And I seriously doubt that after only 10 months here my accent is any more pleasing than my neighbors. O well.

My last English class was somewhat stressful because I had to teach a verb tense I had not yet learned in Portuguese. I think they got it. I often assume that and then their tests prove me otherwise. Tomorrow I will be using a substitute because Josh and I are hosting Cleide’s 15^th birthday party. Here in Brazil, the 15^th birthday is kind of like a coming-of-age event. It’s a pretty big deal to Brazilians so we have some grand plans.

Photo Credit

We just wanted to give credit for some of the recent pictures that we posted. In the posts "are you going to use your nursing?" and "God of Wonders" the pictures used were taken by Nick Fancher, who visited on a team and is a professional photographer. You can see more of his pictures at www.shutterthink.com