Mean guys and drunk women

I was asked to go on a trip to the Asurini, only a day before we would be leaving. I said I would, then kind of regretted it as the day got crazier and crazier. First, I found out my new truck needs it's engine rebuilt, the price tag for this truck just went up a few thousand dollars. Then the comparatively minor annoyance of our ceiling fan suddenly not working (try spending the night in the Amazon with out any air moving). Brin had a full plate herself when she got word that she needed to go to the hospital and coordinate between the Canadian and Brazilian doctors for Dan's evacuation flight to Canada. This fell to her because Ritchie, the missionary who has been helping care for Dan was in the hospital with his wife who was having a baby. Oh yeah, and later that day Brin was going to be watching Ritchie's 2 other kids.

In the midst of the chaos Brin and I decided I should go, mainly to provide the transportation for the film equipment needed. So I left Friday morning at 6:30 to catch the 7:00 barge across the Xingu River. After only traveling 2 miles on the other side of the river, the clutch cable broke and there we sat on the side of the road. I was ready to tell our group "I don't think this trip is going to happen", but Poli, the church worker I was going with, suggested we call Pastor Clenildo and have him buy the part and sending it over by speedboat (waiting for the barge would have meant at least another couple of hours). Surprisingly, we had the right part about a half hour later, 10 more minutes and we were on the road.

Poli sharing under the lights from our generator

That evening as Poli shared the gospel with the group of about 30, my mind wandered to last weeks service at the training center. Pastor Clenildo had shared how some guy asked him "What happened to Warner? What happened to Poli? What happened to several other guys? I used to know them. They were vagabonds. They were mean. They were not nice people. Now they are upright citizens and nice to be around." Warner, Poli and the other "vagabonds" he was referring to now go to our church and Christ has changed them. And there was listening to Poli, a faithful servant coming to this area once a month to share Christ. I never new him before he was a Christian, but some guys you can just tell they used to mean, you know what I mean?

Teresa is another Poli. Not that she was mean, but she drank... a lot. Teresa shared a testimony after Poli. She and her husband Orlando own a farm a few miles down the road. They spend a lot of time in Altamira and go to our church when they're in town. There's a church on their farm that they helped start and now they are reaching out farther down the road. Teresa shared how God took away her craving for alcohol. Then she asked anybody who wanted prayer for God to help them turn away from alcohol to stand up. When nobody stood she told 5 of the guys there to stand up. I'm not sure how God is going to answer that prayer, I felt there was a little bit of coercion going on. But you could see her heart for those people.

In the end the trip seemed well worth the effort. I was able to fix the ceiling fan before I left. Brin did fine with the extra kids while I was gone. And as for my truck, they say it'll be 3 days... I'll plan for more like 6.

A burned out tree stump on land cleared for cattle

"Waterfall" (no joke, that's his name) works at making Farinha,
staple food made from the manioc root.

I awoke to this scene from my hammock which I had strung between 2 trees.