Internet, natural remedies and a trip

I must beg your pardon for the lack of posting. We've been slowly getting back into the swing of things. Not a lot of news worthiness... but here are a few things we've been up to:

• About a year ago a fiber optic internet cable was brought into Altamira, and with it the promise of a new era in the sad saga that is Altamira internet. For those of you that don't know, we've learned to live with dial-up speed (remember 14.4K speen? That's a good day), oh they call it high speed, but then oversell the servers and everybody slows down to a crawl. Anyway, the high speed (real high speed) via the fiber optic line was first offered just to government agencies and schools. The NGO that our mission runs was told they would soon receive the service as well (this was back in February). After a looooooooong wait, we now have high speed. It's almost as if I blocked out of my memory how enjoyable it could be to use the internet, but now I'm actually opening more than one page at a time and am able to, can you believe it, WATCH VIDEO (can you believe Charlie bit his finger??? I mean come on... that's hilarious!). Part of me is saying this is all too good to be true, but for now we're open for business. Please send all cheesy videos and large forwarded emails via Brin.

• Speaking of Brin, she's been fighting a bit of a sinus infection/lung congestion, it may be a new strain of the swine flu, but don't worry, we were given a natural Amazonian concoction that was given to her by a friend. It may or may not include tree bark and very small rocks. Decide fro yourself...

• I (Josh) will be leaving on Sunday (Aug. 23) for an 8 day trip to a new area where our mission plans to open a new base. The town of São Felix is about 300 miles south of Altamira on the Xingu River. It has access to a lot of remote areas by river and roads. I will be going with Clyde Berquist, another missionary, who plans to move to São Felix by the end of this year. We will be traveling down the Xingu, towards Altamira, trying to get a feel for the population that lives along the river and the potential need for churches in that area.

Here is a map of our planned journey:

View My Saved Places in a larger map

Here is a video Clyde made on a recent trip to the area: