Attack of the Tapir

Josh helps with an inspection on JAARS' 206 in Porto Velho.  

Getting attacked and bitten by a strange animal would be traumatic enough, but imagine if you lived in a remote village in the vast Amazon jungle and the animal was feared to have rabies.  This awful nightmare became a reality for one missionary family this past week.  This story, while still being written, has God's hand of provision and protection all over it. 

Tapirs can grow up to 8 ft. long and almost 500 lbs.

If you've ever seen a tapir you may have thought God was running out of ideas when he got to this one... "Ok, let's combine a pig and an elephant but put him in the family of horses, zebras and donkeys."  The unfortunate tapir in our story was domesticated, living with a local family who probably had plans to make him the guest of honor at a future BQQ.  One of the reasons rabies is suspected is this tapir never showed aggressive behavior, and yet seemingly out of the blue he attacked this young missionary couple, as well as two other locals.  The injuries were not at first considered severe, but all thought it wise for them to seek treatment for rabies.  Easier said than done when you live in the middle of the jungle.

When I first heard about the freak attack I was at another of our bases helping out with an inspection on an airplane.  The pilot told us about the attack and how they were trying to figure out how to fly the couple out of the village to get medical attention. The only plane near enough to fly them out was a New Tribes Plane, but New Tribes currently has no pilot to fly the plane.  Asas de Socorro (our mission) and JAARS, another partner aviation mission, had been sending pilots to that area to fly the New Tribes plane when necessary.  Rodrigo, one of our pilots agreed to catch a commercial flight to where the New Tribes plane was and fly out the couple, their 3 kids and two other local men who had also been attacked. 

The airplane they used miraculously had just enough fuel in the tanks for the flight (procuring fuel is a difficult process in that area) and the plane had just enough hours available before a required inspection was due.  Another of God's provisions was the rabies vaccine; when first contacted, the town where they were being flown to indicated they were out of the vaccine.  At the last minute however, the vaccine was found and they were all able to receive the treatment just within the 72 hour window necessary to fight the onset of rabies. 

Wounds from the attack.

It was clear throughout the bizarre and scary ordeal that God was working.  He could have choosen any number of ways to prevent this, but instead he choose to use resources from different organizations to come together and bring glory to His name.  Throughout all of this I am reminded at how necessary aviation is to the missionary community here in the Amazon.  To receive the necessary medical treatment without an airplane would have required hiking through the jungle for a couple days and an 8 hour boat ride, something that would have been very difficult in their condition. 

Our life out in the jungle has been less perilous and as you can see in the photo below, even delicious.  Mia celebrates the arrival of a long-awaited classmate by making brownies, a process that for these girls starts 3 days previous.  First, they plucked a ripe cacao fruit from the tree and then during science all four students sucked the pulp off each individual seed, spitting them into a communal cup that was passed around the room.  The girls spread out the seeds in the sun to dry and for ants to eat the remaining bits of pulp.  The girls gathered it back up, roasted them, ground them up and got 1/2 cup of cocoa powder, just enough for a pan of brownies.  This gastronomical feat would not win the award for Best Brownie but maybe Honorable Mention for Effort, which is pretty typical for our life.