Baby steps

It's been almost a month since my accident.  I continue to heal, slower than I'd like, but healing none-the-less.  I'm able to drive the car again, so that helps with feeling less like a caged animal.  

On Easter, the Bergquists and their 4 kids came over for an Easter egg hunt.  I was allowed to oversee the egg hiding, which left me feeling important.  I'm definitely going to enjoy that for as long as I can.  

Mia climbs on my good leg to get an egg hidden in a palm tree.

What is good?

There is a strange gap in my memory after I struck the dog and then became aware of my body sliding to a stop on the road.  I don't think I blacked out, I just have no memory.  As I came to my senses, my initial concern was for my left arm that was extended above my head.  I have a bad shoulder that is easily dislocated; over the years I've learned how to manipulate it back into place.  I slowly lowered my left arm with my right, preparing to put it back into place, but realized it was not dislocated.  I assumed the discomfort I felt in my shoulder was evidence that my shoulder had dislocated, but returned on it's own.  There was a soreness, but nothing that made me think anything was broken.  Next I assessed my legs, nothing was broken.  My chin was bleeding and I realized I had broken some molars (which at first I thought was gravel).  But all in all I felt thankful that I was essentially able to walk away from the crash (albeit limping).

Riding in a strangers car back to the city, I remember looking out the window with a grateful heart.  I thanked God for protecting me, for sparing me from more critical injuries.  More than a week later I am now struggling to have that same thankful heart.  The seriousness of my injuries have changed somewhat.  I have broken bones both in my shoulder and chin, and my knee may have some ligament damage (not a professional assessment, I see the orthopedic doctor tomorrow).  But does any of that change the reality that God is in control and deserves my thanks?

I've been reading in Acts about the early church.  What really was the hangup that many of the Jews had with Jesus?  Among other things, it was essentially they were looking for a messiah as they desired him to be.  They wanted to be saved on their terms.  I have come to realize that I do the same thing with Jesus.  I want him to "save" me from the difficulty, pain and disappointment of this life; when He doesn't I feel let down, even disillusioned.

Faith seems to have as much to do with trusting in how God works as in who God is.  It's easy to believe in a God when His will and our own lines up, but the moment His plan diverges from ours, we question where He is.  My personal faith struggle comes down to this: Do I believe God is good?  To clarify, am I willing to allow God to define "good"?  Declaring that God is good is easy, until I decide His goodness is not what I had in mind. 

I'm still in the midst of this lesson.  I'm learning what it means to trust Him.  I'm taking some cues from the writer of Ps. 118:1,2:

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his steadfast love endures forever!

Let Israel say,

"His steadfast love endures forever."

Let me say, "His steadfast love endures forever."

 

Josh and the motorbike accident

 

Josh was in a motorcycle accident this past weekend. Here is an update on how he is doing as well as the full story of what happened, as I have been told….

The TransAmazon  

 

On Saturday morning Josh left with Allison to do a weekend of church meetings and discipleship in the community of Surubim, a ranching and farming community in the bush about 4 hours outside of Altamira. While traveling by motorcycle on the TransAmazon highway, a large dog ran suddenly into the path of Josh’s motorcycle, pitching Josh’s body onto the hard clay and rock road surface. He can’t remember how he landed or really much at all after having the dreadful awareness of the dog. He never lost consciousness and when Allison found him he was able to talk and even sit up. They waited while 2 trucks sped past them. Allison explained that travelers on the TransAmazon are leery of stopping or even slowing down for fear of robbery. An injured duo would make a fabulous ruse, I suppose. So, Josh rode on the back of Allison’s motorcycle and they headed back towards Altamira. When they arrived at the river crossing, they had to wait for a car going their direction to act as an ambulance to take Josh into Altamira. The ferry came and went twice, until finally a van carrying workers from a local electric company arrived and transported Josh to the hospital.

Josh lacked mobility of his left arm and had a deformity on his shoulder blade so an x-ray was ordered that evidenced a scapula fracture. He also had a decent gash under his chin that needed stitches. That was about the time that I made it to the hospital. I watched as the technician cleaned the wound and cut out the loose tissue, and then remembering that Josh also broke at least 4 teeth, the technician probed his finger in further to feel Josh’s lower jaw bone. It wasn’t right, so back to radiology we went. The x-ray technician had actually left the building already so when he was called back for us, he gruffly asked. “What? Did you fall?” Essentially, the  jaw x-ray has been inconclusive, but clinically Josh can talk, bite down, and has some mobility and strength so right now we are waiting for the swelling to go down and then reevaluate. Despite that much of his pain was (and still is) in his left leg, all the x-rays of his leg came back clean. 

Josh when he first arrived home.
He had to make his own sling out of the long-sleeve tee he was wearing.

So I took him home. And it was a crazy night. First of all, the whole time at the hospital, no one listened to his lungs; no one took a pulse or questioned him about abdominal pain. All of those things being standard of care for almost any accident, but especially when an accident occurs of such force that could break the scapula. They let us go home without antibiotics, pain meds or even any advice on what to expect the coming days. They told me to see an Orthopedic doctor and an oral surgeon, and that was about it. It didn’t scare me, because honestly I wanted him at home where I could make the decisions and where he would be comfortable. The hospital we were at is horribly uncomfortable, at one point all I wanted was a towel to drape over Josh’s shoulder but I knew that would be a ridiculous request. Since he is at home, I can go to the pharmacy myself and get the best meds available, I could have our MD neighbor up the hill give me a second opinion and I called Tim in Porto de Moz and emailed Josh’s childhood friend Dan (an ortho doc) in Africa to give me advice. Later today I ached for the many people who don’t have those options, who can’t go home to a comfortable bed with a mountain of pillows and do not have support people who can just drop whatever they are doing (I was at a women’s retreat) and they don’t have any money to buy medication or see a specialist. And I was flooded with emotion, utterly grateful to have my husband alive (I kissed his helmet. And on a side note I have to wait 15 days to kiss his mouth.), thankful to be able to care for Josh and yet troubled for others who find themselves in Josh’s same predicament without the same care options.

It is kinda hard to see what God is up to here. Something, certainly. Josh and I had been planning this weekend for a while. The women’s retreat was actually a powerful ministry put on by our church called Encontro, which translates to “Encounter.”  Participants are given an entire weekend to search for God and His calling on their lives. I have been desiring to go for at least a year and the dates never worked out until this month, which I thought to be Divinely remarkable timing since Josh and I are using this month to pray specifically about our future with a new base. I was there 17 hours when Steve and Patty arrived to tell me about the accident and take me to the hospital. Those 17 hours were powerful and I learned so much about myself and God, strangely though, nothing to do with the new base. I have yet to share with Josh because, as you would imagine, other details have center stage.

So that is the update. Josh spends most his time in bed, self-medicating with ESPN.COM when it streams well. He can ambulate to the bathroom and sit on a chair in the shower. He drinks smoothies and takes codeine.That is about it. I find it humorous that he is stuck at home again (remember Dengue December?). My idea, which I am positive is correct, is that God is telling him to stay home more. Just kidding about that; sort of. But seriously, I admit I am having some significant emotions and a fair amount of deep reflections, however fragmented they are at the moment. I just can’t seem to put them into words. Give me some time. And Josh will give you his take too. Later though. It was rather bizarre watching Josh contort his body and use one hand to type a 2 line update on Facebook.

Thank you all for your prayers. Thanks for the prayers before his weekend even began and for the prayers after his accident. We are so humbled to know so many of you bring us before God. And the emails and Facebook messages are truly encouraging. We thank God for all of you.

Map of Atalaia

I've had several people ask me to provide a map showing the location of Atalaia and the region we visited.   Some of you may have stumbled upon the beautiful, coastal, resort town of Atalaia in the state of Pará; Brin wanted me to assure everyone that we are NOT referring to that Atalaia.

  

The first map shows where the area is in relation to all of Brazil, the second is the detailed area in the red box.

 

I've tried to identify a few important cities on the map below. 

The blue region is Brazil, pink is Peru and beige is Colombia. 1)  Atalaia do Norte - the city we visited and would potential have our base, 2)  Benjamin Constant - 30 min. by road from Atalaia, because of it's size (30,000) it offers a large variety of supplies and would be an important because of it's proximity to Atalaia, 3) Tabatinga -  30 min. by boat from Benjamin, the largest Brazilian city in the area (50,000), has an airport with daily flights to Manaus, 4)  Leticia - a Colombian city just across the border from Tabatinga.  

Note that the Amazon flows from the interior of Peru, then cuts between Benjamin Constant and Tabatinga, and then continues off the map to the east.  The border of Peru and Brazil is marked by the Javari river, upon which we traveled, stopping at communities on both sides of the border.

somethings's brewing

~post by Brin

Josh arrived home from the exploratory trip to Amazonas and stayed in town for 15 hours before he left again on a boat trip up the Xingu.  That was 15 hours to get caught up on emails, consume 2 healthy meals, sleep in his own bed, have a clean shower, pack and then he was off for another outing. This time the whole family traveled together on a boat trip led by Agostinho and his boys, Emerson and Allison.  The trip went quite well, with 2 church meetings under the mango tree (Is there a better place for church? I think not.), a childrens program, and plenty of conversation while butchering a cow for a neighborhood barbecue.  And by neighborhood I mean “neighbors”10 km away that canoed/boated in for the afternoon.

 A riverside barbecue with fresh beef. Everyone, including the dogs, got into the act.

 Afternoon meeting with all the neighbors in the shade of a mango tree.

Go here for more pictures of the boat trip to Marituba.

Those few hours we had in Altamira were not sufficient to hear about all that Josh encountered in Amazonas, so Josh and I used our boating time to relax in our hammocks, spill out everything that happened for each of us the previous 9 days, and experience some soul-deep companionship. Sometimes the immensity of all going on with us, both in our physical lives and spiritual as well, can sometimes overwhelm us and leave us saying things like, “I am not sure what that means.” Or “I can’t say for certain what I think about that.” It is a weird place to be in, this reality filled with unknowns. It being mixed with anticipation, mystery, adventure and, I am pleased to say, a peace that doesn’t make sense in light of the undecided state of our futures.

While on the boat, Mia celebrated her 6th birthday. The girls love it when their birthday fall on boat trips because it makes for a memorable event.  A tradition has even begun; we blow up some balloons and float them out on the river in front of a home for a child to find. It is really quite delightful. The most challenging part is decorating the cake on a moving boat with choppy waters. 

Mia the new 6 year old posed by her cake.

Go here for more pics of Mia's birthday on the boat.

We returned from our 3 day boat trip at 3pm on Monday afternoon. Just in time for Josh to take a shower, check some emails, and pack.  Seven hours later he was heading for Belem to participate in some meeting with Xingu Mission leaders. He comes home on Friday and I just want to smother him with my feelings, thoughts and random ideas of everything whirling around me. But if there is anything Josh has been lacking, it would be space.

Before we left on the boat trip, the Friday night of Josh’s arrival I had CDR’s first Alpha Circle meeting. A large attendance caught me off guard and we will see where God takes the group this year. I was mostly pleased to see some of the regulars from last year come again and enthused to jump in with activities. Most of my effort this semester will be put into a select few Brazilians who I will train up to take over leadership next semester. This involves turning over responsibility, letting them make mistakes or go a different direction. This can be arduous. It would be much easier if I did it all myself, mostly because I love it and also because it requires much less effort on my part. I constantly have to remind myself of my decision because my default nature would just plow ahead and wait for everyone to follow.

Our goal for the month of March, or what is left for it, is to wait. The wait will involve quieter days where we will lean in and strain our hearts to hear His whispers. It will involve centering of our spirits to be sensitive, open and employed on the task of responding to His promptings. For my heart personally, the waiting time will be used to concentrate on each day itself, instead of letting my delicate heart meander through the myriad of possibilities of our future.

So, I close out this post with something that happened to me yesterday. I went to make a cup of afternoon coffee, I do not usually do this, but then again, I am not usually running a household by myself for 2 weeks.  I broke the carafe. Now, mind you, this carafe is a Mr. Coffee from Walmart, pretty dang special. I berated myself like I am good at doing. I told God, that it would have been nice to have been spared an agonizing (and very likely, unprofitable) day of searching Altamira for a replacement carafe. And my mind hastily took inventory of my options; give up coffee (yeah right), order on-line and wait forever for its arrival, or make coffee stovetop with a sock filter. Sarcastically I lamented, if I have to make coffee in a sock the Brazilian way, well then I am jumping in all the way and I am gonna bath in the river with just my bra on. It was a bummer. Options were incredibly slim, probably costly and I was grieved (and tired, which was why I wanted coffee in the first place). Not but 10 minutes later, a veteran missionary, Marsha, stops by my house. I use the drop-in to ask about where I should head first to find a replacement. A first she shakes her head sympathetically, “not likely to find one here,” the shake said.  But then she perked up. She just might have a spare and an hour later we were standing in my kitchen admiring my new stainless steel (read: much prettier and less likely to break) carafe that perfectly fit my 8-12 cup coffee maker.  I realized I was experiencing God’s provision in a situation that had originally deemed a big headache (literally if I gave up coffee; that is a whole other issue.) God has me covered in the big picture of my life and the little details.  And later at Kinship we read that God has our futures already prepared, immeasurably more than we can ask. I joked that I was immeasurably blessed with my perfectly measured pot of coffee. And to add to my awestruck provision, Marsha doesn’t even drink coffee. When her husband makes a pot, he usually uses a sock.

Reflections on the Javari

The Javari River cuts a serpentine channel through the jungle.  Often doubling back on itself, glimpses of the river ahead can be spotted through the jungle.  Arriving at that point, however, requires following a long curve that leads far out of the way.  Manel, our guide and boat captain, would often head straight for the river's edge where a channel through the jungle would suddenly open.  These channels would cut through the jungle saving valuable time and fuel, and the towering jungle canopy would provide a respite from the scorching sun.

The Javari River

Through our 9-day trip we sought to explore the region and learn if there was both spiritual and physical needs, but more importantly to seek God's leading on our lives.  I remember reading that anti-terrorism agencies often recognize "chatter" as evidence of an impending attack.  In the absence of clear evidence, different sources may produce evidence that when seen alone is inconclusive, but when viewed collectively it paints a picture of a possible attack, this overwhelming evidence is "chatter".  In this same way, we experienced through conversations and situations this same kind of mounting evidence pointing to God doing something big.  What that means for our future remains to be seen.

Talking to the locals in one of the many Peruvian villages.

Our plan was to travel up-river one day and take 3 days to travel back down, stopping at communities along the way.  Thus we would get a firsthand look at the size and number of communities, presence of any existing churches, and the physical needs of the people.  Stopping at nearly 20 villages (ranging in size from 40-460 people), we found only 2 evangelical churches.  Living mostly in thatched roof houses, their physical needs equaled their spiritual needs.  Our initial thoughts were that we could possibly help in the areas of health and medicine, mosquito nets to prevent malaria (the area has the highest malaria rate in all of Brazil), and water purification.

This fillet was cut from a Piraracu, a large Amazonian fish prized for it's delicious meat.

We stopped in this village and 

spent the night in an empty house

We were warmly welcomed and enjoyed interacting 

with the locals in each place we stopped.

Returning to the town of Atalaia, where our mission base would be located, we continued to seek information about the region.  Countless times we felt like God orchestrated meetings with important contacts.  One such encounter with a single woman who works in the area told us how an American church had donated money to buy a boat to be used for medical trips to the interior.  She wrote them back saying she had no one to send on these trips.  They advised her to keep the money and they would pray that God would send medical personnel.  Realizing that our group could potentially have a doctor and nurse, she concluded that God may be answering these prayers through us.

 Clyde and I talk with the director of the hospital and a worker, the director is on the phone setting up another meeting for us.

This is a gas station in Atalaia, gas is purchased in Peru because it is much cheaper, and sold in 2 liter Coke bottles from roadside stands.

So we are now home, back with our wives, trying to process all that we saw.  Like the shortcut channels we took through the jungle, we often can't see God's path until He reveals it at the last moment.  Please pray with us as we seek the Father and calling for our lives.  And that we would be faithful to go where ever He leads.

Click here for more pictures from our trip.

Stranded

On our way to the airport today, I got a call that our flight was cancelled and that our trip would be extended another day.  I have to believe, after all we´ve experienced of God opening doors, being stranded in Tabatinga is part of His plan.

Over the past week, fellow missionaries Clyde Bergquist and Tim Kubacki and I, have been exploring a remote area of the Amazon where we believe God may be leading us to start a new work.  Tim had visited the area several months ago, but we wanted to do a follow-up trip to explore more of the interrior to see what the reality of the river communties were.   Traveling up-river in a rented boat, we found several river communities, some in Brazil and some in Peru, dotting the riverbanks.  What we found confirmed that it is a very needy and unchurched area. And it was striking to see how God lined up so many encounters with people along the way.

We leave tomorrow with a good picture of what this region looks like, and not a little excitement of what could be.  The enormity of the task of picking up and moving to such a remote region is daunting.  Our one desire now is that God will reveal to us if this in fact is where He is calling us and that we would have the trust to follow if He is.

Of Rice and Men

On recent trips to Surubim, a jungle community where we are planting a church, I have begun to take more of a leadership role. It's been both exciting and challenging as I try to understand issues that arise and guide our Brazilian team in responses. I often feel a step or two behind in conversations but usually understand everything.

The work in Surubim is experiencing some growing pains, but there is also some very exciting things happening. Here are some highlights from my visit last weekend:

Walking through the jungle on our way to Zeca's rice field.

I asked Allison to plan a lesson for the meeting, he choose the Parable of the Sower in Mt. 13. It so happened that Zeca was planting rice on Saturday morning so we joined him. He taught us how to plant rice (quite different than the Asian rice paddy method) and Allison wisely used this to illustrate the parable he was taught later that day. He communicated the message well and the people were engaged and interested because they could relate to the teaching.

Zeca teaches me how to plant rice using a hand planter, often we would hit a rock or piece of wood that illustrated the difficulty of planting in "rocky soil".


Pausing to admire a large tree, notice the size of the vine growing above my head.

Allison teaching on the Parable of the Sower, using the rice planter we learned to operate earlier in the day.

On a side note, I've been doing some reading on using Bible storytelling as a method to communicate the gospel to oral learners. Since a majority of the people in the interior seem to be either illiterate or functionally illiterate, this method is quite appealing to what we are doing. As I watched Allison relating to the people through story, it reinforced this idea.
Carlinha, a local leader who I shared about in a previous post, continues to have weekly meetings and has seen 5 people accept Christ in recent weeks. She is excited about discipling these new believers.

Carlinha and her husband who is not yet a believer.  

Through a partnership with International Cooperating Ministries we received some solar powered audio devices called the MegaVoice. Each device has hundreds of hours of Bible teaching covering several topics. We were able to leave one of these devices with Carlinha to help in her development as a leader.

A MegaVoice unit made available by ICM.
 

grace-centered giving

I had just settled down on a bench on our city’s riverfront to do some studying. Out of the corner of my eye I see 3 little girls walk by carrying bags of fish. As I watch them pass, one of them makes eye contact and begins timidly approaching me. She shyly asks for some change. Reaching into my pocket, I see her two friends walking up behind her. I reach out my and to give her the coin and I feel two little hands clamp on my hand with such ferocity that I’m stunned for a moment. They begin arguing violently, their faces change from sweet-little-girl faces to little-monster faces. Soon they realize I am just looking at them, not releasing the coveted coin. We share an awkward moment, just looking at each other. Not sure what to do, I finally hand the coin over to the girl who asked for it. They leave me sitting alone on my bench with my thoughts of what just took place.

Often when we help and serve people we have certain expectations of how they should respond. I’ve even fallen into the line of thinking that justifies not helping someone because of what the final outcome will be, “Oh, they’ll just buy booze with the money” or “if we keep giving handouts it will breed dependency”. These arguments make sense, but whoever says the Gospel should make sense? I mean really, isn’t the whole point of the Gospel that we respond to it because we received something we didn’t deserve?

So how do we know who to help? We obviously have finite resources, and we are accountable for how we use those. I’m finding there is no easy answer, but there is an Answer. This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he used language like “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” (Jn. 15:5). Without a constant, dependant relationship with Christ, all we can do is create some laws for giving. And as in so many other cases, rules fall dramatically short. With a “rule” I may miss an opportunity to partner with God in touching one of the “drunkards” who my rule says doesn’t measure up.

In John 15, Jesus is essentially saying, the fruit that we are trying to produce may not make sense to us at the time. We instead have so tied the fruit to the action that if we don’t see anything good come out of an act of kindness, we think it was a mistake. But in the act of giving, is it possible that the fruit may be produced in our lives? Could it be that God asks us to give, not to bless the recipient, but the giver?

It was easy for me to forgive those young little girls, it’s much harder to forgive someone who should know better. But in those moments, I’m finding that it is much more important to get past those gut reactions and emotions, and listen for the still small voice of God. It often doesn’t make sense, it’s backwards, maybe doesn’t even seem fair. But couldn’t that also be said of Grace? The gloriously nonsensical, backwards, unfair gift that followers of Christ have received.

posted by Josh

The water jar guy

by josh and brin

The last couple of weeks have been restful as we have recuperated from travels and sickness, and slowly stepped back into our regular lives. We traveled to Porto de Moz, a little town a 12 hour boat ride north, to spend New Years eve with friends there. Included was a euchre tournament and a 4 day wii golf tournament and now we feel like we have had our quota of fun for the next few months. We even won one of the tournaments, that is if you consider Brin winning the last place pity prize winning. But we are R$10 richer now. Ava described our time there as "a party, and then another party, and then the next day another kind of party." It really wasn't entirely that way, but with our lack of fun in our regular life, I can see why she would say that.

The girls are on their break from Brazilian school and will be starting a new semester Feb. 1st. They have been enjoying extra time spent with friends and around the house.

Mia and Ava and their friends peering over the wall in our backyard. They find it an enjoyable playtime to trade clothes. They go from one game to another in-between switching outfits amongst each other.

An afternoon of play inevitably includes a picnic. Usually consisting of mangoes, apples, bananas, crackers and in this case pineapples.

The girls framed by an unfinished window in our garage.

I don't have a picture of Ella, but you will just have to imagine her sprawled on the sofa with her nose in a book about warrior cats. While they are on break from Brazilian school, Amanda continues to American school them, being the Canadian she is, so hilarious. Mia is making great progress beyond her age. Ava has good days and bad days and gives Amanda plenty of opportunity to use patience.

While reading in Mark the other day I was struck by a fairly insignificant detail that happened as Jesus and the disciples entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passion Week. Jesus sent a few of the disciples into town and told them they would see a guy carrying a jar of water and they should follow him to his house and tell him they were coming with their master to have a passover dinner. The following verse says the disciples "found things just as Jesus had told them."

I wondered, Why did Jesus do this? What impact did it have on the disciples. Did any of them remember that small display of power in the midst of the chaos, later in the week? My mind drifted to our own lives. We have had our own "water jar guy" moments. I thank God for those moments when He gives us just enough of a glimpse for us to be reminded that He is in control. And at this particular moment, we are looking to God again, asking that he give us a glimpse as to our future. Hoping that we'll see our "water jar guy" and have the faith to follow Him.

A dengue-good christmas

Opening stockings this morning. Amanda, Mia, Gabriella, Ava and a sickly Josh.

Merry Christmas to our friends and family.

I have been meaning to sit down and update you all on Josh’s status since he arrived home from Maribel, knowing that some of you haven’t heard that Josh was ill while others of you are informed but are curious to know how he is doing.

So, the update: he is recuperating from dengue fever. Josh and a small group traveled to Maribel, the Altamira Bases’ most remote work, and also a place that Josh loves to visit. He was into day 3 of 5 when he came down with a fever, headache and body aches. By the time he came home he had fevers reaching 104 and was looking pretty puny. The malaria test came back negative. The other likely culprit was dengue fever which came back positive. Dengue fever is a disease caused by viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes. Josh had the classic case of headache, fever, joint and muscle pain, a red rash, and fatigue. The treatment is rest, fluids, Tylenol and in Josh’s case, an entire season of Lost.

Josh has been fever-free for the last 2 days and was even able to (feebly) attend a Christmas Eve party last night, which had us eating dinner at 10:30pm and us bowing out for our beds a bit before midnight. Other than that our Christmas has been quite still, a pleasant diversion from the chaotic celebration many of you are doing back home. Stripped of all the parties, programs, presents, over indulgence of both cooking and eating, we experience how silently, the wondrous Gift is given.

So, a picture is worth a thousand words. And quite honestly the experiences of the last few weeks could be worthy of those thousand words but I can't quite conjure up the energy to spill it on the keyboard. So here are some pictures and hope it suffices.

Josh expending his limited energy opening his present.

Prior to Josh getting sick, our family made our own Christmas tree out of açai branches that we cut off from trees in our yard.


I know little of what occurred during Josh's trip to Maribel, most of which I learned from Clyde who stayed the night and told me stories while Josh fevered in bed. Josh did tell me it was a great visit in that they were able to encourage and teach some key leaders as well as check in on a local pastor that had recently been outfitted with a boat to do his own outreach.

Having house church. I love this way of doing "church."

Some piranhas Josh caught before dengue caught him.

A peaceful home on the river. A typical dwelling in the Maribel region.

Josh after he got dengue fever. Perhaps Allison was serenading him..."Hush little baby don't say a word...." Probably not.

This is the boat they traveled in, going from one village to another.

Another home that hosted a house church meeting.

We are always humbled to hear of our friends and family supporting us with prayer and lifting up our needs before our Father. The past few weeks has been an especially difficult season, with sickness both in the body and homesickness in the heart. So please know how thankful we are for prayers and attention in our lives.

Travel, and life inbetween

Josh is home. And really I can agree that absence makes the heart grow fonder, or at least it prompts me to work on my marriage more. For one thing, Josh is leaving again in 9 days, so while I was counting down his arrival from Rio Negro, I immediately started another countdown until he leaves for Maribel.


So while Josh was gone the girls and I plugged away at our own daily lives. We had our second to the last Alpha Circles meeting where we celebrated Sharon’s birthday. We made 60 cupcakes that Amanda and Marsha decorated and they turned out to be a hit with the students.


The next day a memorable event was the Festa de Naçoes (Festival of Nations) that the girls’ school puts on, memorable in a way that will remind me not to get too involved next year. Several months ago, each class was assigned a country. The students learn a dance, pray for their assigned country but most of the time was spent raising money for the Baptist church and a new playground for the school. Several months ago Ella arrives home from school to tell me she was voted “Miss South Africa” by her class. I let her accept the offer not entirely understanding what our responsibility would be, but knowing it would once again find me fund raising for missions, this time for the Baptists. Finally the course culminated with an impressively large all-school event. The place was packed, the program running late (as usual, per the culture), and the whole time I had no idea what was going on. Thankfully Ella did and found her way to the stage each time she was supposed to be there. It was 10:00pm by the time Mia’s class (of 4 and 5 year olds, mind you) were called up to do their dance. I literally had to carry her up there she was so tired. She danced and loved it. I contemplated how long it would take for Ava’s class to be called up and I guessed it would probably be around midnight. I did not want to wait until midnight just so I could witness Ava’s refusal to get on stage. She has stage fright, had it for a while now, but we are not sure if it's a classic case or if she is just tired of everyone looking at her all the time. We never blend in you know and it is harder on Ava than any of us. So, pretty sure it was gonna be a long night, I left early. Ella was not happy that she would miss out on all the fun she had been anticipating for months and felt like she had a responsibility to stay until the end, but I didn’t care. I was tired, a (temporary) single mom and still had to pack for my boat trip the next day. I later heard that is ended at 1:30 am.

Mia, representing Japan, admiring the kimonos of her classmates.

All the Mr.'s and Miss's from each class, every class having a different nation

Ella as South Africa, Ava as Spain and Mia as Japan.

The following day I boarded the boat along with 10 visitors from Cleveland for a 5 day trip up the Xingu. Up until the moment I left the house in the back of my mind I was always thinking I could back out if things became too busy at home. Wow, I am I glad I went. This group from Cleveland was eager to experience anything missions and jumped in with both feet everything God placed before them. It was one of those boat trips that could have gone on much longer quite enjoyably. I personally was able to bond with several of women and look forward to where God takes those relationships. It was sad to see them leave but they left us all so encouraged.

David sharing under the mango trees while Denise translated.

While I was on the boat, Amanda ran the house. Amanda? I should properly introduce her. Meet Amanda Kilborn, age 20 from Cambridge, Ontario.

She is my new home school helper. She comes from a mission-hearted family and her mom and dad (Patrick and Laura) had recently visited and that is where she learned of my need for a home school helper. She lives in our back guesthouse and will stay with us until April. She delights my girls with all the craft and art goodies that she pulls out of what appears to be a bottomless suitcase. Amanda is artistic, quiet and gleefully chases down the lizards and bugs in my yard. Some exceptions being the rat that has been antagonizing our family and garden for the past week as well as the ticks that our guard dogs leave in front of her door.
Amanda had her hands full while I was away as Ella decided to unleash her sassy tween on Amanda and all my girlfriends that stayed the night. Things like talking Sheyla into letting her stay up late, even though she had done the same thing with Marilda the night before. So while I love to come home to my kids a refreshed and eager mom, I was immediately burdened to be the disciplinarian. Overall, though, for only being in the country 5 weeks, Amanda did great and I was so, so thankful to have here so that I could travel while Josh was away.


We've had a tough few days just recently. A little homesickness that was magnified by the passing of Josh's grandma Stuber and other things that just add up to make it hard to be away from home. We will post more on that later but for now we would appreciate your prayers.

What we found on the Rio Negro

I've been home from my trip for a few days now, enjoying time with the family and getting back into the flow of life. Part of me though, is still with the rest of our group who continues to visit towns along the Amazon River.Since I only was along for the first half of the trip it will be hard to make an accurate evaluation until they return. In the meantime, I'll try to bring you up to speed on what we experienced...

Upon arriving in Manaus, we were immediately confronted with an obstacle. We had planned on taking a line boat (public boats traveling between cities) to Sao Gabriel, a 72 hour trip up the Rio Negro. However, what we didn't know was the river was so low that line boats were not traveling up-river. We looked into flights, but last minute fares were out of the question. After some scrambling, we learned that we could hire a boat and driver. While this was a much more expensive option, it would give us freedom to stop at river villages. Due to the cost, we decided to only travel as far as Santa Isabel and then down to Barcelos on the way back to Manaus.

The "speedboat" that we hired to take us up-river.

A morning stretch on the beach before leaving, we camped several nights on beaches during the long trips up and down river.

We saw first hand why the line boats were no longer going up-river, this line boat ran aground on this rock a month and half ago, since then the river has dropped another several feet.

Before I go further, some of you may be wondering what we were looking for on this trip. Our goal, to find a region where God may be calling us to open a new work, is easily stated but not so easily executed. We're looking for things like remote interior communities that don't have access to the gospel, but that often depends on how you define "remote", "access" or even "community". In addition, there are some things that we want that would help us not live quite so "remotely", such as internet, access to banking and a reasonable selection of groceries. Most of these qualities are subjective (does the availability of only onions and carrots constitute a "reasonable selection of groceries"?) and often statistics on population and churches working in the interior is very hard to nail down.

Santa Isabel was smaller than we expected, probably around 7,000 people in the town itself, but we were surprised by how clean, well-maintained and safe it was. The town itself only had 6 churches, and only one, that we could tell, was working in the interior. Somewhere around twenty interior communities were in the region of Santa Isabel, only about half have churches. We left thinking there was certainly kingdom work to be done, but not sure if this was THE place.

Government buildings in Santa Isabel; the cleanliness and condition of the city, we learned, was more to do with the local government than any presence of prosperity.

Barcelos was probably twice the size of Santa Isabel, and felt like a big city after eating every meal in the only restaurant in Santa Isabel. Barcelos had twice the number of churches in town, and one was quite large. The church work in the interior was better organized, but the interior region was much larger and had more communities. The town seemed much more comfortable to live in compared to Santa Isabel. Again, Barcelos seemed to have plenty of work in the interior, but is this the place God is calling us?

Ben and I explore Barcelos on a rented motorcycle.

View of Barcelos from our hotel.

The Rio Negro seems to be a needy place, it certainly qualifies for remote. Tim and Kevin, along with Tim's sons Luke and Ben, will be visiting more than 10 communities on the Amazon. When they return we will have a better idea of how the Rio Negro compares to the Amazon. We were hoping for a big "God moment" that would help us know with certainty where He is calling us. That may still happen on the second part of the trip, but most likely, God will speak to us in His "still small voice". Please pray for us, both as a family and mission, as we seek to hear that voice and respond to His call.