Yesterday we worked in the village of Palhau which on a tributary of the Amazon called the Caburi. The kids and parents on the team gave their all to show the love of Christ to this village. It was a lot of fun to see about 60 children chasing around Claire and Chris Cowman, Eric Shell, Brennan Beeson, Sheridan, Mr Green and Chelsea Huss around the village! Heather Causey had a little boy follow her the entire day. I am going to check her suitcase to make sure she is not sneaking him home!
This is a village where Amazon Outreach has done some work in the past and has seen some from the community come to Christ. One man who came to Christ by the name of Adenil has since suffered because of his faith in Christ. He is not as welcome in the community because in his new faith he has been seen as turning his back on his own Catholic faith. The vision of Abimael - the local evangelist that continually travels to all of the villages under the ministry of Pastor Elmer Lessa in Parintins - is for a new community to be formed a couple minutes down the river so that Adenil can worship freely with some of the other new believers. Through prayer with Abimael we have come up with a name for this new community - Nova Esperanca - which means New Hope! There is another local believer by the name of Igino who is a hard working rancher and he owns a beautiful piece of land there in Nova Esperanca. There has been a simple structure raised where services can be held for discipleship in the months ahead. We are also in the process of drilling a well here in New Hope to provide much needed clean water for this new community. This well is of particular significance to me as we are dedicating it to my father - Perry Ellis for his years of missionary work in Brazil. Yesterday we were in prayer because the drill motor was not working for a period of time because it had struggled to break through the rock but by God's Grace the crew of the well boat drilling team got it back up and running!
I have attached a picture of several of our students as they shared the story of Mary and Joseph to the kids here this morning in the village of Terezinha. The people have overall been very receptive and welcoming of our team. Dr Huss and his nurse assistant Brittany Gadica saw over a 100 patients in the medical clinic yesterday. Stefan Ralston made an endless amount of trips to the boat to keep the pharmacy supplied with the needed medications that were being dispensed by Mike Beeson and Bill Squiric. They provided the only real medical attention to the village. Our team also dispensed several pairs of much needed eyeglasses. It was particularly touching to see Heather Burns as she assisted the dentist yesterday. She did all that she could to encourage the dental patients.
All is well with the team but please keep us in your prayers on our final day of ministry. Lord willing we will be making our way back to Manaus early tomorrow morning.
Christ Is Life! Johnson Elis
Hey Mike and Brennan... I love you and am so proud of what God is doing in your hearts. I get so pumped each day to receive a new blog. It's the highlight of each day. I cannot wait to hear all of the amazing stories... Mike, just wanted to let you that my new car is awesome and I like it so much better than my old one, also the remodelers only had to knock out 3 walls instead of 4, also,I cannot wait to show you my new wardrobe... The week at the spa was awesome, but I cannot wait to get back to normal.
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