Carpenter's Way Trip Day 1-3

DAY 1:
Pastor Mario set the tone of the entire trip the night before. He said that he felt something very special was going to happen on this particular trip. He said the group would be going to villages with whom we've already established relationships And, he added, we would be embarking on new journeys and establishing new relationships with villages we've never been to before. He called us pioneers. 
He then told the story of a woman in the town of Baharina who dreamed a big snake was attacking the city and that we were sent to destroy the snake. We had fire in our hands and we were burning the snake until it was no more and the city once again belonged to the lord. Pastor Mario had put a fire in us spread the Word to those who knew us and those who didn't.

 

The First Village Terra Preta seemed like it happened in a blur. We left the boat and got everything set up in the village. Dental and medical teams assisted the villagers. Our main focus once everything had been set up and running was to assist in getting building materials to the church. Another boat pulled up with windows and beams and metal roofing and we carried them to the back of the village where the church was located. It started to rain and there wasn't much construction that day. The youth group played an exciting soccer match.

 

We then went to the town of Barrerinha to visit another church being constructed. So exciting to so many churches being built. You also got the sense you were at the very early stages of that "something very special" that Pastor Mario had spoke about. At the church, we sang songs and there were testimonies. Becky, the Amazon Outreach intern, gave her story and how she returned to the lord.
 
It got late and it became very dark in the church. Relating to the dream he told the night before, Pastor Mario lit a lighter and said it was the light of Christ to spread throughout the city. We then went to the back, sang more songs and dedicated to the lord a piece of property behind the church that would very soon be a youth recreation area, a place that would guide the town's misguided youth back to the lord.

 

 

 

DAY 2:
Guatar. Smallish village of thirty families. Those new to the mission seemed to be just a little more comfortable. Group members were establishing lifelong friendships as our relationship with the village was strengthened. Pastor Trey and Mike and Nora as translator met with the president of the village. They had to walk down a remote path, fifteen minutes away from the rest of the village, to get to his house. There he showed them land that he wanted to donate to the church. The four of them prayed together, knelt down and blessed the land. While in the midst of prayer, the president tearfully thank God for all his blessings. He then gave them three pineapples grown from his orchard as gifts. He gave them three beautiful smelling pineapples but Trey told Presidente they only needed one. Presidente then pointed to Trey's belly, and told him, via the translator, that he definitely needed three.    

 

Ipiranga was a very short trip. Most of the villagers had gone to work at a lumber site. So we didn't stay there.

 

The village of Pindonbal had not expected us until the next day. So we had to find the President to let him know that we were there and ready to help them. He was very happy to see us, and immediately grabbed his soccer cleats first thing. The group played a very intense soccer game against the villagers. Pastor Mario prayed for the village. A woman came up and gave testimony of how she was sick the very first time the boat had arrived a year or so ago. She couldn't use her hands and was very sick. On that mission we prayed for her and she was healed. And she was thanking God for sending us.

 

Peyton gave an amazing testimony of a girl who raised her hands for the lord and waved goodbye to her

 

DAY 3:
Pastor Trey set us in the right frame of mind for our mission trip to the next village. He read from 1 Corinthians 5 about hating the sin and not the person sinning. Linda Sticker gave a prayer and then we got off the boat and made our way into Pirai.
The construction team, Mike, Sam, and Jerry helped a villager build part of a new house situated next to his old house. The team used Zapatero wood for the floor boards and Loro wood for the posts. Mike lent his expert carpenter's touch to move the project along quickly. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to finish the project but we got him far along on his project. The man's favorite tools were his chain saw and machete. He used that giant chainsaw to cut a straight line in the floorboards already nailed to the post and crossbeams, walking along and shaving off wood. He'd been using the chainsaw working on various projects for 30 years.
The kids played soccer and volleyball. Trey read Luke to the villagers. The story of Zachaeus. His message: In America, people think they can wait and meet Jesus at their own convenience. But there should be the same sense of eagerness to meet him that Zaccheus had. You should have a sense of urgency about building your relationship with Jesus because you never know what will happen tomorrow. Zaccheus did not procrastinate. He seized his moment and found his sycamore-fig tree to climb so that he could see Jesus. The sycamore is there for all of us and we need to find it, now preferably.
In the afternoon and evening the group went swimming in the amazon. Some of the group went fishing. Later, the small boat disembarked and took those who wanted to, aligator hunting (i.e. seach the river bank and find the runt gators the hunter could grab from the front of the boat, ducktape the mouth shut, take back to the boat for pictures, and then release).