After surviving a major storm at 3:00 am, we awoke to a small shower, praying the rain would stop so we could serve this community...Amazon Outreach's first to visit Predas, a town of 3,000. Because we were here, the schools closed for the day. We were able to leave the boats at 9:30 and proceeded to use the school classrooms for medical, dental, eyeglasses, hair cutting, nail painting. The president of the town allowed us to announce over the church loudspeaker that we welcome everyone to come take advantage of all we had to offer. An answer to prayer, over 100 children came to VBS in the morning and several teams walked through the town to share the gospel door-to-door and invite the people to afternoon events, soccer game, and evening service.
One of the continuing themes throughout today for all of us was the fact that all the parts of the body of Christ have different functions and gifts. Some are better at holding crying children all day. Others can handle the medical and dental fields that required a strong stomach, but can really comfort those suffering and sick. And some just have a passion and gift for relaying the message of Christ's love to people, whether it's door-to-door ministry or giving a testimony in front of a whole community. All in all, we have been blessed by the fact that every person on this trip has come to find their purpose on this trip. We were blessed to see many come to Christ in this village, and we were able to hand out several Portugeuse Bibles. Here are a couple of cool stories that were shared at our nightly share-time: Blake Barnes was planning to go to VBS today and on his way he met a man with whom he was able to share the story of Christ via a translator. Blake fully intended to play soccer and hang with the kids as his ministry for the day, but God had greater plans as he helped lead a Brazilian man "Mark" to Christ. In the words of Blake: "We now have another brother in Christ that we will one day see in Heaven and I think that deserves a round of applause."
Many people also shared tonight that they have a hard time with the fact that in VBS there does not seem like a lot of time to share the message of Christ with others because you are busy loving the kids. But today I (Grace) shared this story with the group of my experience today in VBS to encourage them of the gateway VBS does provide to talk to others about Christ. Today, I saw some adults in our group using tracts to talk to some of the parents hanging around VBS about Christ, but one young mother was distracted by her one son clinging to her ankles and her young baby in her lap. I decided to try and distract the child around her ankles so she could focus better on the adults teaching them, and she ended up wanting me to hold the 1-month-old baby in her lap. I was shocked that she would trust me, this random American teenage girl, with her tiny baby. But it turned out as we began to talk, that she thought I had children because she started having children at my age. As we continued to talk, I was able to talk to her about her faith and the struggles in her life, as well as my family back home and faith. Who would have thought that all of this could start from me just trying play with her small kid? God has revealed how He is ever-present even in the small things. We are all very thankful for our experiences so far and are excited for the challenges and stories to come as we head to Cometa tomorrow.
Grace Martin and Hannah Pavey
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