Friday, December 6, 2013

Christmas trip 2013

Good Morning Friends from the Christmas on the Amazon team

It has been an amazing few days of presenting gifts and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to the children in the Amazon region of Brazil.

On Tuesday, the team spent the whole morning organizing nearly a ton of donation items that were brought by the team and purchased in Brazil. A HUGE thank you to all who donated items for this trip. We wish you were here to see the smiles as the children rifle through their gift bags and to receive the hugs of appreciation.

The last 2 days have been especially busy. Wednesday morning we visited the village of Sobrado. After our doctors and dentist provided free medical services to the village, the team presented. The presentation consists of: songs with the children; a dramatized re-creation of the birth of Jesus, God's perfect gift to us; a puppet skit about a gift for a King; the gospel presentation and lastly, distribution of the gifts! The recreation of the Christmas story is complete with props and full costume and requires most of the team to perform, both Brazillian and American. I am sure the Academy will be looking to recognize some of the stellar performances from our team members. Later that day we continued on to Novo Airao where the team received permission to present at Joaquim De Paula public school. We were well received and over 300 children at the school heard the good news of Jesus Christ.

The gift of Jesus ties nicely into the puppet skit "For The King" where 3 children decide what to give a King for his birthday. A boy decides to give the king an expensive ruby and a girl decides to give the king the biggest gift, an elephant. A girl with no money is teased when she suggests giving the king flowers or a card. When the gifts are presented in the skit the king is not happy with the first 2 gifts, he already owns many rubies and has a fleet of elephants. When the poor girl presents her gift all she has to offer the king is herself, to serve and honor him for the rest of her life. The king is pleased and anounces that her gift is the greatest gift. Isn't that what God requests of us? To do what we were created to do, worship him? Our puppeteers, Grace, Rebecca, Danelle, Noah and Thalita have done an awesome job!

Yesterday afternoon the team had a unique opportuniy to feed and swim with boto, pink fresh water dolphins. The Kautz family, Nate, Noah and Dan decided to jump in with the boto for a swim. It was awesome to get a break to do such a fun activity.

We look forward to the next few days where we will be visiting 6 more villages. The days are hot and long but the team focused on finishing strong. After a long, sweaty day the american team has offically dubed ourselves the Dirty Dozen. The showers last night were a blessing :)

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