Final day in Atrocal

Still excited about the service on Wednesday night, we headed back to the building site to complete our project.  Beth went back to the school with Joanne, our Project Amazon leader and host to complete another craft project and to worship with the children in song and dance.  You must see the video of this.  At the end of the morning, Beth handed each school child one of the beanie babies that she had collected in the US.  The kids thanked her one by one in English.

We mixed and poured about 25 loads of cement to finish the project and it was a long day of hard work.  I could remember working this hard at different points in my life - but it's been a long time for this "desk jockey."  By the end of the day the floor was done and we hauled to tools - including the cement mixer and motor back to the boat for our trip back to Santarem.  We arrived back in the city at about 12:30 AM on Friday.

Attached is a picture of our almost complete project and our moonlight cruise back to Santarem.

Sharing with the school children/community service

On Wednesday during the day, we completed the floor preparations and began mixing concrete for the stage.  In addition, the Brazilian mason that was with us on the team began the process of building the walls on the footings.The community members had been carrying both water and sand/rock from the stream to mix the concrete.  It was about a 150 yard walk up to the site from the stream and this was not an easy task.  The night before we were worshipping with these people and during the day we were working together to complete their building. 

Wednesday was also the first of two days that Beth and a small group were able to spend time at the public school with the children in the community.  On Wednesday, they did crafts and songs and our group was given permission to use a building in another one of the "neighborhoods" of Atrocal to hold a service.  This community was mourning the recent loss of a 34 year old mother. 

At the service Nate shared his testimony of loss and how their faith carried them through that time.  Joaquim also gave an evagalistic sermon - the first time the gospel had been shared in this community.

The picture below shows Joaquim and Diego depicting the weight of sin that we carry with us all of the time.  At the end of the service Beth gave all of the children a little gift from Geneseo - glow sticks!

Worshiping with the community at night

During the day on Tuesday we finished pouring footings and prepared the floor for concrete. At night we went back for an evening service outside the building that we are finishing.  As we walked up the path in the evening, we could hear the churches praise band.  We were surprised they had a full band and a great worship in Portuguese.  There were several testimonies were shared. It was special to share this time with the people of Atrocal.

Project to complete the church in Atrocal

We left Santarem at 3:00am Monday morning. It was a 7 hour boat trip to the community of Atrocal. There is a small church established there and they are finishing the floor with concrete and putting up block walls. We are there to help with that project and to worship with the people.

The only way into this community is by boat and the people live off the land and the river. We started digging footings on the first day and hauled the tools (mainly the cement mixer and one cylinder engine to drive it)

Our project leader with Project Amazon - Joaquim - gave us his testimony in the evening.  He has been involved with building approximately 100 churches in the Amazon Basin and has an amazing God story in his life.  He was interviewed by a Billy Graham team a few years ago and his story is available to view at this link.

http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?ArticleID=1627

I've attached pictures of the cement mixer on the smaller boat that we took deeper into the jungle to get to the village.  Also attached is the picture of the "big boat" that we took from Santarem and a picture of the top deck where we hung our hammocks to sleep.  Finally, you can see the "before" picture of the church.

Igreja da Paz service

While waiting for our return flight to Miami I have a chance to share some of our experience in the city of santarem before we left on our actual mission project. Igreja da Paz (peace church) is the church that was started in santarem by USA missionaries several years ago. It is the church that is connected to project amazon and our local missionaries Ruth and Nathan Reutter. We were able to attend both a sunday service and disciple building and multiplying "cell group" meeting. These opportunities were with Nathan's parents (also project amazon missionaries and our hosts) Ken and Joanna Reutter.

Igreja da Paz has 14 churches in the 300000 person metropolitan area of the city of santarem. Each week there are 61 separate services and 7000 cell group meetings that serve about 60000 people!

I was especially blessed to see the excitement in the 5:00 pm Sunday service where we were with 1000 other worshipers. Most significant for me was when we sang the revelation song and heard 1000 members singing "holy holy holy is the lord god almighty.... With all creation I sing praise to the king of kings.". We were singing in English and the rest of the congregation was praising in Portuguese. The sermon was on unity and it certainly felt like the spirit had linked us with them through that praise song.

Beginning the trip back through Brazil

Gloria a Deus!!! (glory to God). Sorry for the lack of information but when you see our trip video and pictures you will understand that we have not been near an Internet connection for the last 8 days.

Our team will fill you in on the details upon our return but suffice it to say God is moving in a big way in the Amazon basin. Stay tuned.

We will be working our way back to the USA today and tomorrow. We will likely miss gefc services but will keep you updated

Our mission begins

Our team departed this morning and will be traveling most of the day to Brazil. Here we are at the airport in Miami waiting for our international flight. Thank you for your prayers and support it has been really felt in the past few days leading to our departure.