NTM

We’ve been here in Breuville for four days now. A lot has happened in those four days and we still feel like we are in some sort of dream or something. It surely is good to be here, though, and we praise the Lord for bringing this opportunity about. I decided that I would go ahead and write a series of letters while we are out here and then when the opportunity comes to send them, I will send them. This way I have a way to relate the happenings around here for my own sake and for anyone who might be interested.

Let me start with our leaving of Thama on Saturday, July 26. We were up early as Pastor Evando said he would be down at the boat and ready to go at 6. I should have known he meant 6 a.m. on the old time. We were up and about, walking the main drag of Thama and it was still completely dark. I kept telling Reb that there is no way Evando would leave while it was still completely dark. After walking around some, we finally went back to the hotel and laid back down in our bed.

When our watches got close to 7 a.m. our time we made out way down to the riverfront with our luggage. Sure enough, there was Evando getting his canoe ready to go. After we bought some fresh bread at the bakery, we were off. Amazingly, for the majority of our 8-hour canoe trip the sky was overcast and the temps were fairly cool. I really believe the Lord worked it out that way because right at the end of the trip the sun came out and I was trying to imagine how it would have been to be in that sort of sun for longer than we were.

I think Evando was noticing how Reb and I kept wrenching around on the canoe seat, trying to get comfortable. He finally told us to put the tarp on the bottom of the canoe and lay down on that. Boy, that was a big relief! I just wasn’t sure how much more my behind was going to take.

Right when we were coming around the last corner before Breuville, I told Reb that we should sit up so that we could get a good look at our new home. So we sat up on the canoe seat and all of a sudden the canoe was shooting up into the air. We came back down pretty quick and I thought we had been through the worst of it, but Reb actually looked back at Evando and cried out, “Oh my goodness!” So I looked back and there was Evando holding on to the motor for dear life as the canoe was taking in water by the bucketfuls. Evando soon was out of the canoe and I noticed that it was shallow enough for him to stand so I jumped out and we all three began grabbing our luggage to try to keep it from getting soaked.

By this time the canoe was completely sunk but thank the Lord it is low water now and we could walk the canoe to the shore. Stuff got wet but, Mom Brosey, remember that bag you got us a while back that was supposed to keep things completely dry?? It works! We had the computer bag in that bag and everything in there was completely dry.

We soon had the boat bailed out and we’re soon here. We did feel bad as apparently when we got up on the boat seat we blocked Evando’s view and that is why we ended up hitting a log and getting tossed. Thankfully, no damage was done to boat or motor and everything that got wet has since been pretty much dried out. A few books are still drying, I think.

We were happy to see our little house here. The extra work that Joe Snake put into it has really made it a livable place. It is so nice to have the toilet inside the house! Every time I use it I praise the Lord for that blessing. If we didn’t have that we would be trekking to use Dao’s outhouse. That would be a good little trek and definitely not something you would want to do during the night.

Good old Joe Snake even helped us haul our stored stuff that was over in Maia’s house to here. There were some heavy boxes that he hefted onto his shoulders! Our bed, mattress, table, chairs, and dresser were all already over here, so that was a blessing.

They run a generator here each evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Apparently, there are weeks at a time when there is no fuel available so there is no generator running for the community. Thankfully, right now they have the fuel. There was no wiring or light bulbs here in the house when we got here but in the last couple of days our main man Joe Snake hooked up some wire I brought with me and even connected an outlet to where I can use our laptop during generator hours. Tonight is the first night with electricity! It is nice to be able to put away the candles for now.

Sunday we were over for church in the morning at 8:30. Pastor Evando gave the message. Right after the service he did just what I thought he would do. He came over to me and asked if I would be willing to speak in the evening at the evening service. I told him I would. Over lunch Reb and I decided that for this first opportunity I have to speak maybe it would be a good idea for us both to share our testimonies as that way they could learn a little about our backgrounds and how God has directed us to being here. So Sunday evening we did that and even though there wasn’t very many people there, they did seem to appreciate hearing our testimonies.

When I was speaking I told the church that they were our teachers now and we were their students. We both wanted to continue to learn Portuguese and also learn their culture. Boy, they all seemed to take to that as afterward Joe Snake’s wife was telling Reb that she would send her daughters over to our house to teach Reb how to make the local bread. The pastor’s wife was going to show Reb how to wash clothes over at the spring. Joe Snake has really taken us under his wing to make sure we have electricity and water to flush our toilet and do the dishes. So, it has been nice to have so much help as we really don’t feel like we know what we’re doing sometimes.

Also on Sunday, Pastor Evando asked me to preach both in the morning and the evening this coming Sunday. Today Evando left for a conference of some sort and won’t be back until next Wednesday at the earliest. So, I am kind of the fill-in pastor. Before getting here I had decided that when asked to speak I would start teaching through The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus lessons. So today I spent a good portion of the morning preparing to do that. Hopefully, I can communicate the lessons well enough to be understood and also keep it somewhat interesting.

The biggest challenge here is the water supply. Dao has one of the cleanest springs, according to the people. So I had been going over with a couple of buckets and getting water to drink from his spring. His spring isn’t too close to our house here, so I was working up a good sweat and by the time I got here to the house with my two buckets of drinking water, I felt like I could drink one of the buckets in one sitting! So, I was looking for alternatives.

Joe Snake finally found where our water tank was being stored and hauled it over here to our yard. He offered to fill the thing with a pump and hose, so I quickly encouraged the idea. Last night he filled all 1000 liters of it and I didn’t even think to ask where he was getting the water from. It looked pretty good in the dark. So, both Reb and I were merrily drinking the stuff…until this morning. I looked in the tank and concluded that the water was pumped straight out of the river! Lots of silt and even a couple of swimming beetles doing laps in our tank. I quickly found that water bottle I have that has a filtering system in it and told Reb that we could drink using that for today and tomorrow I will go back to bucket hauling from Dao’s spring. It is nice to have the big tank of water for flushing the toilet and doing our dishes. Neither of us feel sick, yet, so maybe the river water isn’t so bad after all.

Interestingly enough, Reb tried to go over to one of our neighbor’s house today and visit and they told her that they couldn’t visit now as they all have diarrhea from the water! Good night, I hope we don’t get it! Anyhow, I told Reb that with how superstitious some of these people are, they may think we are the cause of it and that is why they don’t want us in their homes. Probably not, though.

Mom, the mattress is fairly firm, but we really like it. I have really been sleeping well. The roosters start to crow around 4 in the morning, but I think that I am starting to not immediately wake up when they start crowing right next to our house. One does hear the cows going through our yard each night. We are one of the few houses with no fence around the yard so it is a thoroughfare for the cows.

This morning during our breakfast time Curica, the neighbors’ parakeet, came over for a visit. He flew right over and sat in our window and watched us eat breakfast. I finally peeled a banana for him and he started working on that. We may be having him over for breakfast every morning now.

Alright, this was lengthy but I feel good that I’m caught up.

Brad

OK, time to write again, I guess. It’s Monday, August 4th.

Well, what’s been going on around here? Most recently (like about 10 minutes ago) Joe Snake finished filling our water tank out in back of the house here. Poor guy was doing all of this in the rain. I did make him some peppermint tea and gave him one of Reb’s muffins left over from breakfast to pay him for his work. He didn’t want to come in because of being wet so we had to insist. Nice to have the tank full of water again.

Currently, the smell of half-rotten meat is wafting throughout our house. Yes, we have had quite the experience with trying to “go native” here and do as the locals do. If you ask me, the entire idea stinks! It all happened on Friday as we had been out walking around and were headed back to our house when I noticed that our neighbor had a wild pig hanging from his tree and he was out butchering it. I told Reb to get the camera and I stayed and watched the fellow do his thing. Apparently, a couple of the guys had gotten several wild pig earlier in the day. After a while we start to leave and one of the guys standing there yells at the guy butchering to give us some meat before we go. Well, he gave us some meat. He gave us an entire leg of pig! I was trying to politely decline so much and kept saying that it was too much meat for just the two of us but nobody was taking no for an answer. Then everyone was telling us that we just needed to dry the meat and it would last for a while. Poor Reb had all these women trying to tell her at the same time what exactly she needed to do with the meat, how to salt it, then dry it, etc.

We finally made our way out of the neighbor’s yard with our heads spinning…and an entire quarter of the pig! On our way to the spring to take our bath, Maria asked us if we had gotten some of the pig meat. Boy how word travels! Yes we had. Maria immediately offered to help Reb the next day in cutting the meat up to be dried. Both Reb and I thought that that would be helpful.

Well, Cricket, Maria’s husband, showed up and I was telling him that we got some of his pig (I had learned that it was Cricket who actually shot the pig) and how his wife was going to help Reb prepare the meat the next day. Cricket just kind of looked at me for a while and then said in his very hillbilly Portuguese, “Pastor (yes, you get the title here whether you want it or not), preparing the meat is the job of the woman, not the man.” So I reiterated that it was Reb that was going to learn how to do this. I know Cricket doesn’t have real good hearing but I also think he thought he would say that for the benefit of a good laugh from those standing around listening.

The next day Maria did come over with her old machete and helped Reb slice up the pig leg. She cut it all into real thin slices and packed quite a bit of salt on it. She told Reb to leave it all in a bucket for now and then first thing the next morning wash the salt off and put it in the sun. Reb did and on Sunday morning we had steaks all over the top of our lid to the water tank out back.

We have a tree about 50 yards behind the house here and there are always at least five or six black vultures sitting up there waiting for an opportune time. Apparently, they have grown to be quite the forward individuals as even before we left for church we saw one hopping around inside our yard not far from the water tank. The smell of meat already had a slight zing to it when we took it out of the bucket Sunday morning so as we walked off to church I wasn’t entirely displeased with the idea of those vultures enjoying a feast while we were gone.

When we got back from church it was the neighbor’s dog that was working on his fourth steak! We did yell at him some. We did hate seeing all that meat going to waste but I wasn’t sure if my stomach was going to be able to hack eating any of it with the constant odor that I was now associating with it. We tried to make sure the meat stayed in the sun as much as possible. Tried to make sure the vultures stayed in their tree. Tried to make sure the neighbor’s dog was holding off on the steak dinners. But there were still the flies. Thousands of them all over the meat as it lay in the sun. The pastor’s wife told us that the flies don’t lay their eggs on the meat if the meat is in the sun. Well, there were some moments when the meat was not in the sun…but how could we keep our eye on that meat 24/7? Just this morning we pulled our drying meat out of our bucket to find all kinds of maggots crawling here and there.

Mana, Joe Snake’s daughter, was over here showing Reb how to give the house a good mopping, so I asked her if all the maggots meant the meat was too far gone and should be thrown away. Oh no, she told me. You just wash the pieces real good and put them back out in the sun. You’ve got to be kidding me!

So, here tonight our meat (what’s left of it) is back in its bucket and sitting in the corner of our kitchen. And, yes, I can smell it as I type this email! I’m thinking that tomorrow, in the heat of the day when everyone is inside and nobody is around to watch, our neighbor’s dog is going to be filling his belly. Maybe I will even throw a couple of slabs to our ever-present vultures out back. Who invented the freezer, by the way? Let’s all give that individual a standing ovation, shall we!?

Saturday while Reb was being taught how to prepare meat to dry, we had our front room full of Ashes. Piri had showed up with his wife, another woman, and several kids. The other woman’s little baby boy had bad diarrhea so Piri was hoping for some medicine for the baby. Reb was finally able to visit with the Ashes and checked out the baby. He really looked quite happy and only occasionally fussed…usually right before he would do his thing in the rag wrapped around his buns. Reb didn’t think it would be wise to give the baby any medicine, yet, so we tried to instruct the Ashes to make sure the baby kept nursing and that the mother needed to make sure she was drinking plenty of water. I could tell that Piri really wanted some sort of medicine to give the baby but after explaining a couple of times that only if the baby gets worse should the baby take medicine, they all seemed content and left for the village. We did serve them a lunch while here and we were surprised by how much they all ate.

Piri was the only one that really could speak some Portuguese, so I tried to talk to him for a while. I then remembered that I had that Birds of Peru book so brought that out and, boy, if that wasn’t like TV for all of them! They loved paging through that book and identifying the birds. Even making the call sounds now and again. If Piri didn’t start near the beginning of that book and work his way all the way to the end! I was glad that I had it and thought about it as it really seemed to keep them all entertained.

Sunday I preached for both the morning service and the evening service. I started in on The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus lessons in the morning and quickly realized that I was talking over the congregation’s head, to some extent. The lesson talks about the vastness of the universe, using that as an illustration of something that is so mindboggling that it is incomprehensible…just like the eternalness of God. Anyhow, by the end of that illustration I wasn’t even sure if anyone was comprehending that they lived within a solar system, let alone the eternalness of God. We did hit on some other things as well and there did seem to be some comprehension.

In the evening I did something completely different and didn’t go as long. It’s good for me to get the practice of preaching in Portuguese and learning just how to communicate to where my audience is following me. The reason I spoke for both services this past Sunday was because Pastor Evando is away in town. He comes back this week. I still imagine that he will ask me to speak now and again…so whenever he does, we will continue with the lessons.

Sunday after the morning service the guys were beginning to gather to do their weekly soccer tourney down on the small field. I decided I would go down and play. On my way down I stopped and talked to Cricket. He said that his buddy there with him was forming a team and I could play on their team. It was a bunch of “old codgers.” We played and were getting spanked pretty badly. Right before the game ended, Reb showed up and was yelling that the Ashes had returned with the baby. So I found someone to sub in for me and went back to the house. Cricket told me later that we did indeed lose. I told him that I thought they would end up winning the game with me having to leave toward the end and he got a chuckle out of that. I like Cricket. He is a man of the region. Probably the best hunter in the community as he can go out on any given day and come back with something…usually something substantial.

As far as the Ashes that showed up Sunday, it was Joao, his wife, the witchdoctor’s wife, the man with the bad arm, the mother of the sick baby (she may be the man with the bad arm’s wife??), the sick baby, and a sleuth of other kids. The baby still had diarrhea and they were all concerned. I helped Reb make some lunch for all of them…and, yes, brought out my entertainment system, the bird book! They all ate well and Reb mixed up a solution (soro) to give the baby orally. After several hours and with their bellies full they were all ready to head back to the village. We sent the soro with them.

No Ashes today so we figure that the baby must be doing better. We kind of wonder if a lot of the ones that showed up yesterday were coming to see what Reb looks like…and hoping for a free lunch. I was talking to one of the local men here and he was telling me that the Ashes had told him that they were excited about more missionaries coming. So that is good to hear.

One funny thing was that when I got here to the house to see the group here on Sunday I had been talking to them for a good 15 minutes before I noticed that one of the women (witchdoctor’s wife) had a small monkey on her head! You know that you are getting used to the Ashes when it takes 15 minutes to notice a live, four-legged animal crawling on one of their heads. Reb said that she noticed it right away. I find the Ash women’s hair to be such a mess that you don’t notice things like monkeys climbing around up there.

We continue to get such a kick out of our neighborly parakeet. He is such an opportunist! It seems like almost any time that you are putting food out or even walking around the yard eating a fruit, here comes Curica. He will land close and just keep eyeing you, waiting for a handout. How can one resist? We’re often entertained by Curica.

The neighborly dog is another story. Not only did he steal our rotting meat, but he will come in and make himself at home if you aren’t careful. Today we were both laying in bed when I start hearing noises like someone is in the house. I kind turn to look toward our bedroom door and here is the dog looking around the door at me. I shooed him out, but he seems to be getting bolder every day.

Kris and Mary Jane, we are getting the messages about Colton Gordon Howe. We will be praying for Colton during this time that he is battling pneumonia there in the ICU. We are so glad that Dad and Mom can be down there with you guys during this time! We did hear from Adriana (Brad’s sister-in-law) that José and Suelaine Rodrigues (our coworkers) and family did leave town for here yesterday. We figure they will get up here at the earliest Wednesday.

Tomorrow we are hoping to be able to follow the river and walk up to the village. I’m thinking it will take us about an hour. Reb does want to do some laundry so we may try to leave for the village after the laundry. Maybe they will feed us this time? Most likely most of the men will be out working in their fields. We will see how long we actually stay before hiking back.

Reb continues to get bigger around the middle and has really been a stalwart woman with all the work that has to be done to live out here. Much washing of dishes and preparing of meals…not to mention keeping track of those rotting steaks out on the water tank! I try to help as much as possible…but don’t want Cricket to catch me doing women’s work. Today Reb did really feel worn out and was able to lay down for a while. Her resting was interrupted by a woman coming looking for medicine for belly pain.

Alright, will wrap this up for this edition.

Brad

Here we are again. Not quite a week has passed since my last letter, but I thought I would go ahead and pound something out tonight. It is Saturday, August 9th and all is well.

Last Tuesday Reb felt our little guy kicking around inside for the first time! That was pretty exciting. I think it helped Reb once again feel like there is something actually happening as she slowly grows bigger around the middle. Since Tuesday she has felt the baby quite a bit.

Wednesday José and family did show up and seemed to be in good spirits. They were in somewhat of a hurry to get on up to the village and to their house as José still had to pump water and get things ready before dark. It was good to see them and to receive a couple of hammocks that we had asked them to bring from the house there in town. We immediately got those hammocks strung up out in the front room where there is a little breeze in the afternoons.

Almost every other day we have Ashes coming through here and stopping to visit. I’m happy that they still want to come by and visit even with José and Suelaine now back in the village. They definitely are hard workers. They were able to sell quite a few sacks of beans here in Breuville this past week.

Well, Reb is still saying that the Lord intervened for her in a special way this past week. I can’t even remember what day of the week it was but we were sitting down for lunch and Reb had just warmed up some fried fish that she had cooked the day before. I had already made up my mind that I was going to leave the fish alone as there were still plenty of beans with GOOD pig meat in them.

Reb brought the pan of sizzling fish to the table and lifted the lid and the most bizarre thing happened. All of a sudden there was a buzzing sound that got louder and louder and in just a few seconds the kitchen was filled with hundreds of flies! I mean I have never seen so many flies in any house before. And there continued to be more and more of the things. They were swarming over the table above our heads. When we started to clue in that the number of flies was only increasing, I told Reb to quickly take the frying pan with the fish outside. She did and most of the flies started leaving through the open window. We both took the cue that those fish weren’t fit for eating anymore and we ended up throwing them out. What was kind of weird, though, is that I specifically smelled the pan of fish right after Reb refried them and they smelled completely normal. Reb believes that God sent the flies in mass to warn her not to eat of the fish as it would have made her very sick. We don’t know for sure, but we had eaten fish before and have since eaten fish and have never seen any special attraction of flies like we did that time.

One afternoon I went out fishing with Pastor Evando, his two little boys, and Adi, one of the believers. We just stayed around close to the community here and Evando didn’t end up catching a whole lot with his tarrafa (cast net). There are some afternoons when the fish are running and you will see guys running to their houses to get their nets. They eat a lot of fish here and most of the fish aren’t real big. I’ve never big a huge fan of fish and it is even worse when they are little, bony things! Thank goodness we have Cricket here to go out and get those wild pigs, though.

This morning we went out for a stroll through the community and saw several of the men carrying the wild pig up from the river on their backs. Apparently, a number of the men went hunting yesterday afternoon and shot 16 wild pig! They left them out in the jungle and then this morning went and got them all. We have plenty of meat tonight. Two different people brought us pig meat and two other people brought us fish. Don’t worry, we won’t be doing any salting and drying of meat or fish. I immediately threw some English sauce in with the pig meat and pressure cooked it. The fish we seasoned with some lemon pepper and Reb fried that up tonight.

We did have some Ashes today. Joao and the witchdoctor showed up at the house late in the afternoon. They kind of got caught in a big downpour so were looking wet and cold when they got here. We made some coffee for them and they seemed to enjoy that. I don’t think they drink coffee too often. Before serving the coffee I asked the witchdoctor if he drank coffee and in his fast-but-broken Portuguese he grinned at me and responded, “Oh yes. I drink everything!” I believe him. I think he really likes that manioc beer, too.

Alright, will hang up for this time…

Brad

Another very hot day today and we are happy that night has finally fallen and things are cooling off. I throw our shutters open to allow for some airflow into the house here at night…but with the lights inside you get plenty of different types of bugs coming in, too.

Monday things were hopping around here. In the morning an Ash couple from New Dwelling village showed up and the lady was complaining about all kinds of different pain here and there. Reb decided that what would be best is a female exam. When Reb is doing these consults, I kind of work as part-time translator and part-time advisor. When Reb started talking about a female exam I was convinced that this Ash woman would not go for that. We weren’t even sure if she knew what we were talking about. But both she and her husband followed us over to the clinic and the whole thing went like a breeze. Reb later said that the Ash woman, while Reb was poking around inside, was halfway sitting up and was pointing at the outside of her body, trying to tell Reb where to be checking inside! Apparently, all was normal but the poor lady did have an awful sounding lung infection of some sort so got antibiotics for that.

Around 1 p.m. Joe Snake showed up at our door and said that there was an emergency for the “doutora.” Reb thought it would be good if I went over to the clinic with her, so we locked up the house and went. When we were approaching the clinic we could see a good-sized crowd outside so knew something major was up. When we got there, we found out that there had been a high school kid coming to class (they have classes in the afternoon) and he was attacked by another kid with a piece of wood of some sort. Anyhow, the kid got beat across the head and apparently when he got hit he was knocked to the ground, then was finally able to get up and ran off for home, which is a ways downriver. People who witnessed the entire thing said that the poor kid that got hit was bleeding profusely. The other boy that did the hitting also ran off for home. He lives in one of the houses across the river. So we all waited for the kid that took the blow to come back for treatment. In the meantime Reb prepared the suturing stuff in the clinic as we were all pretty sure the kid would need stitches.

Almost a half-hour passed and he didn’t show, so finally I told Joe Snake that we would head for home and when the kid shows up to come get us. Joe Snake was sure that the his mom would end up bringing him to the clinic for treatment.

Not long after we got back to the house here someone did come and say that the kid had arrived at the clinic. Sure enough, he took a good wallop to the head and Reb set about at cleaning the wound and doing the stitches.

While the boy was being treated his dad showed up at the clinic. When he walked in he seemed just fine. Even smiled at me some and sat down in one of the chairs out in the waiting area of the clinic. It wasn’t long, though, before I was hearing Joe Snake telling someone to just take it easy, to drink some more water, etc. I peered out and saw it was the dad and he was breathing deeply and moaning and groaning. Pretty soon they had him lying on the cot in the next room and were wanting Reb to check his blood pressure. Reb left her stitching and did a quick check on the dad and everything seemed to look alright. He was kind of writhing around on the cot and moaning about how he was going to die, etc. I didn’t know if I should be in trying to help Reb with the kid or trying to do something to help the dad. The entire family was in there and I noticed that someone came in with garlic cloves and they were rubbing garlic all over the dad. Boy, if that didn’t get pungent in that little enclosed room! A bunch of sweaty bodies with a bunch of garlic! I fumbled around with the shutters on the windows and finally got them open.

Finally, the stitching was done on the boy and at about the same time the dad seemed to calm down enough to where he was just lying still on the cot. Reb, Joe Snake and I were all pretty much convinced that the dad was just working himself into a panic of some sort because of what had happened to his son. I kind of think that he was just so angry over what that other kid had done to his boy that he had worked himself into a frenzy. Both the kid and the dad just kept talking about how they were going to get revenge and so forth. Joe Snake, though, did talk them into going down to Thama and reporting what happened to the police instead of taking the law into their own hands. Hopefully, no more violence comes out of that situation!

As soon as Reb finished stitching up the kid that took it on the head, another kid walked in with a huge cut on the side of his foot. He apparently had stepped on a stump while getting a cow from upriver. This kid is the night watchman over at the school. He got his stitches and antibiotics to take and left.

Somewhere in there on Monday Reb checked a couple of kids with fever. It seems everybody has fever and cough. I always try to joke around with the kids so that they won’t be as scared of the stethoscope or otoscope to look in the ears. One of my standard jokes when Reb would start looking in the ears with the otoscope was that she was wanting to see if there were any monkeys in there. I went with that joke a couple of times but was noticing that the kids were taking that all too seriously so thought I would give that one up. Who knows what their worldview is regarding the possibility of wildlife living within one’s head!

Tuesday we had a Brazilian man here with a badly infected stingray wound on his foot. There was quite a bit of completely rotten flesh right where the critter got him. He had this string tied pretty tightly around his calf and Reb asked him what it was for. He just laughed and said that a tribal man had tied that there when the tribal man did a prayer for his foot. Reb told him that it would be better for his wound if he took that string off as it was so tight. He didn’t end up taking the string off but did move it down his leg some to where it wasn’t so tight. The local Brazilians up here are just as much into the witchdoctors and all as the tribal people are.

Wednesday there was more medical action. José brought an Ash couple from the village. The wife had a badly swollen arm and claimed that there was a piece of wood stuck up inside her arm. I asked José if it was an accident and he just kind of smiled and said that he was still trying to determine that. I think he was suspicious that the husband was beating his wife when this happened. Anyway, we got over to the clinic and Reb started doing exploratory surgery on this lady’s arm. She kept cutting and cutting and now and again would have to give more numbing shots as the lady would start to groan a little. Finally, the wood was found and Reb removed a good 2-inch piece of palm wood from deep within the muscle. With all the cutting the lady needed stitches, too.

A little later another Ash man showed up and complained of a bad itch in the nether regions. He ended up walking out with some pills for fungal problems. One funny about him was when we were trying to explain to him about the medication he was to take. He didn’t speak very much Portuguese at all so we kept reiterating things to him. Reb told him that it would be best if he did not drink any rum or potato beer while taking the medication. He didn’t seem to understand at first so I asked, “Do you drink sugar cane rum?” He looked at me and quickly said, “Only when I have it.” That struck me pretty funny.

Last night for the Wednesday night meeting I spoke on angels. Maia’s kids were there and they really interacted well with some of the questions that I would throw out. I don’t think the regulars here at the church are used to the speaker actually asking questions that he wants someone to answer. I guess I teach more than preach but am enjoying The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus lessons as I benefit by preparing to teach the material.

OK, this has really gotten long so will quit. We’re up to date!

Brad

We have our water tank filling with pumped water from the river as I type. This is the second consecutive night of electricity and last night Pastor Evando had to spend the majority of the electricity hours pumping water for his water tanks. Tonight is our night and we are happy to be having our tank filled! Without tank water today meant a special trip to the Pastor’s spring outback to wash dishes. Much more convenient to do dish washing here at the house with a couple of buckets of tank water.

Breuville had been without electricity for over a week as the diesel had run out and Quico took a long time in getting back from Thama with more fuel for the generator. He did make it back yesterday, though, and I think everyone was happy to have power for the regular three hours last night. It does make things a little better here in the house when you can see well and are not relying on a couple of candles to do what you want to do. I think we usually go to bed just a little earlier when there is no electricity.

Well, our time is winding down here in Breuville. We are both looking forward to getting back out to civilization, especially thinking about how things will change in the not-too-distant future with our little one on the way. We are very happy that we were able to spend this time out here, though, and when we return the place will definitely not seem so strange to us. You do start to miss some of the modern conveniences of civilization out here, though, and things like ice cream. Lately, as we take our afternoon siesta swinging in our hammocks out in the front room I will ask Reb, “What are you going to do when you get out?” The last couple of days has been, “Eat ice cream.” So, maybe a trip down to the ice cream parlor in town will be in order when we do get out next week.

Sunday evening I continued The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus study at church. I think that that will be it for this time as I gave Evando the book. I did see Evando with the book this morning as well as his Bible so I am hoping that he will continue to teach from Genesis as I was doing. He has told me that he doesn’t feel comfortable teaching from Genesis as he has never had any formal Bible education. I think the Stranger book is a good start as it is so straightforward and basic. Evando has really had no education at all. He taught himself how to read and reads quite well now and is currently taking the night course offered here for the adults that have never had schooling. So Evando is doing the 1st Grade.

Reb has finished her book on Heaven by Randy Alcorn. She has really enjoyed that book and it has generated some good discussion in our devotional time in the mornings. She is now wanting me to read it and see what I think. Some of the things that she has mentioned sound a little off of the wall…but I will have to read the book and see for myself. This evening Reb has started in on The Prince and the Pauper.

OK, the cows here in Breuville are starting to get on our nerves. We are supposed to be having some wooden slats sawn for us for a fence around the property here, but the guy who is supposed to be doing that doesn’t seem too eager about getting it done. So, without a fence that has meant the entire Breuville herd of cattle coming through our yard now and again. Monday night was bad as the herd was in the vicinity of our house here and it seemed several members of the herd had an itch that just needed to be scratched. The corner of the house makes a good scratching post! All of a sudden in the middle of the night the awful sound of cow against corner of house would start and with how fragile this house is we would sway in sync in our bed with the cow’s scratching motion. Twice I got up to shoo cows away from the house. Both times I would just get the shutter open and all I would see is the hind end of the cow going around the corner of the neighbor’s fence. Silly things. They would hear me coming and skedaddle before I could get at them. Boy, that ticked me off. I would just ignore the entire scratching thing if it wasn’t for the fact that I am worried the dumb things will break a board off of the house or something.

Another thing these cows love to do is drop their pies right outside our front steps. I am starting to believe that Gary Larson was on to something with his Far Side comics…cows are up to a little more than what you might think. I don’t think I ever mentioned that one of our septic holes that was dug and covered over with boards and dirt behind the house was destroyed by cows. Some cow stepped on the edge and knocked all the boards down into the hole!

Reb is really feeling the baby these days…and her belly is sticking out more and more. I have had the privilege of feeling a little kick here and there, too, just by putting my hand on her belly.

Well, Thursday we will have to pack up some here at the house as on Friday morning the plan is to go up to the village to spend a couple of nights with Rodrigues family (our coworkers). José says he will pick us up Friday morning and then bring us back Sunday morning. He did say that the river is real low and how difficult it is to get back and forth now. If the river gets any lower he may decide that it isn’t a good idea for us to try to go up there. We shall see.

Alright, Evando just came by to check on the tank’s water level. We’re good to go for the remainder of our time here, I believe.

Brad

Tomorrow we head downriver for Thama with Evando. Evando is wanting to get an early start and with how hot that sun can get, we like the idea. I told him that we would try to be down at the boat right at sunrise. I think it will take us around five or six hours to get down to Thama so will probably get there around noon tomorrow.

We actually just got back here to Breuville today from our two-night stay out at the Ash village with the Rodrigues. It was a good stay and we felt like we got to know them better. Reb had taken our Settlers of Catan game and after the initial learning curve, they really got into that game! Games sometimes have a way of helping you get to know people better. José came and picked us up Friday morning and it was a battle getting up the five or six curves to the village but we made it. The river is so low that you have to continually be getting out and pulling the canoe along. I am always thinking “stingray”, too, but no one got stung.

Right when we were pulling up to the shore at the village we heard José’s son Manuel yelling down to his dad that there were two snakes up near the house. So, José took off up the hill and I followed with the camera. Sure enough, there were two green, medium-sized snakes. I took pictures first, then Ze Rod blasted them with his shotgun. Anyway, apparently we had a couple of papagaios on our hands and they are quite venomous. None of us really like snakes, but I think both José and Suelaine are especially nervous about the critters.

Soon after the snake killing, José, Manuel and I went down to the river to find the Rodrigues’ duck for lunch. This duck apparently lives down at the river’s edge. We finally found this silly female duck and she was sitting on a bunch of eggs. Well, José couldn’t bring himself to kill the duck while it was sitting on eggs so soon we were fishing for lunch. Manuel did get a biology lesson in there about why this duck’s eggs would not produce little ducklings (no male ducks around). As we wandered back up to the house to get José’s cast net for fishing. I did hear him talking about possibly getting a male duck so that his female duck could have ducklings some day.

José didn’t get too many fish, but we did take the little ones we got up to the house. Suelaine took a look at the few fish we caught and suggested that it was the day that one of the roosters in the yard should give its life. So before we hardly got the fish in the sink, José went outside and clobbered one of the roosters on the head and had water heating on the stove to de-feather the thing. Apparently, Tsidikenu (José’s youngest son) was told, or at least believed, that that particular rooster was his so the poor boy was heartbroken when he saw the dead rooster that was going to be lunch. Tsidikenu’s rooster tasted pretty good with the rice, beans and pasta.

Friday night we just sat around and talked and it was interesting getting José and Suelaine’s perspective on the church here in Breuville as they spent quite a bit of time out here, too. José had the generator going so we had lights in the house. Also, he pumps water into their big water tank when he runs the generator. It was great being able to take a shower! I think Reb especially enjoyed that.

José brought us back here to Breuville around 10:00 this morning. Again, we did a lot of pulling and so forth to get the boat here. It is giving me the idea that it might be good to see about a decent, fairly wide trail between Breuville and the village. José did mention that it would be nice to have a horse to go back and forth between Breuville and the village.

Here in another 45 minutes we will head to church for the evening service. We spent most of our day today packing and organizing what we plan to take and also what we plan to leave here. Reb baked bread for our trip tomorrow as well as tomorrow’s breakfast before we go.
OK, I think I will leave it at this and, Lord willing, we will be in Thama tomorrow.

Brad

Praise/Prayer:

-We are expecting! Thank God with us for this special blessing. Pray that Rebecca would continue to feel well during her pregnancy and for continued good health for the baby.

-That all went safely in June with our move up to the Amazon area of Brazil.

-For a missionary pilot and airplane for our area.

-For wisdom and safety as we move to the tribal area.

We praise the Lord for His timing and His answer to our prayers regarding starting a family. He has said, “Now is the time.” Rebecca is now in her 2nd trimester and is due on January 3, 2009!

There have been some rough times of “morning sickness” that have most often occurred in the afternoons, but even in the midst of nausea Rebecca has glowed with the joy of answered prayer. I like to kid her about being “miserably happy.”

After spending a few months in the tribal area, we plan to go to Manaus, Brazil to have the baby. Manaus is the closest city with a modern maternity hospital…but is almost 1000 miles away from the tribal area.

Thankfully, Rebecca’s nausea seems to be subsiding and she hasn’t had too much trouble being comfortable. Trying to find maternity clothes here in the Amazon, though, is hard work. Often pregnant, Brazilian women just let their bellies hang out, but neither Rebecca or Brad are ready to go with that style!

While living here on the Brazilian Plateau in Central Brazil we’ve learned a couple of things.

We’ve learned that…

—where we are cur-rently living the eleva-tion is higher than anywhere in Pennsyl-vania.

—that when a female rhea (a large bird, about the size of an ostrich, native to this area) is ready to lay its eggs, it is the male that builds the nest and then sits on the eggs.

One thing we already knew, though, is…

—that without your continual prayer and financial support we would not be able to be here preparing to take God’s Word to tribal people.

Thank You!!

It’s been said that home is where your heart is. If that is true, than I believe our home is somewhere close to the tribal people, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.

In fact, in the next couple of months our missionary team hopes to purchase a home in a small Brazilian coummunity near where the tribal people live. This will be our home from roughly July to November of this year.

One of the things that I was able to find out on my survey trip in March was that this house is available for sale there in the Brazilian community where we can move to in July and begin tribal language study.

Rebecca isn’t calling it her dreamhome or anything. At least not yet. It lacks a toilet and running water. Our first couple of months there will most likely be spent on “fixing things up.”

Lord willing, in the future, after we are moved into the tribal village, this home will serve as a guesthouse for us and other missionaries that are passing through the area.