Hey Dad, Today we went boating with the Browns. It was so much fun. We all had a chance to go tubing. There was also time to relax and read. We missed you… Love, Via.
Back in Canada
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Couple’s Night
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“You guys are going on a date night, with each other?” Incredulous looks. Then smiles. Then rolling eyes and laughter. Even now, five years after we have moved to Marabá, people start laughing when they hear that Deanna and I are going on a date. Tuesday nights. The girls have to figure out something to do on their own. So this is what I talked about on our first Maraba Church Couple’s Night.
Monica hosted three games, including one where all the men had to close their eyes, and all the women had to some to the front and put their shoes on one big pile. Then the women sat back down with their husbands, and the husbands had to go find their wife’s shoes from the pile, and put them back on her feet. Some of the husbands were at quite a loss.
Quita and Lene were in charge of making supper, which included fried chicken.
Healthy, long-term, marriage friendships are very rare here. Most of these couple’s have a very broken history but I think everyone dreams of having a loyal, best-friend as a spouse. Judging from the smiles and laughter, this was a fun evening for everyone. We want to start doing this on the first Friday night of each month.
Suzi and Nadeson, on the left, are getting married in our church in two weeks. They have three cute little girls. Preto is Nadeson’s brother, and he is with Ghislaine, who is Adrianna’s mom. It was very cool to see them all at this Couple’s Night event. Very cool.
Monica did a great job hosting three games. 1. Find your wife’s shoes. 2. What stresses you out. (You blow into a balloon as Monica lists potential marriage stressers, until balloons started popping). 3. Write down your spouse’s response to various questions, and later review to see who really knows each other. It seemed to me like these games were kind of awkward for everyone, and scary-fun, which really was attractive. I think many of these relationships will become committed marriages. Some already are, and I think those people had the most fun.
Zecca and Nilma
Marques and Adrianna are both gifted worship leaders, but neither of them are serving on the worship team at the moment. They have a cute little baby girl, Alice Vitória.
This is the first time Lene, on the left, has helped cook a big, church meal. Quita, her sister on the right, is 23 years old, and pregnant with a baby girl. This will be child number 5 for her. She has four healthy little boys ripping around the house at her feet when she is home.
Ivanildo tells Paula and Izak about the big fish that got away last Saturday, and the big fish he is going to catch today. (We have a men’s fishing trip planned for today, Saturday, following the Friday Couple’s Night event). I think Paula and Izak have their doubts. 🙂
Zecca and Nilma are the grandparents of Alica Maria, and the parents of Jacquelene, who is married to Wandro.
Food and church go together like root beer and ice cream.
I think maybe Wandro never got the answers right to what Jaquelene likes.
Marcos Turns 8!
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Ivanildo and Monica moved to Marabá with their two children, Bruna and Marcos. Marcos had his 3rd birthday right after they moved. Marcos turned 8 on Tuesday. He has lots of friends here.
Marcos was very excited about his 8th birthday. He wants to grow up to be a strong, helpful, man just as soon as he possibly can.
Aline and Eliel are leaders in our church. Eliel leads the worship team, and together they lead the youth. They are getting married in two weeks, the first among us to date, plan a wedding, and get married, before living together.
Marcos invited about 8 boys his age come to his party. He also invited me to come.
Marcos and his friends.
Karin has been part of our church for about four years now, and living here on the chacara for the last two. Her life has changed so much. She is becoming a student of God’s word, and is very generous to those around her.
Karin, Bruna, and Monica.
Bruna is Marcos’ sister.
Barbequed Ribs!
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The “gaucho” cowboy culture is part of Brazilian folklore and includes eating barbecued ribs and drinking chimarrão tea from a gourd. Last Saturday we bought a huge 23 kilo (52 pounds) ribcage. It was almost a whole front quarter of beef. The butcher just cut off a bit of the neck and the front leg behind the shoulder blade as I watched and gave directions. As I bought the meat Ivanildo dug a pit and gathered some logs for a bonfire. Sunday morning Ivanildo and I got up at 3:30 a.m. to set the ribs over the glowing bed of coals. We roasted the ribs for eight hours, right until lunch. In the meanwhile, Monica had planned a church-cleaning event, with the usher/set-up ministry. Everyone brought food or drinks, and about 40 of us ate until we couldn’t eat anymore. Afterwards, while I went home to sleep, they all went to the river to swim and continue the party. It was a fun day for the church, the stuff legends are made out of. This becomes part of our story.
Chimarrão Tea
We have a robust setup / greeter team.
Emily (Luana and Yara’s little sister).
Jaquelene and Shianne carve the last morsels off the ribs.
The crew is cleaning the area where all the neighbours can come and get good drinking water.
Antonio and Zecca have a crew of helpers in the church front yard.
Kevin helps sweep the floor.
The main helpers.
- 23 kilos, 53 pounds, of ribs, roasted for 8 hours over coals.
Nilma
Jaquelene
Emily helps scrub the chairs.
Many hands make light work.
The musicians polish their instruments.
It’s fun, when everyone is into it.
Eliete is Emily’s mom, and a changed person.
Ivanildo used to do this when he worked in the army.
We got up long before daylight to get these ribs started. They had been roasting for over tow hours when this photo was taken. Sloooowwwwly.
Porto Novo Survey Trip
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We are doing survey trips, and looking for key people who God are ready to be blessed by God.
Last week we drove out to Porto Novo, a 2,000 person fishing village on the Tucurui Reservoir. A fellow came to talk to us after lunch, thinking maybe we were interested in buying an island as a fishing get away. Apparently fishing is very good here. As we got to talking, he has separated from his wife for the last sixty days. Then we met his wife, Silvana, and their two cute little girls on their floating restaurant / bar. Elvis also owns a bar up in the center part of the village. He got a boat and took us out for a couple of hours on the reservoir so we could get a feel for the place.
I am planning to go back this week, to see if we can get something started here.
Alpha Training
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First Alpha Leadership Training evening, six women came, no men.
Second Alpha Leadership Training evening, nine women came, two men.
I told Ivanildo and Monica, “This is how it was in Altamira. First we just had children and youth. Then the mom’s came. Then the men came.
A couple of years ago we were mostly just a youth church. At our Sunday services we have a fair representation of adults now.
Cashew Fruit
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I remember Luke Huber talking about the Amazon, before we ever became missionaries…”then we would to this beach area, where there were many cashew fruit trees. I could eat 5 of these super-juicy fruits”. And there is nothing better than when you are walking along a deserted stretch of beach, and you are hot, and tired, and hungry, and then you come across a cashew tree, full of sun-ripened fruit. They have such a strong, citrusy, flavour, and they kind of make your mouth dry, like the choke cherries up in Northern Canada. Sun ripened, open air, fresh…these are the secrets to really enjoying the actual cashew fruit.
Luke told us cashew fruits contain 5 times as much vitamin C as an orange. We found out for ourselves they will stain your shirt brown if the juice drips on you. And the seed contains some toxic elements that will burn your leg if you put them in your pocket. The smoke is also toxic, as I found out when I tried roasting some in a frying pan inside the house, and the house filled with smoke, and our eyes were burning. The seeds will spit burning oil that leave a blister wherever they land on your skin, and they will be flaming, burning bits of oil if you roast them over a fire. We learned to stir them around with a long stick. For flavour, home-roasted cashew nuts taste the best.
If you come for a visit at this time of year, you can see for yourself what I am talking about.
A Good Lunch
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We checked at about three places that looked like eating establishments, but no one seemed to be open for lunch. Finally we stopped at Tia Lú’s.
There was a lady, later we found out she was the owner, getting her toe nails painted by another lady. They were sitting on a chair and a stool, blocking the entry way. “You want lunch now?” It was 11:30. We offered to wait, but she got up with one foot painted and one not. Three of us wanted fried fish. Marques doesn’t like fish. “No problem. (Wink). I’ll fix you up with a good lunch”. She ended up cooking us a feast. We had a big plate full of beef, more than we could eat. Plus another plate of cooked chicken. She fried us three bass, one after the other. Plus huge bowls of rice and beans. Then she offered us açai. And it was good. Thick and cold. She gave us a couple of litres in an aluminum pitcher, with four bowls, lots of farinha, and a plastic tub full of sugar on the side. We were stuffed. And for a very low price. Others came in while we were eating, and they ate too, offering us their food, two came and sat at our table, and they finished off what we could not eat. It was a fun experience, one I am hoping to do again soon.
Four of us, Ivanildo, Marques, Elismar and I, left Marabá early in the morning, praying about where God wants to plant another church. This village where we ate lunch is called Porto Novo.
Fruit
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Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Luke 9:37
“Aren’t you going to wait until they get bigger?” My friend was watching me pick Bella’s little tomatoes. He did not understand that these tomatoes were ripe now. He thought that if we left them longer, they would get bigger. I realized as I was picking them how God varies the signals for ripe fruit. Tomatoes turn bright red. They would be hard to pick for someone who is color blind. Some of our mangos are still totally green on the outside, even though they are ripe. The ripe mangos fall from the trees, and they are a little softer. Pineapples smell ripe. You need to knock on watermelons. The harvest is plentiful. The Holy Spirit will show us who is ripe for the gospel is we ask Him.
Bella’s Little Tomatoe Patch
The mangoes are ripening.
Jefferson
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Sixteen years ago two teen-agers from our church were at the gate of our home in Altamira. Ross and I were in my office on a Saturday morning, working on a newsletter. Ross ended up flying to Água Preta with Vagner and Jefferson with his floatplane.
Simone and Jefferson are ordained as pastors for one year.
“Can you drive us out into the bush to get my mom? She fell and broke her hip.”
“Where is it that you want to go?”
“It is an hour or two down the Amazon Highway, then you turn off onto a small dirt road for another hour. We’ll get a boat and cross the Xingu River, hike 2 kms into the bush, and bring her out.”
“Can we get there with an airplane with floats?”
No one at the shore there had seen a floatplane before. Ross heard them speculating whether the president of Brazil was sending someone to their village.
The young guys hiked into the village, and brought out Lourdes in a stretcher. When she saw Ross and the airplane she said (in Portuguese), “I saw you in a dream last night. You came to get me in a really fast speedboat. And this voice behind me said, ‘Only by the God of the Bible will you get healed.’” Lourdes got better for awhile, and she became quite an evangelist. Unfortunately her hip still is a problem and she is now waiting for another hip replacement surgery.
Over time both of these young men fell away from the Lord. Their first love grew cool. But Jefferson came back. Last month we ordained him and his wife as the senior pastors of one of the city churches in Altamira.