Versão legendada Português: https://youtu.be/sLtb0NmsImw
"Go along with us" on our recent trip to the village and see the people and where we will be working. See a quick recap of our year, including all that the Lord has done to get our house from foundation (or posts, rather) to all finished! Versão legendada Português: https://youtu.be/sLtb0NmsImw
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This is for those of you who are wondering, "What exactly is a twin tub washer?" Here are a couple short videos I made so you can see. The first is just a couple seconds showing the two sides the washer has. The second, is a quick explanation of the processes and all that can be done with a twin tub. A twin tub does take a little more time, because you have to manually move the clothes back and forth between the tub and the spinner, but in the long run it actually washes faster than an automatic (because you are doing some of the work an automatic does). This of course, is partly what saves energy. My favorite things are that you can re-use the water (i.e. wash dirtier clothes in the rinse water of the previous load) and also, that you can simultaneously wash things while spinning other things. Other perks are that the washer is lightweight, the spinner does an exceptional job spinning out the water, and it washes better compared to the automatic washers (down here at least). Since my last blog post, we were able to finally go in to the village as a family and live in our new house for two weeks! We thank God for all the progress we made during that time. We weren't sure if we'd finish in time, but we were able to put in most of the "life comfort" things we wanted to. Now when we return from the city in three months or so with our new baby, we can just jump right in to Maki language and culture learning without having the added burdens of doing without certain modern conveniences. Scroll through the pictures to "take our trip with us".... During dry season, instead of the 3 1/2 hrs. with our speed boat, the trip takes 6 hours or more (depending on whether or not one gets stuck on sand bars and how many!). This is the smaller motor we use during dry season, a long-tail mud motor. People only make the long-tail ones down here. They are easier and cheaper to make than short-tail ones, but our guys say it's tiring because one has to hold the tail in the water and the leverage on the long tail makes it harder to turn the boat. Maybe someday we'll be able to get the homemade short-tail that Brian made up and running. Quick visit at a different village Tour of Our House Thank you, to all who have supported us in various ways, have prayed for us and are continuing to throughout this whole process and continuing journey! During the next week that the guys were home, we prepared to send our heavy stuff to the village ahead of us on a bigger boat, even before moving there ourselves. With dry season rapidly approaching, the river levels were rapidly going down. We wanted to get our heavy stuff there before the river went down too much. Here's me getting my kitchen and household stuff ready to send along also. When you live far away on a river in the jungle, even your toilets and sinks have to be shipped in (and don't forget the plumbing!). These things represent the day when we no longer have to use the jungle and river for our bathroom and shower and wash sink whenever we're in the village. Needless to say, it's been greatly anticipated! Our lawn contraption also arrived on the big boat. (If you aren't signed up for our monthly newsletters, you missed this story we included in April. Here's the story....) "The grass on the soccer field was tall and they wanted to see the recently arrived mower contraption in action. Anywhere these mowers go in Brazil, they are a novelty, since most people only use machetes or weed-eaters. Several of them took turns running it. One lady convinced her husband to let her try it, so she cautiously approached it. When she jerked the lever, it lurched forward and startled her, so she screamed and ran away. Needless to say, using the mower was a lot faster and easier than cutting the field with machetes." And this is how the guys left everything on their last trip! We are very grateful to the Lord for all the progress that has been made in the past three months. Stay posted for more pictures from the trip the guys are on now!
He had just received the news. His father had slipped out of this life and into eternity. As he wanders back home, heart bursting in anguish, he comes across Jesus and his followers. Jesus’ piercing gaze rests upon the man. “Follow me.” “Ok, but first let me go bury my father…” (Luke 9:59) We may picture this exchange like this in our minds, but in reality, his father is probably not near death. The man most likely means simply that he needs to take care of his father until he dies, so he is unable (or so he thinks) to follow Jesus yet. I have to admire the few who truly left all to follow Christ in a very physical sense, fishing nets and all. It is my understanding, however, that even some of the 12 had to be called more than once. Although Jesus is no longer walking this earth in a physical body and no longer expects us to ‘follow’ Him in the literal sense of a rabbi and disciple, I am challenged by the commitment He expected of His followers. So what does this look like today? Are we still expected to give up anything to pursue Christ’s interests? Even after Christ’s ascension, many converts suffered because of their commitment to Christ. We have extensive records of Paul and his journeys, sufferings, victories, and persecutions. He credits God for the strength to preach, serve, and endure. Certainly he could have chosen an easier path to his life. Stay in Israel. Incorporate more law and less Gentiles in his gospel. But instead, he rejoiced in his sufferings and said that they were “light afflictions” and they were “working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory.”(2 Cor. 4:17) There is a reward, but it doesn’t come during this life. Now let’s get personal. Are there sacrifices that you are unwilling to make for Christ? If you are honest, there probably are. But hopefully you will at least be willing to sacrifice some comforts for the sake of the gospel. Maybe you sacrifice watching football so you can reach out to your unsaved neighbors or put your career on hold for a couple of years to fill a need overseas. Or maybe you begin to train for a career of cross cultural ministry. There has never been a lack of need in the world for Christians to minister. But the supply is always lacking. Apparently, it’s not because of a lack of Christians, but a lack of willingness, since some ministries have a lot more help than others. There is nothing wrong with working the sound booth or singing in the choir, but if it is just an excuse ministry to satisfy your conscience, something needs to change. It is difficult and controversial to try to define what is, and what is not a valid ministry. But there are two good questions to consider. 1) What would happen if my particular ministry activity ceased? If you make the coffee, your absence is an annoyance to the coffee addicts, but the church can still be the church without coffee. If you are the one doing the teaching, your absence makes meeting together kind of pointless. If you are taking care of a mission base so that church planters can operate in a village, your absence means one of them will have to put their ministry on hold to take care of the base. 2) How many other people would be willing and able to fill my position if I changed ministries? Almost anyone willing to get to church 10 minutes early can turn on the coffee machine. There are also likely a few capable teachers in any congregation. But how many people are there to fill a vacant position at a mission base overseas? It is a bigger decision to go overseas for any length of time than to agree to man the coffee booth. I’m not saying that my ministry is the only valid one or that everyone should become a full time overseas missionary. That’s like saying that the only valid thing to do during a war is be the guy on the frontline in the trenches. But, if there have been many casualties on the frontline and no one is willing to risk their life there anymore, you won’t win the war, no matter how many people are back home making bullets. So if you are available for God’s service, I want to challenge you with the current needs that I’m aware of. On our field, there is a regional mission base that serves various missionary teams that has no caretaker, so the missionaries are on a rotation. Our base is going to be without caretakers while our base coworkers are on leave for several months. The boarding school here desperately needs teachers and dorm parents for the next school year. The school in Papua New Guinea also has staff needs. We have friends in Peru who are putting together a team to build their house in a remote village and they need construction workers. Our mission’s home office in Florida always needs personnel in various departments, as well as the Bible Institutes and Missionary Training. [https://usa.ntm.org/go/find-opportunities]
The qualifications vary according to position, but lack of secular skills doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be used. Maybe God has gifted you in a way that you aren’t even aware of. You might go through missionary training and discover a passion and ability to teach God’s Word or above average ability to learn or analyze language. Any secular or natural abilities you have are also an advantage and can probably be used on the mission field. There is always a need for IT, accounting, teaching and maintenance personnel. So what is your excuse? We addressed lack of skills. Mission teams are comprised of all types of personalities, including quiet people like us. Maybe you don’t feel ‘called.’ Did God clearly ‘call’ you to something else? What would it take for you to feel called? A dream? A burning in the bosom? Writing in the clouds? My call came from the words of Jesus: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.” Maybe you are convinced you are doing a necessary ministry right where you are. Praise God, stay strong in His grace! Maybe you are unable to be on the mission field due to health or family reasons. But sometimes there is still another way to serve within the mission in the US, depending on your situation. Maybe your excuse for not serving is legitimate (which wouldn’t really be an excuse), or maybe you think you have a good excuse, but Jesus doesn’t. Maybe you give, maybe you pray, maybe you encourage. Great! We couldn’t minister without you. But may it never be an excuse, a crutch for your conscience, if Christ is challenging you to sacrifice some earthly comforts and fill a challenging ministry need at home or abroad. You don’t want to have regrets at the end of your life, wishing you had spent your life on things with more eternal value. If you don't serve or minister at all anywhere, I challenge you to change now. Make no excuses. Today marks the day when I, already in my thirties and with a two-and-a-half year old of my own, gain two more siblings. No, my mom is not having twins in her fifties! My parents are adopting! My mom has always dreamed of adopting. But with an already very busy household of eight children, it never seemed like the right time. With more of us moving out of the house now, it seemed like it would have to be now or never, so my parents decided to pursue foster care training and become foster parents. They ended up with not only their planned one foster girl, but then also ended up with another girl and boy. Needless to say, their hands are full once again!
The other day, I was thinking about what my parents are doing. At their age, most people are close to realizing their dream of retirement. But my parents are basically giving up their retirement in order to raise these kids. I thought of Paul’s words “being poured out like a drink offering” (see Philippians 2:17 & 2 Timothy 4:6). There are many times, I am sure, that my mother would rather be free to sit and read in a quiet house, or go have coffee with a friend anytime without having to find a sitter, or be free to just pick up and travel to see her grandkids. But my parents’ conviction of what God has called them to do is driving them to do the difficult, to fulfill a higher dream. It is going to take all of their strength and energy. It is going to be harder on their health. It is going to take reliance on God, but it will be worth it. I realized that my parents are now demonstrating in a most real and tangible way, what they have always taught us to do. Follow God’s commands, and if He gave you dreams that fall into line with that, then follow them. So I started thinking, what are God’s commands? Jesus’ last command before leaving earth was to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, making disciples (Mark 16:15 & Matthew 28:19). Then the definition given in James for pure and undefiled religion before God is “to care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted from the world” (James 1:27). Lastly, the command that fulfills the whole law is, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14). The older I get, the more my parents are an inspiration to me. My parents were never officially in a ministry, such as pastoring a church. But now, looking back, I see that they had a ministry, a very important one. Their ministry was raising children for the glory of God. It hasn’t been without their own battles or without our family’s battles. But standing with each other by God’s grace, as well as standing on the promises and wisdom of God’s Word, they have done well in raising their own eight children to know God’s Truth, to be good citizens, and to know they care about them and want the best for them. The time, energy, training, guidance and care they put into raising us is not something that every child has. On this day, I say, “You go, Dad and Mom!” Thank you for being the inspiration to us kids and so many other people to serve the Lord no matter what. I also say to my two new siblings, “I am very happy to have you join our family. I celebrate with you this opportunity to be a part of our family that God has made and is continuing to make. I hope that someday you will see what a blessing it is.”
Many hands make light work, unless those hands are not controlled by someone with the same objective and same strategy in mind. Otherwise, you might be trying to dislodge a boat from the sandbar, pushing with all your might, worrying you will spring a hernia. The boat won’t budge. Then, suddenly, you realize that not everyone is pushing in the same direction. There is even one guy who is on the opposite side, obliviously pushing directly against you.
Do you ever feel like this as a Christian? I know I do. There must be a good reason that Jesus prayed for believers to be unified (John 17). Although there are probably many ways the universal church could be more unified, I don’t see how anything could be more important than agreeing on the gospel message itself. Most gospel presentations include a lot of the same elements, which is encouraging. But there is one particular element that is rarely ever the same. A few years ago, my wife and I were part of an outreach effort in a booth at a fair. People were given a dollar to take a survey and a volunteer would use it as a chance to witness to the person. But, as time went on, we could hear volunteers at other tables selling their product for a very different price than we were. So what is the going price for a salvation these days? If we could all agree on that, I think we would be more clear and effective in our gospel presentations. But, unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. People have many differing views on this issue, based on their theological grid. I believe we all basically have the same objective: get people saved and get them to live godly lives. But our strategies are far from the same. How can we get the boat off the sandbar with differing strategies? Do we need to take a fresh look at the Scriptures, attempting to free ourselves from theological biases and church traditions? Maybe. I know you might not care what I think about this issue, but I’m curious to know what you think. Please consider answering one or all of the 5 survey questions below. Feel free to contact me as well, if you have any questions or suggestions to improve the quiz. (Click the applicable answers below the picture, then click on the arrow above the question to continue.) Every line of work has mundane parts and things that are intriguing. For instance, when I worked at a factory, it got old to do the same thing all day without needing to exercise my brain much. The interesting part was seeing how ingots and silver scrap turned into silver coins. In cross-cultural church planting, each phase has its boring and interesting parts. When you spend your days listening to the same words and phrases, it isn’t something to write home about. But sometimes, as you discover new things in the language, you might randomly burst into laughter (or at least I do). One of the first such things I discovered was the seemingly uncoincidental similarity between batsawah (wife) and batsawaho (to cook). Somehow, I don’t think it has a negative connotation in their culture. So if you want to stir up a little controversy at home, at lunchtime say, “Hey honey, what are you going to wife up for lunch today?” But don’t be fooled into thinking that Maki women are weak. I have witnessed them on the soccer field. What they lack in skills, they make up for in courage. Playing soccer in Felicity (the community where we will live) is relaxing and fun. Both men and women play, so Rachel and I will both have opportunities to play with them. During group activities, you often hear the same phrases repeated various times and can begin to recognize them. Sometimes you hear a string of unintelligible words with one word in the middle that you studied and recognize, like a body part. The names for the body parts are built in an interesting way. i-ba (1ps-hand) “my hand”, i-ba-kom (1ps-hand-digit) “my finger”, a-ba-ki (3ps-hand-joint) “his wrist”, no-ba-kom-ki (2ps-hand-digit-joint) “your knuckle”. It is different, but it makes sense. For the most part. Figure this one out: no-ba-kom-kirak (2ps-hand-digit-nail) “your fingernail”, no-am (2ps-leg) “your leg”, no-am-ki (2ps-leg-joint) “your knee”, no-am-ki-kirak (2ps-leg-joint-nail) “your skull”. What? I don’t know how they get skull out of that! To me, it looks like knee-nail. Some things make me chuckle, but they make sense. Takara wah (chicken grandma) “female chicken”, takara paiko (chicken grandpa) “rooster”. One of the more daunting things I have run into so far is kinship terms. To us, an uncle is an uncle, but to them, the term is different depending on if he is your mom’s or dad’s brother. Your dad’s brother is called mom. No, not “mom” as in, “Hey mom, are you going to wife dinner tonight?” It’s just coincidentally the way they spell it. Really, it is pronounced like “mong” with more of a long “o”. Learning a people’s culture involves living alongside them and becoming like them in certain ways. One way I wish I could be like them is to travel to another village or to town with only the shirt on my back and maybe a hammock or mosquito net. When we go to the village, we take everything we need that isn’t available there, which ends up being a lot of stuff. If you have ever gone on an extended camping trip, you know what it’s like. I have had friends who tried to “live off the land” while they were camping, which invariably meant they would come home a day early because they were starving. The Maki seem to live mostly for today and put little thought into tomorrow (they do plant gardens, though). Some of them receive government money for retirement or some other salary, so they come to town with a bunch of people with little or no food and often way too early. Then sometimes the men show up drunk and ask us for money to buy bread. I wasn’t born yesterday. Sadly, they waste their money on alcohol and people in town often take advantage of their lack of financial skills.
So I learned a new phrase yesterday that someone in this situation could say: tsuku nimwu wapam dirim (die want hunger much) “dying of hunger” or “so hungry I want to die”. It is sad to watch people suffer for their choices, but we can’t do things that create a dependency on us. If you give something to one person, 30 people will show up wanting the same thing. Literally. Our friends invited two little Maki girls to their daughter’s birthday party and 30 Maki showed up for free cake and finger foods. Now you know how to pray for us more specifically. We need wisdom for each situation, and the Maki need to learn some practical things as well. But most of all, they need to trust in Christ alone for salvation. Unfortunately, they seem to think that being a Christian is simply a change in behavior. Some call themselves Christian because they don’t drink or party, or because they claim they stopped doing witchcraft. May God give us the grace to one day communicate the freeness of the salvation He offers and that it absolutely cannot depend on man’s works or anything else. So how would I say, “Uncle mom’s knee-nail”? Here’s my guess: atsa mom na`amkikirak (my uncle 3ps-skull) "my dad's brother's skull". We planned to leave on our trip on Monday, since Adnor and Nina, our base co-workers, are back. Sunday night, it started to storm, and the next morning, it was still kind of drizzling. The truck driver sounded unsure about whether it would work to get the boat down to the river through the mud, and it was getting kind of late, so we decided to wait until the next day. On Tuesday, we got up early, pulling away from shore about 7 am. The trip to the Ituc River was uneventful, except that the river was so shallow that twice, we ran up on a sandbar. I was amazed to see the mouth of the Ituc—a tiny channel. It was very low, but we didn’t have to drag the canoe too much until after Arrow Village. At Hummingbird Village, Simon came down to talk to us and said that his brother went back to drinking and is in the city, but he would come the next day without him. Every time we heard the swishing sound on the bottom of the canoe, we knew we had hit a sandbar and had to get out and push. It happened so often, that we put on our shoes, hoping to minimize jabs from tucumã (inch-long thorns from the tucumã tree) or stingrays. A couple of times we had to take some of the cargo out before the boat would budge. When it was about to get dark, we decided to make camp right where the boat was stuck. We dug holes in the beach and put in posts that we cut with our machetes. The next day, it didn’t take long to get to our village of Felicity. At first, I thought the village was empty. The bank seemed so high, and we had so much junk to carry. I was relieved when some of the villagers showed up. We were beat, so the rest of the day, we mostly rested. An Indian girl got stung by a stingray on a trip, and we felt bad for her, but there was nothing we could do. I remembered when I got stung by a stingray when I was 9 yrs. old. “Sting” is really a misnomer. It is more like a puncture with a nail. They put some sort of salve on it. We spent some time looking for a source of clean water. We found a place upstream in the little creek where the water looked decent, but it was so fill of tanins (the things that turn water tea colored) that it clogged our filter. Later, we saw that someone put a basin in one of the springs in the hillside, and it fills up with crystal clear water. This morning I returned from the jungle, to everyone bustling about, getting ready to cut wood. Simon came, like he said. Most of the men of the village came along, and we all watched as he sawed. It was a 15 minute brisk walk back to camp, a trip which I had the privilege of walking a dozen times or so. The posts weren’t super heavy, but after it pressing on your shoulder the whole way, it gets really sore. I only carried one at a time. Some guys carried two. Every time I brought one to camp, I would get a drink and sometimes a snack. After finishing with all 65 posts, we sat around and talked with Simon. He says he is a believer from the Assembly of God. We played soccer, as if we weren’t tired enough. I enjoy playing with them. I quit before it got dark and went to our abandoned drinking water spot to take a bath and wash my clothes. As it was getting dark, the chief and his wife were walking through the village together, which I thought was cute. They were looking at a homemade digging tool we had brought, so I was asking them questions. Then they started asking me the names of body parts and laughed every time I said one and said, “Atikok” (He knows). It makes me happy that they seem happy to teach us their language. God has been directing our steps. I’m also glad our hours of language study even while living away from them in town are paying off. When we decided to start putting posts in for our house, it was a weird feeling knowing that wherever we put the first post would determine the location of our house for years to come. There was a dip in the land, which would cause water to pool under the house, so we ended up putting it farther away from the nearest house than I expected, which should be nice. My whole body is sore from all the work, and I hope to sleep better tonight. We all feel bad for the old lady tonight, because she fell off the edge of her cooking house and is in a lot of pain. She might have broken a rib or something. It rained a little bit this afternoon, so we took advantage of the cloudy weather to put in more posts. Today is Sunday. We put in a few posts for Ed’s house early this morning while it was still cool. The rest of the day, we mostly rested. At one point, we heard a kid yelling, and then a lady said, “Aro! [Ed’s Maki name] Veado! [Deer!]” We all went running out from under our mosquito nets. The dogs were chasing a deer right into the village, so we helped chase it. The exhausted deer met its end and provided food for the whole village. Everyone got a piece. The dogs’ reward was getting to eat strips of the hide. Later in the afternoon, we got some vocab with the witch doctor and some others. There are lots of words and phrases I feel like I should know, but I can’t recall them quickly when I need them. The other day, the chief and family went to town. Adnor came back from the river in the afternoon and said someone’s motor was on his boat. Apparently, the chief took Adnor’s canoe and decided it was too big. Somewhere beyond Arrow Village, he met someone in Simon’s canoe. They traded, and the person left it at Simon’s village, then Simon used it to come here. Ed remembered the chief asking if his little motor would push our boat. Maybe that was his way of asking permission. We don’t know yet, but we are glad he didn’t take it all the way back to town, leaving us stranded here for who knows how long. On Wednesday, Simon had used almost all of the gas and oil for the chainsaw, and there wouldn’t be enough to finish cutting all of the wood. We decided to return home the following day, which was fine with me, because I wanted to be with me family, and our food was running out. We’ll get the rest of the wood the next time we go in to start framing our houses, but we’ll have to wait until the river goes up enough so we can take supplies like roofing, nails, and tools. God sent some rain and a friagem. That’s cool, northern U.S., fall-type weather that begins with a rain, then stays overcast and cool, getting fairly cold at night. Compared to the other days with 90-degree heat and scorching sunshine all day, it seemed like we had more energy to work, and we needed fewer water breaks. The rain also made the river go up just enough that when we left early the next morning to return home, we arrived back into town by 3 pm.
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AuthorWe are normal people who believe that God would have us serve Him in Brazil. We are saddened by the existence of people who do not have access to the gospel due to their location and language. We want to live among such a people group and plant a church among them, shepherding the believers as they grow to maturity. Archives
November 2019
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