Greetings in Christ,
We are officially into the “dry season” here in the Amazon Rain Forest. Sounds weird, huh? Dry?
Yes, it is dry……er here in Manaus. In fact, it will slowly stop raining and will altogether quit by the end of June. Then we won’t see any rain again (except for sporadic sprinkles) until mid September. And when it get’s dry here, whew! The heat comes on!
That said, let me tell you what God has been doing through us the last couple of months.
I, Brad, just returned from another extremely fruitful 19 day trip into the Indian village. The day I arrived in the village, I quickly unpacked and then repacked again into a smaller bag and went on up river 14 hrs with Chief Makao, Oscar and Analucia, Oscar’s brother Valcidis, sister Nilza, and Raimunda.
We were heading back to the village we went to two years ago where the Chief and his son repented from their idols and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. On that trip, the Chief had not let us talk with the whole village, but just his immediate family. On this trip, at his request, we were coming in to teach a Bible conference to the whole village, with 4 other villages invited. We held 10 classes over the 3 day conference and showed the Jesus Film in their language. They would like to know more and build a church. For more details on the conference, click here: https://millerstobrazil.com/ministries/apurina-tribe/
Upon returning to our village, we held our normal daily leadership studies from 8-11am and nightly Genesis studies, with a movie night on Saturday and two Sunday services. I stayed for two weeks and returned at the end of May.
The whole family will go on the next trip, the 3rd week of July.
I did some construction projects on this trip also. I tore down and rebuilt from scratch the front water tower on our Jungle House. I placed two 500 liter water tubs there, one which feeds our kitchen and the other at ground level, which the people can get fresh water from during the dry season.
I also rewired the church with new light fixtures, wires, and outlets powered by our Diesel Generator.
Upon returning to Manaus, I started prepping for a wedding ceremony I would officiate between an American man from California and a Brazilian woman from Belem, a city down river from us. The man was from one of the Calvary Chapel churches in Southern California and so we had a common connection. We had the ceremony last Saturday, May 27th. Click here to see a photo: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1515690278481090&set=pcb.1515691961814255&type=3&theater
The work in Jardim Tropical is continuing to be a huge blessing! Our leadership classes are helping them as they strive to reach their own community with the Gospel through open air preaching and teaching 4 nights a week. We are supportive of their work and would like to bless them with a church building, which will help us too by getting the outreaches we do and their services up out of the dirt and mud. Our Saturday Leadership class could then be moved from our mission base to the community, and possibly grow.
Our Saturday morning Leadership Studies are blessing the people there. Each Saturday I lead an Inductive Bible Study class in our mission base to Artur, Leandro, and two others. They take the things they learn in the class back to the Jardim Tropical community and lead Bible Studies and and evening services. They also started a kid’s program during evening services and a kid’s club on Saturday.