Amazon sunset
This year has already been packed with activity! It started off with an intense 3 week counseling course through YWAM in January, followed by 2 ministry trips in February, 2 trips in March plus a health team training and a missions retreat, 3 health trips this month plus a missionary conference! I also started discipling 3 Brazilian girls, which has been a challenging and fulfilling experience.
Conference
Many of you were praying for me on this last trip from April 4-10. Our health team traveled to Lago Grande (Great Lake), 8 hours away by boat to hold medical and dental clinics in 3 villages. Praise the Lord for answered prayers! It was a great trip. The last 3 days we spent in São Jorge, where all the villages on the Lago Grande came together for a conference. Several hundred people attended the conference, so our clinic was hopping! 33 people made commitments to follow Christ!!
Church service
We had some interesting patients at the clinics. One man came with a bloody, deep arm wound from an accident. Many children and adults came with very high fevers and body aches. An elderly gentleman with high blood pressure was having chest pain. Children with scabies and worms. A young girl with an infected burn wound. It was a privilege to be able to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ who attended the conference, as well as the unbelievers in the community.
Typical mode of transportation
It is the rainy season, and several storms blew up at night. It was rather hard to sleep with pouring rain hitting the tin roof of the boat along with lots of lightning, thunder and wind! I got rather wet several times trying to tie down the tarp on the sides of the boat. As humid and hot as it gets during the day, I was sure thankful for my blanket and sweatshirt during the storms! During devotions one morning, Rachel our physical therapist shared the scripture in Luke 8 when Jesus calmed the tempest. We all had to laugh thinking about how Jesus could have slept through such a storm! But then He is the calm in the storm.
I’m so grateful for all the prayers! God is so faithful! “for in Him we live and move and have our being” Acts 17:28
