Riding the Amazon

Today it has been exactly a week since I’ve moved here to the Amazon. Everytime I think about it, it just seems so crazy to me…I’m living in Colombia, in the Amazon! For the past two years I’ve dreamt of this day, sometimes bittersweet, but mostly I was waiting with bated breath.

Tuesday, May 11^th Amazon Xpeditions brought down a team of Christ For The Nations Institute bible school students to the Amazon. For the past week we’ve prepared for the upcoming VBS here in Colombia and filled ministry bags with toys, clothing, medicine, bibles and school supplies. We’ve held two purity youth conferences located in Brazil and Peru. Today, being a holiday in Colombia, we took it as our opportunity to “recharge.” So we took a boat along the Colombian side of the Amazon into Macedonia, Peru for lunch, then to a hidden lake to spend the day swimming and relaxing. On the way back we stopped at a village in Peru to check on the water filtration system installed there within the past few months. The system pumps the brown, toxic water from the Amazon and turns it into clear, clean water for the village. In Islandia, Peru the system supplies enough clean water for over 3,000 people! At the moment the system’s pump however has broke down, leaving only less than half a tank of clean water left. AX is working on getting that fixed as soon as possible, as well as trying to supply more pipe to reach down to the river. As the dry season has come, the Amazon has gone down greatly already, ‘causing there to be a need for more piping. Please pray for God’s protection on all the water filtration systems installed in Colombia, Peru and Brazil. It is extremely important to the small communities and villages that clean water continues to be readily available.

The youth purity conferences have been fantastic! The outreach team from CFNI has done such a wonderful job teaching, giving testimonies and praying for the youth of the Amazon. Our first trip was to Brazil, were we spoke to about 70 some youth. As soon as the boys and girls were divided up and everything was brought out into the open, we could see that there was allot of girls (I was with the girls) that had experienced and delt with these issues of rape, molestation and premarital sex. After translating at times from English to Spanish, to Portuguese, to Tikuna, about 4 girls came up for prayer. I asked one of the girls what she wanted prayer for, she said for her sick grandmother. When I was in Africa as the assistant youth pastor, I had experienced many times how students would come up for prayer for their families or schooling when the subject had been totally different. It was their way of coming up for prayer, but not telling you what was going on. I had always become so frustrated with this, but then soon took it as an opportunity to pray over them, bless their lives and speak life over them. Often times during prayer I would receive a word for them, or be given an understanding of what was really going on.

So I was prepared for this young woman the other day. Before I began to pray for her, I told her I would pray in English, but agreeing with her about her grandma and such. I prayed for her grandma, then went into praying over her, her heart and her life. I soon knew that there was so much hurt in this young girl and my heart ached for her. I just began speaking in tongues and God’s presence showed up. I’m not sure how long it was, but when I said amen and looked at her, there were tears streaming down her face. She’d been touched by God! I longed so much to be able to speak Portuguese so I could talk to her, but I will for sure continue praying for her. Later, through my lack of Spanish and her’s as well, we got pictures and videos, names and ages. I will be going back to live there for the month of July and hope to be able to somehow talk to her and continue to impart into her life.

The youth conference in Islandia, Peru was amazing as well! At the beginning, the church members had each brought a different dish of food for our team. They set up a table in the front of the church and served us some amazing Peruvian foods!

Soon after we showed them a video on purity, gave a teaching and had a time for questions. Several people had questions and we answered them biblically.

Finally, we passed out bibles and purity bracelets then had a call to prayer. Almost every single person in there went up for prayer. Then we had a time of rejoicing and praises! It was so amazing! Praise God!

Here’s my bible verse for this week, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” 1 Peter 1:6-7

“En lo cual os regocijais grandemente, aunque ahora, por un poco de tiempo si es necesario, seais afligidos con diversas pruebas, para que la prueba de vuestra fe, mas preciosa que el oro que perece, aunque probado por fuego, sea hallada que resulta en alabanza, gloria y honor en la revelacion de Jesucristo…” 1 San Pedro 1:6-7