Monday, July 16, 2007

In the jungle

Mission trips always make great stories. Unfortunately, local churches tend to go on too many cool ones for the amount of space we have. Luckily, the blogosphere has no such restrictions. So here's a particularly impressive tale from Baptist Tabernacle Church:

Nine people went to the jungles of Brazil, where a missionary sponsored by the church ministers to people in the city of Manaus and also to villages accessible only by the Amazon River. The group helped organize a church in the mid-sized city of Urucara, near Manaus and then spent two days traveling the river on the Millers houseboat bringing medicine and Bibles to people in the villages.

In each village they held a Kids' Club in the afternoon and a service for adults in the evening.
"We gave out 200 gift bags, dispensed medicine and gave out Bibles to people that have never owned a copy of God’s Word," said the Rev. Mike Landry, pastor.

They shared some pictures with me:





Children in the village of Urucara. They were starting to look through their goodie bags brought by the missionaries.





What it's all about: children look through their new Bibles. According to Landry, the people of the villages have little or no religion at all. Brazil in general is largely Roman Catholic.



The Millers' houseboat, anchored on the river near one of the villages. The Shreveport group lived there for two days sleeping on hammocks and spreading the gospel.


A man rowed his canoe out to the missionaries so he could traded oranges for a Bible. "It meant so much to him to have a copy of his very own of God’s Word."



Shreveporter Jonathan Lindsey with an anaconda. I'm trusting he had some extra prayers. I don't think the folks at Baptist Tabernacle are usually snake handlers.










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