An un-fishing trip

On Monday I went with Kim, Pastor Santiago, Josue, Juan and Cristina on a fishing trip.  We went way up into the mountains to fish rainbow trout.  We were probably at an altitude of 14,000 feet.  Unfortunately, we didn't catch a thing, but the scenery and weather were excellent.  It was such a fun time.

Another prespective

Here's my cousin's perspective of the trip to the jungle: http://pressing-towards-the-goal.blogspot.com/2009/06/jungle-epistle.html

A mission trip to the jungle

For the last few months I've been working with a team of 5 youth from the Paz de Dios church to create a video in the Shuar and Quichua languages.  This past week, we had the opportunity to go down to the jungle to show the video for the first time, and deliver it to the missionary pilot (Rick LaBouef) who will be using it long term in his ministry.  Kim also came along.

We left by bus as a group from Cuenca last Wed. at 12:00 midnight.  We rode all night and arrived in Shell at about 9:00 Thur. morning.  That day we reviewed the 35 minute movie with some Shuar and Quichua brothers and spend the night with a couple missionary families.  All Thur. it rained and would have been impossible to fly into the jungle if we would have wanted to.  That evening we prayed that the Lord would open the clouds for the following day.  What joy there was in the morning to see the clouds breaking and the sun peaking through. 

From Shell we took a 2.5 hr bus ride further out into the jungle to a town named Arajuno.  We arrived at about 11:30am, and brother Rick was planning to pick us up with the plane at noon.  While we waited, I got talking with a man and he expressed a sincere interest in the movie.  It turns out he works for the government and is the director of children affairs (or something like that) for the area.  He was thrilled to receive a copy of the video and plans to show it in the area.  The video is of many different animal and nature scenes with a narration of Scripture and a salvation message at the end.

Finally at around 5:30 brother Rick arrived with the plane.  He had alternator troubles with plane and was unable to turn off the engine.  He dropped us off at a Quicha village about 5 min. (by air) from Arajuno and flew back to Shell to fix the aircraft.  The village is named Liquino and is on the Curaray river.  This is the same river where the missionaries were martyred in the 50s, only we were upstream from that location and with a different tribe.

Friday evening we showed the movie.  About 25 people came to see the movie.  Most of them were children.  That evening, they let us sleep in the local "community center".  It was a large wood building with a hard cement floor.  On waking up the following morning, it was drizzling.  After a time of prayer for the weather and breakfast, we decided to have a time with the children again.  It felt very isolated not being able to call out and find out when/if the plane was coming to pick us up.  We started with a game of soccer, and then had a time of singing and sharing with the children.

After the time of sharing the gospel, we asked the children if they could take us down to the river.  They took us for a 15 min walk on beautiful (muddy) jungle paths.  The flowers and plants were just gorgeous if you didn't mind the mud.  Thankfully, we were all in boots.  After that we arrived at a beautiful sandy beach. There we played in the sand with the kids and some of us jumped off an overhanging tree into the river.

At around noon the weather cleared up and the plane arrived.  We were very thankful to see it.  We were all fairied back to Shell and caught the return bus to Cuenca at 5:00pm.  We arrived home in Cuenca at 3:00am Sunday morning.  Just in time to get a few hours of sleep and get to church.

I was blessed in may ways by the trip.  It was such a blessing to work together with these godly youth.  My prayer is that the Lord would continue grow their vision for missions.  The Lord is faithful, and in spite of apparent problems and difficulties, He helped in each.  All glory to His name!  Ps 36:5  Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens, and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.  Overall, it was an excellent trip!

In the jungle

We had such full and wonderful few days in the jungle, it's hard to know where to begin... I guess I'll start with some pictures....

A trip looking for caves

Yesterday I went with Kim and Cristina (one of the homeschool girls) to look for caves near Nabon.  We found the cave, and walked for almost 5 hours in the blazing sun.  It was a fun trip and the scenery was breathtaking.  We lived in Nabon for 3 years when I was young, so while we were there, I was also able to connect with some old neighbor friends.

Off to the jungle

This Wed. I leave with a group of youth from the church to go down to the jungle.  Just to get there we will be traveling over 10 hours in bus, not to count the flight in by plane.  Please pray that the Lord would give safety and direct our way.  Also please pray that we would be bold in our witness and for open hearts of the people.  Lord willing we plan to return late on Saturday.  I'll post more details on our return.

Missions Festival at Paz de Dios

Last Saturday the Paz de Dios church celebrated a missions festival. It began with a praise service and a time of testimonies at 10:30am. After that there were relay races, and "extreme sports". Each of the different activities was organized by one of the church cell groups. The cell group I help lead was in charge of the extreme sports. We had a rope climbing contest, target practice with an air gun, and an bicycle obstacle course. For lunch, there was typical food including "mote", roast pork, chicken, etc. After lunch we had typical games like marbles, gunny sack races, egg races and hoop races. The last game was to climb up a greased poll to claim the prizes on top.

It was a wonderful time of fellowship and fun. It was so neat to see everyone, including the adults get involved in the games. There were lawyers, doctors, teachers, judges, grandmas, engineers and stay at home moms all competing against each other in sack races etc. One of the highlights was the race just for the pregnant moms. They were all great sports!

To finish off the celebration, we watched "The End of the Spear" together. Please pray each in the congregation would catch the vision for missions, hear the Lord's call as to where and how they can be involved.