Thursday 11/4/10 8:04 am
Sleep was good…much better than the airport. I slept on a cot that I may take on the river. We took “showers”–that consisted of dumping water over our heads from a bucket outside. I feel somewhat refreshed. Gerald has been sick this morning throwing up. Lord, keep us from such sickness. I read 2 Samuel 7-10. I have understood that each of us has a work that God wants us to do. He does not want us to do what he has planned for someone else. Questions begin to plague me: What does that mean for me? Others? Lord reveal your truth to me!
I am desirous of the Lord to move. I have yet to feel the burden I once did in Mexico. It is still early and we have not been on teh river yet so I am praying and taking everything in. May the Lord do as he pleases. I know as I delight in him, he will give me the desires of my heart.
2:08 pm
We went to breakfast at a little diner. We met Jake, a missionary with the IMB. We had a good coversation. We talked about the basic need of the ministry is to get a speed boat which will cost about $15,000 to get. Jake reemphasized a lot of things Brandon has said about Iquitos. The pastors of the Baptist churches are very prideful. If you are not from their group or family of their’s then they do not want to work with you. Brandon believes there is about 60 or so Baptist churchs but none of them associate to do ministry. Jake’s emphasis is the river people. He just came back from being on a boat for 25 hours doing investigation. He found 1 village that had 5 believers. Every other village did not have one believer, not even some one who professed Christ. It appears that Jake and Brandon have a great vision to reach out to the river people but they need to be encouraged. Several times I have heard “It is impossible.” Not a word we visionary people like to use. I encouraged them to think big and put the plan together for reading the people…let God get it done. Their plan in a nutshell is to find a location where a tribe will conjugate and begin in that centralized area to teach. From that location they can train Christians to go out and reproduce themselves in their home village. Now they just need to put the plan together: Disciples making disciples.
After that we went to a home where the man’s wife and mother are very sick. The mother has stomach cancer and barely eats. The wife is very sick but would get better. We gave them money for medicines that we took them to fill. We took them to a location called Balin, which is like a big shopping area and right next to the slums. We have video/pics of the area. (I will show them at the end)
Next we went to Brandon’s because of his stomach issues. BTW–God is so good to us…Gerald is better and I have not got sick. We humng out for a while and then went back to the shopping area for me to buy some shoes. Forgot to pack tennis shoes. We had lunch at the Yellow Rose of Texas. Awesome!! Met the owner. Went to his up stair bar area where he has UT stuff everywhere. He has pics of Colt McCoy being at his restaurant while on a mission trip. Cool stuff. Now we are back at the house resting so I am going to take a nap…we are headed to the hospital later and then to church tonight.
7:45 pm
Brandon is teaching on The Mysteries of the Bible…tonight he is talking about Christ being first born…going against the teachings of the Jehovah Witnesses.
10:00 pm
Earlier in the day… I took a nap today. Then we played volleyball–boys against girls and we lost. Buyt in all fairness we had a little kid on our team who could not play. And they play everyday at about the same time. They knew how to bump, set, spike. We also took it very easy on them until the end when we won a game finally. Then we took a shower and headed to the hospital to see Billy’s sister, Elizabeth. She has been diagnosed with pancreatites (?) She is doing better today. We prayed with them and then headed to the tennis club to Skype but Amy and Charla were not available so we headed to church.
The church service was very different than I expected. They did not sing at all. We had to stand up and give a brief description of ourselves. After prayer Brandon began teaching. The people were very receptive and seemed to understand. They took notes and asked questions much like in our Wednesday night services. It was extremely hot though!! After service we headed to the cafe to Skype with our wives. Amy had a very bad day and Josh is giving her a hard time. We are now bakc at home. We leave at 10 tomorrow for the river. Good night!!
