Lightbulbs

Oh, Brazil. What a great country you are.

10 days ago we set off on what seems like a faith journey. Let me paint a picture for you...The last two weeks in Kona were fill with last minute prep and also one of our bigger decisions: how to a city that was 800 miles across the Amazon from where we were flying into. It was crunch time. Either we were going to take a 5-day boat or a 2-hour plane flight for around the same price. We started praying about I which one God wanted us to take. Our circumstances pointed toward the boat. We had no contacts in Manaus to house us or help us get supplies for the boat. We were traveling with extra luggage of things to take to Belem. It would have been way easier to just fly to Belem. The idea of being responsible for 9 students going into a foreign country knowing no one in the city scared me a little. Not to mention we couldn't even buy boat tickets until we were physically at the port.

One night God dropped gave this scripture to Ryan as he was praying about it:

"Who among you fears The Lord and obeys his servant?

If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of lights, trust in The Lord and rely on your God.

But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires.

This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon fall down in great distress."

Isaiah 50:10-11

At the beginning of planning this trip we had always planned to take a boat to Manaus. Was our circumstances looked worse and worse, we start to doubt. I started to lower into changing plans that weren't in cement because it would have been easier. I was lighting my path with my own fire. I was living in my own warmth.

As I prayed about boat vs plane, The Lord told me that it as our decision to make. But that didn't mean to just choose one, it meant also that he would make everything work out for the boat as well. That I didn't have to worry about what would happen but to live in the moment without thinking of bad scenarios. He was calling me to live by faith. He knew that by worldly standards taking this riverboats trip was walking in the dark, but he was asking us to have faith because He can see more than we can.

I came to this point of where I just had to let it all go and step into faith. It was hard because I see a lot of things logistically and it didn't make sense. But I know Gods ways are so much greater than my own plans. That has definitely been a theme this year.

We decided to stick with taking the boat. We trusted that God would provide contacts in Manaus. The next morning we got an email back from a lady who said she could house all of us...but our team would be split into 5 different houses. Again, walking in the dark because i had no idea how we would also get together and get supplies and everything in the 30 hours we had in Manaus before the boat rise. So that was basically all we knew when arriving in Manaus...at 10:30 at night. We didn't get out of customs until about 11:30 and there were people waiting for us. The lady, Mel, and about 6 young adults who were more than happy to greet us to Brazil. Immediately we split up with the people's taking us to the different houses and said goodbye to the rest of the the team until the next morning.

We were blessed with amazing host homes that made us feel so welcome. We’ve learned that the Brazilians love feeding us…especially late at night. The next morning we all met up at the church that they all go to and 3 of our new friends took us around for the whole day to help us get supplies we needed and buy boat tickets. I don’t know what we would have done without them translating!

One of the best things was that Mel took us to go see the boat we would be on. It was the biggest one. Four stories, multiple decks, smooth riding. There were just crew on the boat when we went there. It was funny because they were just looking at us like what are these 11 Americans doing here. But they let us go walk around. We happened to run into the captain of the boat and he turned out to be American! A big African-American guy named Douglas from Savannah, Georgia. He was the first American captain on the Amazon river and had lived in Brazil for over 25 years. He was so happy to meet us because he never gets to speak English with anyone. And he loves us! Just another thing of God being faithful...more to come about Douglas.

The Amazon river!

The next day was the boat. We were all at different houses with all our luggage and needed to be at the port at 8am. Now, this city is big and 3 houses didn't have rides. So the night before we gave everyone money for a taxi and hoped we would all meet up there in the morning. Haha. Oh boy...taking taxis in foreign countries is a hoot. I'm glad everyone showed up!

Every time we would tell one of the Brazilians that we were taking a boat from Manaus to Belem, they thought we were crazy. No one really does that. It's very…local.

The boat (okay…ship?) trip was incredible. So hot and humid, but we started getting used to it. We got there early and set up our hammocks. We also decided to get an air-conditioned room to put all our luggage and that definitely came in handy. It’s hard to explain those 5 days.

Chilling in our AC/Luggage room

I fell in love with the culture. Everyone is so friendly and upbeat and loves to have fun. Loud. Colorful. However, with that comes people playing a mix of American and Brazilians music on their cell-phones that are louder than normal speakers while you are trying to sleep. It’s all part of the adventure.

Everytime I looked out the window I would be amazed at the fact that I was on the Amazon river and looking out to the banks of the rainforest. Some places the river would be super wide and sometimes the rainforest was so close to us. The boat stopped at ports about twice a day and we were able to see little towns (not villages) of people living on the river. Sometimes people would come up to the boat and sell food to the passengers and we would get to try some cool things. Buildings were always painted bright colors that stood out from the greenery everywhere.

During the 5 days, almost everyone from our team was stomach sick at some point. Our AC luggage room turned into the sick people’s room so that people could lay on beds out of the humidity. I think it was a mix of the food, sea sickness, and physical culture shock. One of the days both Ryan and I, the 2 leaders, were the ones who were sick and slept all day, haha. But we all took care of each other and our joy remained the same, at least for me. Yeah, we didn’t feel good sometimes, but I was still so in awe of the nature around me and this great experience!

Watching sunset off the top deck

And the great thing was the relationship we built with Captain Douglas. We always hung out with him and heard him talk about his life and family. He loved having us there. When we ran out of water he would arrange for his crew to pick up clean, filtered water for us at the ports. Some of us got to even drive the ship! And on the last day, a few people from our team got to tell him about Jesus and pray for him. He wants to meet up in Belem now because he lives here and have us meet his kids. Something God is definitely moving in.

At the end of the trip I started asking God why He wanted us to take the boat. Nothing super crazy happened, the language barrier was hard, and we got sick.

The more I thought about it, the more He started to show me how much this trip stretched our team. We were thrown into a culture we never had been in and forced to adapt quickly. In Kona we were so unified with each other that this was the big test. Among struggles, we had to choose joy when it didn’t come easy.

Hammocks we slept in

I started to learn that God sometimes calls us to do things just grow our character and deepen our personal relationship with him. He used this trip to bond our team from the beginning. We were fully immersed into the culture and got the hang of it that by the time we jumped into ministry in Belem, we were ready to give it our all. In Kona I had thought that God wanted us to take the boat because there were going to be a crazy amount of salvations or healings…that’s the only reason I could think of. It never crossed my mind to let God do whatever He wanted to. If that meant stretching us individually, then that’s okay! I laid down my expectations and let God move however He wanted to.

River kids that climbed onto our boat! We gave them gum and cookies.