Breakfast in a hammock

 

 

We started Peru off in Iquitos. This is a town in the middle of the Amazon! How did we get there? Well there are no roads to Iquitos only rivers to Iquitos. So your options are boat or plane. We opted to go for a 3 day upriver boat trip from Leticia Colombia. 

 

 

This boat trip was so special! We slept in hammocks had no team activities, the boat cooked for us and sailed us up stream for 3 glorious days. We had our meals served to us in our hammocks! We were told before hand that the food portions are little and taste terrible, well the source of that information clearly had not been living on a 1$ per day food budget. We were pleasantly surprised by chicken everyday.. meat people… meat… what were they complaining about? We hadn’t seen meat since the parents visit in Panama!! The source of this information also told us about how he just washed his spoon in the water provided by the boat and was horribly sick for 3 days. He said don’t shower, take enough water and truth be told, I was even afraid to look at the water at first. The first dayI did not dare to take a shower but then I realised, after a huge plate of chicken and rice that I couldn’t finish, that this guy was probably exaggerating about the water too. At this point I wasn’t too worried and jumped into the shower with all my clothes to cool off what a great decision which was repeated at least once a day after that!

 

I was actually sick on the boat with the unfriendly Chikungunya fever but made a full recovery in only 3 days! Thank you Jesus!! We watched how people from tiny villages along the river came alongside and on the boat to sell snacks etc. I think the most impressive was how people put tons and tons of fish on the boat. They made cooler boxes out of old fridges and then packed in their catch! It was a process to smash the ice and then transfer the fish, sometimes one by one. At other stops the men put 3 or 4 huge bunches of Plantains (similar to Bananas) on their shoulders and load them up. When we adventured down the the loading deck to try our hand at fishing we found a huge variety of different goods, bananas, chickens (possibly the dinners we have been having?), a pig, oranges and tons of fish! 

We really did not want to get off the boat but in hindsight because we had no idea what was waiting for us! A town with hardly any cars but thousands of motorbikes, motor taxis and buses without windows. A church who has a heart for unity in the body of Christ, who sends missionaries into the amazon villages, a church full of youth beaming with energy and dance, this church soon became our family! Someone from the church owns a hotel and blessed us with accommodation for the week! The pastor was so excited about us and what we are doing which was an encouragement that came at just the right time. I clearly remember being in a motor taxi on the first day we were there, dodging potholes, looking out over the amazon and feeling what a privilege! I think only in my wildest dreams I dreamt that I would do this and here I am for the second time! In all of this I can’t help but feel loved by God! I am only here by His grace, love and kindness.   

 

What I thought would be just a short week waiting for our flight for Lima became one of the highlights of the trip! The Church was so open, gave us opportunities to share about our journey and the awesome God we serve! It is amazing to see how Holy Spirit spoke through each person and how impacted the people were by our time there! Four of the church members are taking English classes now, keen to do Global Challenge and in the mean time encouraged to go all out with God. We saw Johannes get baptized by his best friend/ almost brother/ next door neighbour/ DAVID who first motivated him to seek Jesus in a deeper way. His brother, Andy was visiting us at that time and it could not have been more special, it was on Spring day in the Amazon river with half of the youth from the church with us, the pastor and his wife. A day to remember! We ate braaied crocodile and braaied caterpillar to top it all off! Thank you Lord for showing us more of your heart and nature to us, for working through us and being with us every step of the way.