Adventures in the Amazon

We had a month of walking through warm deserts, climbing high mountains and adventures through the Amazon!

We made a little video at the end of the mountain journey, about what we are thankful for. Looking back now we were laughing about it, but really, we should be thankful for so many things, like the following:

 A bed to sleep on, that is not inhabited by bed bugs,
 a shower that hangs above your head instead of a bucket,
 a toilet that can actually flush,
 a room where less than 7 people sleep at once
 A plate of food where the meat is more than the rice (Peru loves their mountains of rice)
 Not having to walk 2 and a half hour down a mountain to get to church
 Having water that is clean enough to drink from a tap
 Coffee that actually tastes like coffee and has caffeine in it
 Preaching and listening to sermons that is in a language you can understand
 Being between people that actually know Africans can be white, or that there exists people with blonde hair
 Knowing that Jesus gives you the freedom that most of the wanderers traveling to the Amazon is searching for.

I will never be able to stop saying how amazing our God is!!! As our plane lowered over the rivers of the Amazon, excitement grew in our hearts as I realised that this was the dream I had from childhood, and it was becoming a reality! We arrived in Iquitos with no plan at all, but in our hearts were the promise of God that we should be here. After taking a Moto (Motorcycle-car that looks like a Model A Ford) we ended up in a park, and we sat there, worshiping and waiting on God for about an hour.

A man arrived, asking us what we were doing. When we told him we were missionaries, he immediately fetched the pastor of his church. The pastor invited us to his church and said we can stay there. Obviously, after having some of the smallest and strangest bedrooms in Peru, we were excited to sleep on church seats. But God wants the best for his kids. Half an hour later we were seated in a house, and we received a delicious home cooked meal. Afterwards, we were taken to the missions house, where we received a few rooms to sleep in. We had beds to sleep on! And showers in our rooms! The pastor told us that we will be eating at his house for as long as we are in Iquitos. It was like they were expecting us, but then again, God is the best tour guide in this world!

Our team split in two as 5 of our members climbed on a cargo boat heading for Benjamin Constant, and we were left in Iquitos to see what God has planned for us. We joined the church as they prayed for flood victims, and we had a chance to do dramas in the Boulevard and at the schools in the area. We are so thankful that God provided skilled translators for us too, so our messages could get through to the people. It is amazing to see how the youth  of the church is on fire for Jesus, and how quickly their fire spreads through the town!
The words “mi casa, tu casa” (My house, your house) got new meaning as the people literally made us part of their family. We were invited to 3 birthday parties and a wedding in our week in Iquitos. I’ve never seen kindness like this in my life, and these people have so little and they give so freely. I fell in love with the family who cared for us, God’s love is so powerful in their lives.

We met another organization that does missions in the Amazon, and after receiving a donation for food, we made food bags and took them to the flood victims. The Amazon River rose about 10 feet, and is still rising, and there are thousands of people that are left homeless.

On one of the last days of our Iquitos journey, I walked down the rugged streets of Iquitos and a man walking on the other side of the road caught my eye. He watched me, and then suddenly he fell to the ground, holding his heart. I ran to him, and having no medical knowledge, I did the only thing I could – pray. It looked like he was hyperventilating, and I really thought he had died when he suddenly calmed down, and his breathing slowly returned to normal. A doctor arrived on scene and placed him in a Moto and drove off. I am not exactly sure what happened there, but this I know for sure - God gave him new life. He gave him another chance. Our lives are so fragile, we are just dust that can easily be blown away... and we can only be one of two sides of the road- the side of life, or the side of death. Your choice.