I guess it has been a while!! Much water has passed down the Amazon since I wrote in this blog last!!

Aug 15

Thursday Fransesca, 4 girls, her mom and nephew, sister and husband and 2 boys were here for lunch and stayed for 2 more hours, but they showed us how to get the coconuts down from the trees. She asked me, do you know how to climb them?? No, of course!! So she called over her nephew to climb it, he bot a few feet up and lost his hold, so had to shinny down. so we got a ladder, which got him up most of the way and he shinnied up the rest of the way to the coconuts. Now remember this is about 20 ft up!! And he is often hanging there just by his hands, depending on what he decides to hang on to at the time. He somehow yanks down on 2 of them and then he pulls it off the rest of the way and they fall, without him joining them YIKES!!!! And we all have to stay back, as it hurts to have a coconut land on you!! So he finally shinned down to the ladder and he seemed relieved to have the ladder under his feet and not have to hang on any more with his hands!
Yesterday we had Wiley and Georgie and 3 kids, new missionaries here, his parents from Texas and her mother from Guatemala for lunch. so we got lots of Texas accent for a while! The dad explained to Matt how to jump from a horse to a bull!! HA! Hope he never really needs to know that info!

End of August, Franklin and Ruth came back to help and Ruben Oscar from Argentina as well as Lety Gonzalez from Mexico. Ruben has been a wonderful help with the kids and meetings also. This was a very busy time for us, visiting a lot of villages, having visits with kids in neighbourhoods with picture and verse to color. The river was down, so we had to go out on makeshift bridges over the muck to get to the boats, which Lety did NOT like, to say the least!!

Sept 27 & 28 we had a conference here, and Dean Rule, Christina Ashwill, Febe from Mexico, Dan and Gerry Leining came. Mostly I remember lots of kids, kids, kids, and some parents and grandparents to some of the mtgs. It was a wonderful time, and we also did some river trips and trips to Santa Rosa.

sept 20

When we went to Santa Rosa and we were coming back, Matt stepped on a snake as we were walking up from the river and as he realized it, he started to jump/run away from it as fast as he could. He and us looked and it immediately had coiled itself up ready to strike and shaking its tail. We all stayed away and it saw too many people so it lunged for the grass. It was a little scary!! it was a skinny snake, maybe about 4 ft long. This was right along a well-worn path near where kids play, so we were very thankful no one was bitten.

Today is election day here, it is mandatory to vote here so there should be tons of people in town here. Hope it is safe. One of the men trying for governor of the state lives down the lane here, so lots of people and police escort coming and going lately. One day the police came to see who sold the ice cream in the neighbourhood! Funny to see them doing their duty with ice cream in hand! A neighbour lady makes ice cream from scratch, mmmmmm!!

Oct 5 to Nov 5, Martha, Bethany and Matt went up to Hamer Bay and had a good time getting to their conference, also Detroit (and cheap shopping, all the summer clothes were on clearance, which we needed really badly!) and Whitakers, St Thomas YP weekend. Dave and Jenn visited in Hamer Bay when we were there too. It was great to see everyone again.

Nov 26. Had Thanksgiving dinner with several other missionaries and it went very well. There was another missionary lady there who lives in Benjamin Constant, a large town downriver about 1 hour away, and has been there for 8 years, that we have never met. she was interesting to talk to. She was telling one of us about a man who had come to them and wanted to know what to do now that he was saved. People in his village from far away didn't have a pastor but they wanted to meet and have meetings. So he was asking , what do we do? So she told him, well maybe you will sing a few songs,.... then what? Maybe someone can pray.... then what? Maybe someone can read a chapter from the Bible....then what? maybe sing another song....then what? And then someone can close the meeting with a prayer. So simple!! Willing hearts!

Dec 7 Had a baptism for Fransesca this week. She was very happy!! And so were we!

Emily came down for 3 weeks at Christmas time. We had a great time with her, and she and Bethany did some climbing up ropes (with harness), across a zip-line, int he jungle. They loved it!! That place also has a serpenteria, so we toured that, experienced an Amazon drencher, IN the jungle this time, and saw how wet and muddy it can be! Other fun stuff was swimming in the rain at the pool for 3 hours, and still coming home with a sunburn!!! is that strange or what?!?!

Also Christina Ashwill came for another week then. While she was here, we did a lot of passing out of calendars, in town and villages. We took a river trip too and were able to hold an young ocelot and sloth at Puerta Alegria!!

Christina managed to have a ticket for a nonexistent flight from Leticia to Bogota, so the airport was empty when we arrived at 11pm, but she had a paper ticket to prove there was to be a plane, and thankfully they paid her way for all the rest of the flights she had missed and got home the next day. You never know what will happen down here!! ;) The strange thing was that when they had to change Emily's ticket, the company called and called and called, but this time they did not call us at all!

Jan 6 Our family moved across the street into a smaller house, also no bats, rats, possums, bees, termites (or not quite the enormous problem as in the wooden house). We are finding frogs in our bathroom occasionally thought! The house in town for visitors, the meeting room and English lessons is still there, but plan to move to another cheaper place soon also.

Durley went to Bogota again, hoping to have surgery soon, as she was in constant pain and getting fluid in her lungs from the moisture in the lower appt they live in, so didn't want to risk getting pneumonia again.

Feb 1 Franklin and Ruth Rivera went back to Lima, back to school and work. The neighbourhood kids really miss them!!

Then Feb 7 Nathan Sutherland arrived to stay for about 1 1/2 months and started to help working on the hanger down by the river. His Spanish is fairly good, so he can communicate well enough. Then Paul and Esther Sutherland arrived on Feb 10th and plan to stay for 4 months. They have had to quickly learn some basic Spanish.

Jairo and Fransesca have been wanting us to go up to the village where he grew up and some relatives are. He was raised by his Uncles and Aunt as both of his parents have died. It is 3 hours up a tributary.

Feb 26

I have to go shopping for a can opener for the other house. They are wanting something better than a knife. It is hard to get tuna out of the can that way I guess. I have already looked for one in Leticia, but not extensively. I will try Tabatinga today. Such is life!.....So I'm back now, after going to numerous stores and small tiendas in Tabi, (and finding a couple handmade slingshots for Matt which were not on my list!), and finally found a can opener at a hardware store in Leticia. argh!!

The last 2 Saturdays we went to village up river. The first Saturday Jairo and Fransesca and 4 girls went with us to the village he grew up in. The kids there are taught ticuna in school, so they couldn't understand us too well, but we had pictures to color and verse in Spanish and some could read it. Parents can probably read some of it. But the Ticuna calendars went over really well! We visited Jairo's aunt and uncles and one asked for a bible whoch we gave him. Something interest there, there was a man sitting outside his house, and there was a small solar panel on the ground and obvious speakers at the top of the pole above. We talked to him about it. Then we decided to use this fine speaker system and have him announce to the village that we were coloring with the kids at the school further on. So he gets on and talks on in ticuna for a long time and we realize he has announced it and is reading off all the verses on the calendar to everyone too!! too funny!

Further on we watched some guys putting tar in the cracks in their wooden boat (Nathan Sutherland has a picture of it on his facebook) I think they have to do that 1-2 times a year. Interesting.

And I saw a real bathtub here for the first time on this trip! Do you believe it!! It was out in the front yard at a ticuna village and it looked like it had plants or weeds growing in it. we were on the river at the time so couldn't see exactly!

The next Saturday we went back to the same village and asked if anyone wanted to go with us to the next village, Bella Vista, 1 1/2 hours up the tributary, as Jairo and Fransesca weren't with us and the boatman didn't seem to know this part of the river very well. So 2 young men came with us, one of them the one who had been fixing the boat last week and he had also burned his finger from the hot tar. So we got to the village and it was a VERY big village, maybe 1500 people, but we ran out of time though we wanted to stay longer and pass out the rest of the calendars, as we had to get back before dark. Most spoke ticuna, but some knew spanish. Calendars and pictures to color were handed out and I met a bright Christian lady reading her Bible in her hammock and had a nice visit with her. We were on the river a total of about 10 hours coming and going. We plan to get faster boats next time!!! We were using a slower boat, but it is cheaper than the fast boats. We were tired!!

Paul and Nathan and Ruben are helping work on the hanger and it is almost finished. Then will hope the river will come up to it to float it out...

Paul and Esther are learning basic spanish but Nathan is fairly good. Bethany and Matt translate in mtg for them. Paul and Esther have adjusted well, as they know all the inconveniences 3rd world countries have, or rather don't have, but they said it is easier to adjust back to conveniences rather than the reverse, so I think the "bucket showers" they had to have the first week when we didn't have any water except what was in the cistern from the rain, was a slight rude awakening to reality here!! But now we have water again and enjoying it fully!! The city was working on the pipes for that week. The first week, I had them over for lunches til they adjusted and now we have them once or more a week, so now Esther is cooking over a stovetop and doing well.

Feb 27 We took another trip up the same river to another village, Paradise. It really wasn't quite that!! But we did some coloring and verse with the children there. They liked to receive the ticuna calendars that we had recently gotten from Dean Rule. School there is in Ticuna and Spanish. Dan Kaiser was with us then and was here for a week.

One night our neighbor came home, no outside light on and there was a venomous snake at her door and was trying to go into her house. She called for help and someone came and killed it. All the neighbors came to look at it. A little scary!!!

This same neighbor lady has a parrot, who keeps up a continuous conversation with itself and anyone else that wants to listen. She laughs, says Buenas! and lots of neighbor kids' names as well as adults (so we know who gets called the most around here!!), a bunch of other bird calls, etc! Sometimes it can get annoying when you have heard it call a certain boys' name over and over thought!

For Matthew's birthday, Nathan and him climbed the ropes and went on the zip line in the jungle also. They had a great time! we also went on the serpent tour and there was a man there that was a herpetologist and offered to take us through. He grew up in NY so had good English. Anyway, he works with snakes, and mostly with the venomous ones, and their antidote. We learned a lot about what to do if you get a snake bite, etc. A snake bite and the "venom", is actually just its saliva, which is very, very strong, and starts breaking down your flesh, just like saliva would do. So it starts eating away at your flesh. How long it takes you to get the anti venom, is how much flesh you lose so the faster you get to the hospital, the better. It is takes 2 hours, you might lose some flesh, but if it takes 8 hours, you might lose a finger, hand or more, die in 2 days, of course depending on how strong of venom the snake has. Each snake has its own anti venom, so you have to describe the habitat where you saw it, what it looked like, etc, to help them at the hospital know which anti venom to use. Some kinds they combine several together, I think it was vipers maybe, and so one shot works for all of them. In Leticia they get 500 snake bites/year, so about 1-2/day!! I asked him if the locals have their own remedies, and he said, yes, narcotics so you feel better, but they usually lose flesh or a toe or finger. That is the equivalent of doing nothing he said. 80% of bites are from one particular snake.

After this excursion, we had a surprise party with everyone at the house. A few days later we had a party for home with the neighbor kids at our house. They had an "American" birthday party. We had organized games and opened presents, both of which they don't do here!! (Here, you bring the present, sit around and converse, they bring out either pop, candy, chips, cheese blocks, pop, chips, more hor'dourves every 15 minutes, the b'day cake, and then go home after 2+ hours of this. Then they open your present after everyone has left!) WE weren't sure whether to open presents or not, or if it was rude or what. Matt had told one of the kids that in the U.S. we open presents at the parties, so when they came, they asked him to open his presents right away when they gave it to him!! So that was solved, thankfully. So Matt had them throw water balloons at him in a hole in a plastic screen/doorway, and if they missed, he could throw it at them. It was hilarious to watch them run for their lives when they missed! Then they bobbed for pomarosas (sort of like an apple), and played Red Rover, then had hot dogs, cake and ice cream (the ice cream being a new concept for a b'day party too here!) One of the mom said she came just to see a gringo party! We did accommodate them and offered ketchup and mayonnaise instead of ketchup, mustard and relish for their hot dogs. i say yuck, but Matt likes it that way now!

March 19

We were happy to hear from Durley that her surgery went well and that the pathology report of the tumor showed that it was not malignant cancer, so she is VERY excited and happy!! As well as us!! She has no pain and feeling much better. So we are thanking the Lord!

March 31 This morning I was wakened by a cat fight in the backyard and OUR cat was the victorious one!! woohoo!! I watched from the window and the other cat was trying to get over the wall asap and staying away from our cat, who was growling at her. She eventually jumped up and over from the gazebo wall. Now we know she can hold her own! ha! Sorry I can't refer to our cat with a name, as she yet has no name, or more accurately, has many names, all of which I can't remember, and none of which have been decided on or stuck, and we've had her 3 months already!!

Apr 2 wow what is that?? A very large lizard in our fenced yard, as big or bigger than the cat, who thinks she can take it on and is racing back and forth across the yard after it!! Crazy! It is holed up in a pile of rocks right now, and not sure how to get back out. There is a hole it could get out if the cat wasn't after it so much and it could find the hole again. We are not sure if it jumped in or came int that hole.

Apr 3 I liked this story: The politics professor stated at the beginning of his course, "There is no such thing as an absolute truth." One of his students replied, "Does that include that statement?" In a world filled with philosophies each claiming to be the truth, Jesus proclaimed He was the only way, the only truth and the only life. Do you want peace with God? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. John 14:6

Apr 5 No sign of the lizard, which Fransesca said was an iguana that eats small chickens. Don't think it will come back.

Apr 17
This past week has been busy and stressful sort of. Bob Thonney came last friday til Tues. Friday night was Reading mtg. That night, we were robbed in the middle of the night while we slept. Paul got up at 2:30 and noticed the doors propped open with his shoe. He drove into town to get the police. They came and then some undercover detectives. They got our monitor, laptop, camera, cell phone, about $40 of Matt's. They took Matt's bike but we found it the next day in a house a few doors down that is being built.

Then Saturday we took about 100 eggs, roll and bananas down to the neighborhood where they are building the hanger and passed out breakfast. Bob read a few verses while they, mostly kids, ate and passed out bookmarkers and tracts. Paul had an appt with the police that morning, mostly to fill out paperwork. They have a local radio station and they announce stuff like that on it. That afternoon they went to Santa Rosa for a meeting at Jairo and Fransisca's house. That night there was a meeting and quite a few kids and adults came, partly also for Ruben's birthday afterwards. A man from the river came that we had met a few weeks ago and has a burden to reach a tribe that the Brazilian government has forced to stay "native", but the people themselves want to have missionaries, doctors, teachers, medicines there. So we gave him an MP3 player that has the NT, and Bible stories on it in Portuguese, that has a small solar panel on it to run. The man was VERY happy to have it and wants to get it to the people there, as they can't read their language or Portuguese, but some understand Portug. and could translate.
Sunday had a good SS with Bob talking to the kids. Afternoon spent catching up at the internet, then gospel and home again to find our house was robbed again. This time they were looking for money, and found some in my purse, but US and Canadian money and a cell phone. There have been a few other things missing but might just be misplaced, so will see if they turn up or not. It looked like they were spooked and ran off in a hurry, so they didn't get much. So more police and detectives, again. And Monday was spent going to the police again and in the afternoon too. So we didn't get on a river trip as was planned.
Tues they went to Santa Rosa again to visit and then Bob left that afternoon.

So now we have our outside lights on all night long. And we haven't had any more trouble, thankfully.

But Friday, the neighbours had a visit from the thieves also, so now the neighbours are talking about getting a guard, and other sercurity measures.

We are thankful for the Lord keeping us safe.
Love in our Lord,
Paul and Martha, Bethany and Matthew