Tabatinga, Brazil

So I wrote a long post yesterday and then the internet gave out and it got deleted. So I have to write it again =(

We got to Leticia, Colombia on Easter Sunday. It definitely didn´t feel like Easter, though. The base is awesome. I really really love it. But we only got to stay one night. We left on Monday morning for Tabatinga, Brazil. Aka we walked 20 minutes to get to the JOCUM (YWAM in Portugese) base in the next town. We spent all week working at that base. It is a large area, but small in staff. The director and his wife have two daughters (that are 12 and 15). The only other staff is a guy named Luis. They run a program all day for kids. It starts at 730 and goes till 5 with a two hour break for lunch. They help kids with their homework, and teach them more of what they need to know that the school doesn´t teach them, but with a Bible basis. So we helped them out. Two days we did drama programs and one day we did a little devo thing. It was a long week, but it was also very restful. Jess is the only one who speaks Portugese and most of the kids didn´t speak spanish, so there wasn´t a whole lot we could do. We spent a lot of time praying for the kids and just blessing them. Then on Friday night we were really blessed. For some reason (obviously a God reason), the local high school let us have twenty minutes of the kids time when they were supposed to be having a break. They didn´t care what we did with it. So we did two dramas, Wake Me Up and Everything. Then JP gave a really powerful talk. We didn´t have any time to talk with the kids afterwards because they had to go back to class. But I think it went really well. Then when we got back to the base, we were supposed to be running a discipleship program thing. They have a discipleship group for teenagers every Friday night. So we did Wake Me Up again and I gave a testimony and then we did Molding Jesus and Heidi gave a little mini-sermon thing. The kids stayed till after midnight. It was a loooooong night. Then we had a free day on Saturday. It was kind of ridiculously cool. Ru, Sjoerd, and Marleen took a five minute boat ride to Peru for the day and drank some coca cola there. Jessie and Heidi walked to Colombia to relax at the Leticia base and use the internet cafe. Jaime and JP walked to Colombia, took a boat to Peru, and took moto-taxis (my new favorite things by the way) back to Brazil. Julie and I spent the day relaxing in Brazil. I think that is so incredible. Then on Saturday night we did street evangelism. We did went out around 8, did poi to draw people in, and then did all our dramas. We had a line-up of motos watching us for a long time. Then we got to talk with them and six people accepted Christ. It was awesome! Then we had Sunday off again and Marleen, Julie, and I went to the internet cafe in Colombia and then did a little bit of tourist shopping. We also went to the YWAM base here. Everyone else went to Peru or stayed in Brazil again. On Sunday night we went to the director´s church. It was quite frustrating to listen to it all in Portugese and have no idea what was going on. Then we had some really yummy pizza with fruit on it. Speaking of food, this week was the best food I have eaten since I´ve been gone from home. It was sooooooo good!

This morning we came back to the Leticia base. We´re only here for the night though. Tomorrow morning we´re talking a six hour boat trip to some indigenous tribes in Peru. We will be there until Monday. Pray that the bugs don´t kill us, that nothing kills us while we´re bathing in the mud river, and that we see miracles happen. I have already seen God change hearts and lives and it has been amazing, but I believe He has even more in store for this outreach. Please be praying for the hearts of the people in these tribes. Thank you! I miss you all lots!

Que Dios les bendiga!
Coray