So far May has been a busy month for us. We got home last week from traveling on the Arapiuns River with a group of students from Florida State University. This trip was a different experience for all of us. The river system is higher right now that it has been in the past 40 years. Everything looks different. We saw many houses that had water up to the roof. The really bad thing about this is people are still living in some those houses. Of course I (Jan) had a lot of questions about how they could live like that, expecially if there are children in the family. When I would ask those types of questions people would just look at me like "stupid" they don't have anywhere else to go so what are they suppose to do??? My thought was, at the time, how can they live there with fish, alligators and snakes and survive? However, I didn't ask that question because I didn't want to offend anyone else by asking questions. I still wonder how those people can survive a lifestyle like that, however, I do not want to experience it to find out.
Even with the water high and many problems on the river right now, our trip was wonderful. The "youth" of the Florida State students brought out the best in everyone participating in the ministry. Even Scotty and I felt younger!!! For us that is a miracle!! Personally, I always enjoy the children who live on the river. Their behavior is much different than the city children. Once they open up they are friends for life and express their love in many ways. Of course the children won the hearts of the group and in all their youthfulness and love there was a lot of laughing and playing as well as serious time in teaching. Each night the children sang special songs they had learned during Bible School for the congregation. It was wonderful to watch them with their smiles as they sang loud for the Lord.
In each village life was more difficult now than other times during the year. Many people did not have food. I think the fish are very deep and fishing is not good right now. The forest is flooded in many places and very wet in other places. Food is difficult to obtain in the natural habitat. We knew this before we left on this trip. We prayed the Lord would give us money to buy extra food to take with us. We received money from a church in Indiana that provided the extra food. We took rice, beans and macaroni to leave with each church leader for their congregation. While we were there we fixed large pots of soup and served them to the chldren and people of the village. The last village we visited had more population than the other. We served soup on our first night of services in that village. It was ready to serve and waiting on the boat until after the service. When Bel, our cook, got to church and saw how many people were there she came to me and told me she was going back to the boat to fix more soup. By the end of the service we had another large pan of soup and everyone who wanted it had 2 bowls of soup before they went home for the night. It was very evident that people were hungry in each village. We pray for those people now to have enough food to get them through the rest of this rainy season. We plan to send more food back to them at the end of the month.
We thank God for the provisions He has given to us and the Florida State Students to be able to serve together on the Arapiuns River. It was a wonderful experience to be with these beautiful young people. It was very evident that the Lord is working in their lives. We appreciate all the encouragement they gave us while they were here. We have come to realize there are young people who God is raising up to do His work in the future. We thank Him for this encouragement in our lives as we look to the future of this ministry and pray for young people to come here and work with us for the Lord.
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