Sunday, September 20, 2009

Outback of Brazil - Pelo Sinal (Part 1)

Saturday was our first day in the Outback and the first village we would be working in was Pelo Sinal. Several of our team members had been in Pelo Sinal on previous trips and had started building relationships with some of the people they had lead to the Lord on previous trips, so they were very excited about getting back to this little village. At this point, I still didn't know what I was in store for.


We ate breakfast and loaded the bus early. On the way, Pastor Carlos and our team leader, Daniel, gave us our schedule for the day and assigned our teams for the day.

We drove by bus to the end of the dirt road that lead to Pelo Sinal and there we unloaded all of our supplies and left the bus for the day.

This is a picture of my son-in-law, Chad, my daughter, Faith, and myself. I was blessed to have them on the trip with me. They have been on several mission trips before and were a great help to this "rookie"!

These were four of our amazing translators on that first day. Ruth, Katarina, Anne and Monica (L to R).

Here are my team leader, Daniel, and his wife, Jennifer . I cannot even imagine how much work went into planning and organizing a trip like this, but they did an amazing job! Everything went so smoothly!

After we got all of our supplies unloaded from the bus we all climbed onto the "Turnip Truck". It was at this point that I really started to get excited! This trip was finally a reality and I was really here in the Outback of Brazil!

After about 6 miles of very rough roads we started approaching a little village and this is a glimpse of what I saw. Children from the village came running toward our truck because they were already expecting us.
As I went to climb off the truck, I was taken aback by all the beautiful little children. It was a very emotional moment for me to see all of these precious ones.

On our way over on the bus, Pastor Carlos had mentioned to us about a home that needed to have a new roof put on it that they were hoping that we could help with, but they had not been able to come up with all of the money to buy the necessary supplies prior to our coming. The family that lived in the little house had 3 children, the youngest of which was 4 months old. On an average day this time of year, the temperature inside their house was approximately 40 degrees Celsius! That translates to over 100 degrees Farenheit!

Our first stop was for the team to take a look at the living conditions of this family. As you can see, they had a flat metal roof and the heat was just being absorbed into this house.

This is a view from the side of their house. It was made out of block and they only had one window in the entire structure.

These were the children's toys that they played with.

This was their "oven" -- whatever they place in here was cooked by the sun.

And this was their laundry area. The big 50 gallon drum was full of rain water that they captured during the rainy season.

As we were walking around and through this little house, I think all of us were very disappointed that we had not known about this need prior to our coming so that we could have raised the necessary money and had the supplies on hand to replace the roof while we were there.

We broke up into our teams for the day and I was on the team that stayed to talk to the woman that lived in this home. As Daniel and Monica began to talk to the lady, her baby started to get a little fidgety and I asked if I could hold him so I could remove that distraction and have her focus on what they were sharing with her. As you can imagine, this was right up MiMi's alley!

Daniel used the Evangecube to share the Gospel and with the help of our translator, Monica, the lady of the house prayed to receive Christ! We gave her a Portuguese Bible and a list of verses to encourage her, but she told us that she could not see. She needed glasses, but that she had been to the doctor and the glasses she needed were too expensive. Last year, a group had taken reading glasses to give out on the trip and she had tried a couple of pairs left from that trip, but none of them had worked for her. This just broke my heart that she could not see to read and I hope that there is some way we can get her some glasses so that she can read the Word of God.


We all signed the Bible that we left with her.

Here is a picture of us with our new sister in Christ! I know the angels were rejoicing in Heaven!

This was only the beginning of our exciting day in Pelo Sinal. I have lots more to share.

(To Be Continued)

7 comments:

His Doorkeeper said...

I am so excited about your trip to Brazil! It reminds me of my trips to Nicaragua! I am praying for God's blessings on all of you for doing His work there!
Be safe, enjoy your time with the lovely people of Brazil and many blessings for your time spent there! Can't wait for more updates!

JenB said...

Oh I have loved these last 2 posts!! I can't get my thoughts together to talk that detailed about it! I'm ready to go back!!!

Lianna Knight said...

Mimi...this is such a beautiful story. I can not wait to hear more!!

This definitely makes me appreciate all the wonderful things that we have...a nice home, a good job, and all the necessities I could have hope for and imagine.

I know you made a huge difference in the lives of these families.

Faith said...

You are doing a seriously good job with blogging about the trip! I'm glad you are being this detailed because I was not this trip. Love seeing these precious faces again....oh how I miss them!

petrii said...

Em,
This lady not being able to read the Word just breaks my heart. Do you know if she has been able to get glasses or even how to go about getting them to her if you even knew what she needed. This is so sad. And that house, oh my, when I saw how they baked and did laundry, I was taken aback by my own conviences and how I take them for granted.

I'm going to read day 2 now. Love you friend, Dawn

Sherry said...

This was surely a life changing trip! I remember my thoughts after returning home from my first trip to a third-world country. I realized that even the poorest in the USA have it better than most in these countries. How blessed we are. And . . how blessed you are now for having ministered to these beautiful people.

Thanks for sharing!

prashant said...

I am praying for God's blessings on all of you for doing His work there!

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