A House on the River

This is the house of one of the new children in our sponsorship program in the Amazon.  Actually, it is a better house than most.  It is the home of the pastor and his family for this village. The ministry in the Amazon is very much like our work in other countries.  The people are poor.  We want to disciple and educate children from believers' families to be the next leaders for the community.  We want to support and encourage and enable the evangelism already in progress in the villages.  Let the church in America and her resources stand beside these dear believers as they labor in the Amazon.

Children of the Amazon

Boats are a way of life on the  Amazon.  Children paddle their way to school and home again. One school we visited was three classrooms, the only building in the area that was still above water and it only barely so.   Flooding this year was higher than in  many previous years.  We have taken some children of pastors into our program  for sponsorship. We hope to  help and encourage them in  their ministry work.

Amazing Amazon

  In the last week of  May 2015, I  spent a part of my life on board this boat.  We  zipped along  waterways, like roads, in the Amazon  River, braving  hot sun, sudden  torrential rains, fellow boaters and river creatures.  The driver, that is the man handling the motor at the back, used a GPS device to navigate  canals that looked identical to me. Unlike  American waters, there were no recreational boaters here.  Everyone was going somewhere, usually with boat loaded down as ours was--with supplies, livestock and children.  I noticed that dogs seemed to enjoy the experience more than other animals.  The best part was the beautiful scenery and of course the ministry among the villages. The worst part was sitting with no back rest for hours.  I suffered  from my lack of  Spanish fluency, except when we stopped in a village.  The indigenous people did not speak Spanish which put us all on a level field.  Life in the village was like villages in many places where we work.  Homes were simple shelters,  Food was home grown-- plentiful in harvest and perhaps scarce at other times.  Fishing is important. Many of these villages have a church building and a body of believers planted by the missionary who was hosting me.

The Earthquake House in Nepal

  An earthquake house is one that will not kill you if it falls. We are building one of these for the Action Love Children's Home.  It is basically structured from bamboo and sheet metal.  Rainy season is rushing towards us and this  should be a good shelter from the rain.  Even more than that, it will be a place to call home and a place where the children can sleep without fear.

Beginning in the Amazon

The  Amazon-- with everything  going on in our ministry right now, it  might  not seem to be the time to expand to a new ministry area.  Yet, plans for  a survey trip  to  South  America have been in the works for over a year. This is not the first time that conflicts, distractions and even overwhelming events have come just at the time when we were about to open a new ministry project.  Please pray for the people-- especially the children-- of the  Amazon and whether it is time  for Allow to begin work among them. Next week, 27 May, I will be flying out to visit two ministry areas with the intention of establishing relationships and possible ministry partnership for sponsorship of children and possibly pastor training.

Church Planting in Bangladesh

We had a special blessing a few days ago, when we received the photos of this church dedication in the mountains of  Bangladesh.  It is hard to describe the significance of this.  The church is made of of mostly newly baptized (older) kids in our children's Home and it is built on the land purchased for the home.  It is a light in a very, very dark place.  It is a place so far up, that though Bangladesh is said to be 98% Muslim, the Muslims  do not have a foothold here YET. These are tribal people who probably never hear the  Name of Jesus, either. Our children are learning.  They are getting an education and also a good foundation in  God's  Word.  Our girls are already past an educational level that few women have obtained in this place. When we launch these kids they will be leaders among their people. Leaders prepared to reach others as no American ever could-- even more than a city Bangla missionary could do.  They are tribal people. Some of them will fall away, just as happens in our US churches.  But SOME of them, will be strong, growing believers and they will BE this church.  They already ARE the church.  Praise the Lord.  Now another special blessing.  This church building is not completed. It still needs the tin for the roof, a toilet, and some other construction things. It also needs overhead fans, musical instruments,....   A pledge came today from a donor who will provide  EVERYTHING still needed for this church.  He will also fund the dorm building needed  to separate boys and girls and enable us to increase the number of kids  in the home.  This is a huge WOW. 

Church planting in Burundi

Please keep a careful watch on the news from  Burundi.  Their elections are scheduled late in June. A recent government takeover was stopped, preventing what our missionary contact felt sure would be the beginning of another long, bloody war.  He tells us that he and his family  can hear gunshots at night, but they are  still able to move about town. He has two tiny little girls and his wife is expecting another baby in the same week as the elections.  I think that none of us would blame him if he got his family out of there, but he soldiers on-- doing the work he was called to do, and the Lord is blessing it. Read the words directly from him as he reports to us about the building of church building that we have funded there:

As far as the church plant on the property, that is having to be delayed a little bit, one factor is the political situation (in the current political climate it would be difficult to take large teams up from the city to help with the initial evangelism efforts etc...),  The other factor is that the nearby village church that will be helping with the plant is in the middle of its own construction (currently like 30 people sit outside every week cause their building is packed and can only hold about 120). So the local leadership here in the city decided that it would be best for us to help that church finish its expansion project before working on building the building at the new property. They already have a  new foundation and are hoping to start building the beginning of July.  It would not be good to very quickly build a good sized building for the new church plant on the new property when the mother church is still stuck trying to accommodate the people they have! 

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Things are always more complicated here in Africa than I would like :) But I guess it is not just Africa.