First off I wanted to say thank you to everyone for your prayers. Prayers for me. Prayers for Brazil. Prayers for the specific people on the Amazon that I will be working with. I could not say thank you enough. I don't want it to be a one way street though. As I have said before, God has been teaching me a lot about prayer; therefore, my own personal prayer life has been growing. So, if any of you reading this blog have some prayer requests that you would like for me to be lifting up please e-mail them to amazongreg@gmail.com. I would really like to know how I can be lifting you up before our Creator and Savior.
I have to give a 10 minute presentation on my people group tomorrow. In researching for this I have learned a lot about their history, culture, daily life, and religion. So, I figured I would put on here what I have found out so that you can be praying a little more specific for these people.
They are called the Ribeirinhos (hee-bear-a-nyos) - which literally means 'riverine' in Portuguese. They are the river dwellers. The majority of them have settled along the Amazon from other parts of Brazil. One wave of them came during the Industrial Revolution. With a growing need for rubber to make the assembly lines and products, men were drawn to the rainforest to tap rubber, hoping to get rich quick. The process was hard, and conditions difficult. Money was hard to come by, so many were never able to make it out of the Amazon. The next wave of people came to settle the Amazon during World War II. With a need for rubber in the war, men in Brazil were told to either fight in Italy or go tap rubber in the Amazon. They, again, were promised wealth and prosperity in going to be rubber tappers, or Rubber Soldiers as they were called. Just as before, the work ended up being harder than expected, money was scarce, and returning home became impossible. Also, these men were in danger of sickness and death caused by malaria and yellow fever, wild animal bites, and malnutrition. They, along with the men from the first wave, ended up marrying local (often times indigenous) women, and lived permanently on the Amazon.
Most likely, the people in the community that I am going to will be descendants of these former rubber tappers. Most make livings from fishing, rubber tapping, or fruit collecting. The people themselves are diverse. Because of their history, some have blonde hair, blue eyes, and light skin while others (descendants of former slaves) have dark hair, brown eyes and dark skin. There are between 2,000,000 and 6,500,000 Ribeirinhos spread out into 30,000 communities of 50 - 300 people each. Their culture varies due to their mixes of Amazonian, European, and African peoples. They are apparently extremely hospitable. However, they face very difficult lives. One man who visited Ribeirinhos said that every house he came across had at least one person with malaria in it. The same man said that not a single house had anyone who had been formally educated for at least a year. There is often resentment and sometimes violence between indigenous groups and Ribeirinhos over who gets to fish on what parts of the river. Also, because of commercial fishing, it has become harder to catch fish at all on parts of the river. One Ribeirinho said that as a teenager he could catch some lunch in 5 minutes and get on with the day. Now it takes him a full hour to find some fish. Not to mention the same problems mentioned earlier that the Rubber Soldiers had when they originally came. Pray for their physical well-being, that God would heal them and protect them. Pray that God would send people out to proclaim the Gospel to these Ribeirinhos that they might not die having never heard the truth of a Creator God who loves us and gave His Son for us.
And lastly the religion. According to one website they are 87% Christian. This sounds good, but in reality very, very few of them are practicing, Bible-believing, born again Christians. Many of them say they are Catholic, though this is most often mixed with an African tribal religion called Orixa. They believe in a god, Oludamare, who created the world. Then they believe in other lesser deities called Orixas. Each individual has his own Orixa that controls their destiny and protects them. They mix these religions by calling Oludamare "God" and by worshipping the Orixas as "saints" and “ancestors.” In fact many of them wear crosses and worship in cathedrals though the Catholic subtleties are covers for this Orixa. From some websites I read they even justify the worship of these Orixas and God by saying that Jesus is the Son of God and He is the only way to the Father - they say that these Orixas are lesser deities; therefore can be worshipped in addition to Jesus. Pray that they would see that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the only mediator between us and God. There are no other deities and no other ways to eternal life but following Him and Him alone. Pray that God would open their eyes to this fact.
