Before telling about my time here in Brazil thus far, I heard a quote today listening to a John Piper sermon about William Carey that is worth putting on here. William Carey is often called the "Father of Modern Missions" because in a time (late 1700's) where there were very, very few missionaries he and a group of friends started the Baptist Missionary Society and he himself went to India to be a missionary. As I said, there were very few missionaries, so he went with no training, no guide, no mentor, no nothing... except God, who is in Himself the greatest trainer and guide. He answered a call in his life to go where people had not gone, to go to a land full of non-Christians in order to fulfill the Great Commission. Before he left he and one of the mission society co-founders, Andrew Fuller, exchanged these words,
Andrew Fuller: "There is a gold mine in India; but it seems as deep as the centre of the earth; who will venture to explore it?"
William Carey: "I will go down, but remember that you must hold the rope."
You must hold the rope! And that is exactly what I am asking from each and everyone of you reading this blog. I am here. I am in Brazil. I am in my gold mine, so please hold the rope. Remember me in your prayers and remember the lost Ribeirinhos of the Amazon in your prayers as well.
Whew. Well, it has been a crazy 3 weeks and I do apologize for not updating my blog sooner, but internet time is limited here and I have been using what little of it I do have to e-mail and skype with my parents, which I'm sure no one would object to! I got here late, late Friday night three weeks ago. The following weekend was a little orientation. Then Monday I got to go out into the 'Interior' of the Amazon! A fellow American and I went to a Ribeirinho community. It was great. We packed our backpacks, jumped on a hammock boat (think of a normal river ferry with hammocks strung EVERYWHERE, and you sleep and eat on the boat until you reach the desired destination), and set sail for 2.5 days of boat travel. We got to the community and it was very much what I had imagined. For those of you who have been to Laveasar, Cambodia, it was very much like that village. A slow, simple life that centers around fishing and relationships. All the houses were built up on stilts because of the flooding during the rainy season. I enjoyed practicing what little Portuguese I know on these people, and they would laugh and correct me and then the American I was with would fill me in on what I said wrong. We spent one night out there then jumped on a boat back to Manaus and made it back on Saturday morning. It was a nice little flavor of what is to come here in 5 months or so. It will be a difficult lifestyle for sure, but it will be very worth it. I am excited about what is to come.
But, that is what is to come. Let's talk a little about the here and now. These last two weeks have been all about language. Portuguese, as many of you know, is very, very similar to Spanish. I've never been fluent in Spanish, but the couple of years I did have in high school are definitely paying off. A lot of the sentence structure and grammar and verb forms and tenses are the same. For two hours a day a language teacher comes to my little house here in Manaus, and we practice what I know and I learn some more. Then I practice it. I practice it with the American and the Brazilians that live here in the house I'm at. I practice it at the market, on the streets, at church. I watch Brazilian TV and movies and listen to Brazilian music. I'm trying to immerse myself in it as much as possible so I can grow that vocabulary and train my ears to hear and understand what is being said.
I've been meeting a lot of Brazilians through my language teacher and through church. We stay pretty busy on the weekends hanging out and going to church. This last Friday we went to a circus. It was like Cirque du Soleil, but a lot worse! Yesterday we went to a graduation for the 5 people that just finished their Amazon Race training and are about to be heading out into the interior, this morning we went to a wedding (supposed to start at 9:00, it started at 10:15, gotta love that Latin American timeliness!), and then tonight I'm going to church with my language teacher. As I said, I'm meeting people, and it has been so awesome to hear some of the testimonies and see how God is at work in people's lives here in Brazil.
All in all, I am loving being down here. It's different, and sometimes I just want some Air Conditioning or Papa John's (they have pizza here but it's terrible!), but definitely I have been enjoying it. Here are some prayer requests that I would ask you all to be lifting up on my behalf:
- That everyday I would be founded in God's Word and in living for Him. This is number one. More important than language, and more important than getting to know the culture. Pray that I would grow in my relationship with Him each and every day, that I would be sensitive to his voice, and that I would obediently follow him wherever He leads me.
- That I would be fluent for the purpose of communicating Christ here in Brazil. This is what the next three months are about for me. Practicing, studying, memorizing, speaking, and reading in Portuguese is a big part of each day. Pray that God would give me His grace in communicating with Brazilians. My Portuguese has already gotten a lot better just since getting here (Big praise!), but just ask that I would continually understand more and more, especially when people are talking fast, and that I would be able to speak more and more each day. It is a process, so pray for patience in that too!
- That I would be surrounded by good, Godly, Brazilian friends. I love the Americans who are here, and I am really grateful that they are here in my transitioning, but just pray that more and more I would be surrounded by Brazilians, being encouraged by there life stories, and learning more Portuguese from them. I have already met quite a few, as I mentioned before (another big praise!), but pray that I get more and more opportunities to spend time with them throughout the week.
Thank you all so very much for being my support and having my back while I am here in Brazil. I hope to be putting pictures up soon on my Facebook and, if I can figure out how, on here as well. And just a reminder, if you have any prayer requests that I can be praying for, please e-mail me amazongreg@gmail.com or Facebook me and I would love to be able to pray for you as well. I'll try and update this a little more regularly while I am here in Manaus!
