Wow!! What a trip! We flew out to Iquitos on March 8th, spent the night and then traveled down the river for 14 hours on a boat. We were able to sleep in hammocks, and the stars were brilliant. It was the first time that I ever saw the Southern Cross. We got to Grau, a small jungle village of just over 1,000 people early in the morning in the rain. I was so thankful for my rubber boots!! We set up our tents in the church where we slept every night.
Our goal in going: to encourage the believers in the churches, to train the leaders, and to witness to those who did not yet know Christ as their Savior.
How we did it: We held kid’s clubs every day while we were in Grau, also Ladies meetings, and Pastor Evelio and Pastor Christopher Cardenoso met with the leaders and pastor in order to help them learn to study their Bibles correctly. We also stopped by a couple of other villages and towns to visit the pastors and encourage them.
We usually had around 120 to 130 kids in every kid’s club. We also had a service every night, by candlelight because there was no electricity. There was also no running water so we bathed in the muddy Amazon River to get clean, or at least to cool off. It was very hot. The bugs were everywhere, and I was basically a walking bug repellent I put so much of the stuff on! We stayed in Grau for a week where we saw interesting animals and even caught a chamaleon!