Go Beyond

Amazonas, Brazil

The Apostle Paul’s second missionary journey was motivated, in part, by a desire to return to the people and places he had previously visited. Paul told Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36). Therein lies the value of returning — affirming the value of others and looking after their spiritual welfare.

One of my hopes for this third trip to the Amazon was to return to Pindobal, a village where I previously had the privilege of seeing several young ladies come to faith in Christ. These young ladies had been thinking deeply about spiritual matters when I met them. They had questions about where they would spend eternity but had found no satisfactory answers.

One by one, they embraced faith in Christ and then asked to be baptized. They listened intently and took notes as we explained to them the importance of reading and studying the Bible. It was clearly evident that they were serious about their new faith in Christ. They were determined to become a band of sisters and agreed to meet regularly to study and pray together.

Leaving Pindobal was hard. As the village faded from sight, I wished we had set aside more time to spend there. I determined therefore, to make provision for follow-up by mature believers from Manaus. This in itself would be difficult because of the distance these mentors would have to navigate by river to the village. But, most important, I committed myself to pray for the girls and for their spiritual welfare.

And now, I have returned to the Amazon. I was thrilled when Pastor Eli, our Brazilian team leader, told me that we would travel close to Pindobal and agreed to take me there by motor-boat. I could hardly wait for the day to arrive.

On our return trip to Manaus, we stopped and ministered in a place just thirty-minutes down river from Pindobal. Armed with some discipleship training materials, we headed toward Pindobal late in the afternoon.

Our arrival was uneventful because no one was expecting us. So, we went ashore and headed for the home of the school teacher who had come to faith in Christ along with her sister and many of her students. What a sweet reunion it was.

The school teacher shared how she and each of the girls had stayed true to their commitment to Christ. She told us how reading the Bible had helped them stay strong through some tough days. They had not wavered in the commitment they had made months before when I was with them.

The teacher was happy to receive the new discipleship materials and promised that she and the girls would work through it together. And although our reunion was brief, it was powerful. I could see the gratitude in their faces and they could certainly see it in mine. This was the value of returning.

Pastor Eli and I headed back to meet the rest of our team, skimming along the surface of the waters in the dark under skies intermittently illuminated by a distant thunderstorm. I was so happy to have had this opportunity to return to Pindobal.

As the humid night air rushed past my face, my thoughts turned to the parables of the kingdom where Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, something that starts small and grows to become a large tree. I smiled. The kingdom of God has indeed come to Pindobal.

Amazonas, Brazil

The Amazon has fascinated me since I was a boy. Learning about the river and the rainforest pushed my impressionable boyhood imagination into overdrive. I found it easy to daydream about jaguars and piranha and monkeys and spiders — and especially about the fascinating people who had mastered survival in such a difficult place.

The one thing I never imagined as a boy was that I would one day visit the Amazon. Now back for the third time, this magnificent slice of geography continues to stir my imagination. I still feel much like a schoolboy, only this time I am learning about the rainforest and the river on location — in one very amazing classroom.

Our travels down the Amazon and its tributaries have taken us deep into the territory of the Mundurucu people. They are one of many tribes that call the Amazon home. The Mundurucu have learned and mastered the keys to survival in a place that is tough and unforgiving. Their subsistence lifestyle means that there is little time for relaxing. This is definitely a “if you don’t work you don’t eat” kind of place.

Every village has its own shaded huts, built exclusively for the preparation of manioc, a key staple of the Mundurucu diet. Processing this root is a labor intensive process that includes soaking, straining, and finally cooking the yield in a massive wok-looking pan. The root provides the people with farhina de mandioca, a type of flour, and tapioca.

The villages are all located along the river rather than in the rainforest because the river provides an abundance of fish. And there are indeed some incredible fish in the Amazon and its tributaries. Every variety of fish we ate was delicious.

A long conversation with several men in one village helped me to understand what the rainforest provides in terms of animals and exotic fruits. What the rainforest provides, they emphasized, is essential but the rainforest is a dangerous place. A couple of guys shared stories of getting lost and eventually finding their way home.

Seems that every man had his own stories of near-misses with the feared jaguar, the stealth killer of the rainforest. And then there are the snakes and spiders and scorpions. Encounters with these creatures are much more common than coming face-to-face with jaguars — and yet still as frightening in their own right.

One key takeaway from our conversations was that the Mundurucu intentionally pass on knowledge of how to survive along the river and the rainforest to each generation. This naturally led to conversations about the importance of parents being the primary faith-trainers of their children and intentionally equipping their children to live in ways that please God.

Faith is important to the Mundurucu for many reasons, not the least of which is that they live in a place fraught with dangers. I heard stories about demonic creatures that inhabit the river and the rainforest — and how these creatures lead people to their deaths. The good news is that the Mundurucu are hearing and embracing the good news about how Jesus has won the victory over the demonic realm and over death itself.

Reaching one home at a time is hard enough in America but even harder in the Amazon. Sharing the message that true fulfillment (and victory over fear and evil spirits) is found only in Jesus Christ is a must if the kingdom of God is to reach into every corner of this vast geography known as the Amazon. And that means venturing into inconvenient places to have spiritual conversations with those who live between the river and their rainforest.

Amazonas, Brazil

The last command of Jesus to His disciples was for them to move toward inconvenient places — to take the good news from familiar fields toward the ragged edges of the earth. Doing so meant creating distance between the conveniences of home and the uncertainties of far horizons. Fortunately for us, because of those intrepid souls who were willing to venture afar, the good news reached all the way to where we live.

The last command of Christ has not changed. As hard as it may be to believe, there are still people today who live in places that keep them distanced from the gospel. Some people are kept in darkness by cultures that are hostile to the gospel. Others just happen to have been born in inconvenient places that present more of a geographical challenge.

I have returned once again to the Amazon at the invitation of friends from Carlisle Baptist Church in Florida. The Amazon is, unquestionably, an inconvenient place. There are thousands of villages pressed against the muddy banks of the mighty Amazon River by dense jungle — places that can only be accessed by way of the river. Reaching these villages means lots of travel under the guidance of those who know the river and how to navigate it.

A map can show locations and routes from Point A to Point B and beyond. However, a map is not adequate to explain what it’s like to spend hours and hours watching nothing but the vast rainforest go by. As magnificent as this geography is, it is what keeps the people who live here at arm’s length from the gospel and the resources that can help new believers grow in their faith.

By the time we reach our first village we will have traveled some twenty-five-plus hours down river from Manaus. We are fortunate to have a good boat that will serve as our base camp as we travel from village to village over the coming days. Our team hopes to connect with those who have yet to hear and respond to the gospel and to invest in those who have previously embraced the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

I personally like and prefer to move toward inconvenient places. I love meeting the people who live in these hard places. I am under obligation or in debt to them. I owe them Jesus Christ. I want for them to have the opportunity to hear and respond to the message that has transformed my life.

And honestly, a week or two of inconveniences is a really small price to pay to help someone who lives in a hard place discover the surpassing value of knowing Christ. After all, as A.W. Tozer wisely noted, the kingdom of God never advances at our convenience, only at our inconvenience.