Notes from Jed
January 2010
We are on the brink of a new decade but we at Amazon Outreach are a little nostalgic as we look back on the past year. Today, we want to stop and celebrate the impact you’ve helped us make in 2009 and what we’re looking forward to in 2010.
A group of us ended the year with a fabulous trip where we handed out 1400 gifts to beautiful children in ten villages. Puppet shows and presentations of the Christmas Story were performed in every village and the adults were as mesmerized by the Story as the kids were. There were kings, shepherds, angels and stars everywhere and the Son of God was in the manger. What a wonderful life changing event that happened that special night two thousand years ago.
Today we are also fired up for the 26 college students who just returned from a wonderful trip.They teamed up with Chapada Baptist Church one of the fastest growing churches in Manaus and a new partner of Amazon Outreach. Please pray that this new relationship will grow for the glory of God and His work on the river.
We move into our beautiful new storehouse this month. Thanks be to God! We are so proud of our new digs!!!
Spring Break will be here before you know it! Please pray for the 150 team members raising their funds so they can jump on one of six boats heading down the river.
The
Aguas de Amor is
stocked with equipment and preparing for departure after January 1st to
give
more villagers a look at how much God loves them.
Please pray for this team and the villages they will serve.
A great new covered floating dock is almost finished that will serve our three boats as storage plus crew and team staging areas for loading and unloading.
What a great team God has put together and I sure am glad that He allows us to be part of His mission. Happy New Year to all of you!!!
Jed
Christmas on the
Amazon
What
an incredible way to begin the Christmas season!
There were Puppet Shows, Christmas Skits
and lots of
Happy Children!
One
of the sweetest
stories from this trip was the one we heard when we visited a school
named Nossa Senhor do Nazare
(Our Lord of
Nazareth). The water was so low our boat couldn’t reach some
of the
villages we had planned to visit and so our team prayed for God to
guide us to
the village He had prepared for us to go. Antonio and Geraldo
went out in
the motor boat seeking villages that wanted to accept the offer for our
team to
come and present a Christmas Program. They met a man and
women who were
Christians and also worked in a nearby school with over 300 students in
attendance. The school principal and this couple had been
praying there
would be a way to purchase toys for all the students at the school for
Christmas. They had saved some money and had traveled to
Manaus, but
didn’t have enough to buy gifts for all the students and had returned
empty
handed. When they heard that our team had come to present a
Christmas
program and give gifts to all the students they knew we were the answer
to
their prayers. After hearing their story we knew God brought
the boat
specifically to this school’s doorstep as an answer to our prayers as
well. Isn’t God good?
This Amazon Outreach team was the first ever to partner with Operation Christmas Child and bring Christmas gifts to needy children along the Amazon River. With your prayers and financial donations the team was able to present a Christmas program to 13 villages and see over 1,100 children. The children’s faces spoke a thousand words as they watched spellbound the reenactment of the birth of Christ and then burst into smiles of joy as they opened their gifts. Thank you so much for supporting this effort!
