Jungle Journal Week 3

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you had a good time and even better food ;)

I had sort of a pre-Thanksgiving while in the jungle...

I was thankful every time I walked the overgrown path to the outhouse (hole in the ground), and came back without getting mauled by a jaguar.

I was thankful for words--words to express feelings and ideas, words to comfort and encourage, words to sympathize, words to joke around and words to communicate with God and others.

But there is something to be said for the many times that words are lacking while living in close-knit community (i.e less than two feet between hammocks). Sometimes, we just don't have the words to express the depth of feeling. Anything we attempt might seem inadequate.

A few times, I felt God's nearness and couldn't form a single syllable, as if the peace that washed over me were too great to interrupt. Other times, I felt as if He were as remote as our tiny island in the vast Amazon, and I didn't know what to say or how to approach Him.

And then I spent a week around little children, which inspired me to a place of simplicity of faith and trust.

We were shown our village home, an abandoned government building that resembled the seven dwarves' dwelling before Snow White's arrival (below). We scrubbed and scrubbed at urine stains and cobwebs, and we dumped buckets of soapy water onto anthills and cockroaches. Trust me, we weren't singing the sweet tunes typical of Disney princesses.

Abandoned village house we lived in 

October 17th: 

Today, we called the children together under the community hut to share a story from the Bible and to sing together. The kids' voices sped past the strums of the guitar, and their clapping was all over the place, which was just plain adorable. The most touching moment of the day was when Nathy told the story of Jesus calming the storm, and we acted the story out. When she narrated the part where Jesus called His disciples to the boat, a group of kids ran to the middle of the community hut to climb into our makeshift boat. To me, it was a beautiful picture, because Jesus is calling people all around the world to follow after Him and step into the boat so to speak. These kids rushed forward, probably just wanting to be a part of the mini-play. What they didn't realize is that their action spoke volumes to the adults in the crowd.

Crafting crowns, bracelets, rings and necklaces out of pinawa, or leaves

This morning, the children didn't flinch one bit during the butchering of a turtle, but rather took a seat front and center as they're used to this. The way the turtle kept reacting to the heat of the fire even half an hour after being decapitated was a sight to see, so I've included a short video:

Too chicken to kill a chicken?

So Nathy killed the turtle, and the next day Tchiwere showed up at the village, grabbed a chicken out of a bag and told me to fetch a kitchen knife. So it was my turn. At this point, I had only killed ants, mosquitos, centipedes and spiders. I begged God to give the chicken a heart attack. That didn't happen, so I knelt down over the chicken, securing its feet under my right foot, and holding its head firmly in my left hand. I tried to imagine its neck as a rope, but momentarily forgot that ropes don't bleed. Once I began inflicting a wound on its neck, its blood, still warm with life, began spilling over my hand. The creature fought back, jerking its neck in my palm. As this was unexpected, I screamed, jumped to my feet and let the blood-stained knife drop to the dirt. At my leader's orders to get back to it, I knelt back down and finished our lunch off as quickly as possible. Then the village children helped me pluck the feathers..it was surprisingly easy to eat even though I was the one who killed it...piranha gets old after awhile! 

October 18th: 

The girls gave me the Prka name "X'eigagawohoa" [chay-ing-ong-ah-voh-ho-uh], which means "You speak differently or strongly." I explained to them that Portuguese isn't my mother tongue, and then they were determined to learn how to count to ten in English.

Our leader traded and got us a wart hog, which we preserved in salt and vinegar and ate for four days (below).

October 20th:

Today (Sunday), I had a craving for fruit, so I traded some fishing materials for 8 bananas for our group. Fruit is pretty easy to come by, but vegetables are very difficult to find in the Amazon. In fact, since we've run out of tomatoes two weeks ago, we haven't had a single vegetable.

October 22nd:

We woke up early to take a canoe to the other side of the river to collect jenipapo fruit, which can be shredded and mixed with carbon to make a dye much like henna (right).

In Prka tradition, this dye is used for special events, like festivals and athletic competitions between tribes.


Our hands were stained purple for a few days from shredding the fruit.

Lord, please give water to those who thirst (John 7:37-44), fill the stomaches of those who hunger for the Bread of Life (John 6:22-40), bless the children who love to sing Your praises and cry out to You, and meet the downtrodden, hopeless and broken right where they are. Reveal the truth of who You are, and open eyes and ears to Your words. Thank You for Your divine love. 

Jungle Journal Week 2

October 6th: Nature and culture

I just reclined in my bumble bee checkered hammock at the end of a looooong day. I smell like a repulsive hybrid of Off! repellent and fishguts, which makes perfect sense since it's prime malaria mosquito time and my hair is drenched from taking a bath right where we chucked piranha innards. Oh joy.

Bright blue and red macaw mates fly directly above our campsite every morning and evening. Anybody see the movie Rio? That bird. At first, the birdsongs were enchanting. Now, we have a feathery fiend who doesn't chirp, but squawks in the wee hours of the morning right outside of our hut.

We form an assembly line daily after coffee to carry buckets of water from the river (our lifesource) to the kitchen. Minnows snatch crumbs before they hit the sand as we wash our plates. I'm still getting used to dipping my toothbrush clean with them swimming around it. This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, I heard the humming of a motor and looked up to see a boat full of indigenous youth arriving. I found out later that they're receiving training to check translated passages of scripture into the Prka language. Currently, they are helping with I Thessalonians. It was both exciting and humbling to know that these young people are using their weekends to come here to learn and translate the very word of God. This wasn't something they were coerced into--it started with a small group of Prka Christ-followers who were thrilled to join. Word spread like wildfire.

October 10th: Three visitors

This morning, a half-sunken canoe piloted by three little Prka girls (maybe 5, 9 and 10 years old) arrived on our shore. We were instructed to avoid asking a person's age because the Prka people don't keep track of age the way we do. We were also told to avoid asking a person's name directly, but instead to ask a third party person nearby according to Prka custom. So, if Person A wants to know Person B's name, Person A has asks Person C. The girls stayed the entire day, eating sweetbread with me and climbing trees to pick premature, bitter guayaba fruit. We went for a swim in the river, and they dove and splashed around like expert synchronized swimmers. We asked them to teach us a song in Prka, and after five minutes of waiting for them to shake off initial shyness, two of them began a magical melody enhanced by the acoustics of the river. Once they started singing, we practically couldn't stop 'em! As we later found out, that particular song, "Xenerowete ywagime hekai," is the Lord's prayer in Prka, and it's also currently the top hit among the four Prka villages.

October 12th:
We've run out of both meat and ice, so we'll be fishing daily for lunch & dinner, and drinking juice au natural. My Portuguese is improving, but I still struggle to "catch the wave" especially when it comes to jokes. By the time I figure out something half-decent to say aloud, and check the grammar in my head, the dinner conversation has usually shifted to another topic. Oh well. :S

October 14th: Jacaré Lunch
Today, we heard two gunshots before dawn. Tchiwere had hunted a small alligator that had been frecuenting our riverbank at night. We watched the entire "cleaning" process in disgust (see pictures below) and fried it up for lunch. It tasted like a cross between chicken and fish.

October 15th: Jungle Treck with Seu Xicopaca
This morning, Seu Xicopaca (shee-koh-pah-kah), a local man with a downward curve of broken front teeth and tight, gray curls gathered above his ears, led us on a two hour hike through the jungle. He paused along the way to hack at medicinal trees with a machete and explain what each kind of sap is good for. The problem was that he spoke Portuguese softly with clenched teeth and a permanent smile such that even the native speakers around me had to read his lips to understand. Each of us took a turn chipping away at the tree trunk to gather leite de amapá, a sweet, milky liquid that's helpful for various illnesses (anemia, muscle aches, gastritis, and respiratory problems). We used it as a simple coffee creamer :)

Jungle Journal Week 1

September 28-October 2: By Land and Sea

The great adventure began with an 18 hour bus ride to northern Brazil (the state of Pará), followed by a frantic two-day shopping spree in the small city of Sao Felix do Xingu on the Xingu River, one of the largest rivers on the Amazon. The campers ran to and fro, bargaining and comparing prices, consulting one another and giving tips, and taking some and ignoring others. A couple of times, we found out the grass was in fact greener on the other side. Nathy realized she could have bought a swiss army Xingu knife for 25 Brazilian realis as opposed to 79, but the rest of us assured her that her super sharp, stainless steel knife would be our survival ticket in the jungle.

Xingu knife: Little did I know how important it would be.

Trying out our hammocks in Sao Felix

While in Sao Felix, the opportunity opened up for me to briefly visit a health post for the indigenous people group Kayapo. I don't usually write poems (and that will become obvious), but my visit and smiling with the children inspired these lines:

Tell me what you see.
Tell me what you know.
Your smile tells a story
Of God´s splendor with its glow.

A handshake and a smile,
Perfect strangers, yet we met.
And now you´re in my story
With a smile I won´t forget.

This is what I see.
This is what I know.
Now I´m in your story, too...
(Your smile told me so).

I love meeting new people and forming friendships that last. So, there is a sort of sad reality that sinks in when a first meeting comes to an end, knowing it will likely be the first and last. But I´ve also learned that this is where trust comes in--trust in the omnipresent God, who is sovereign and unchanging. People flow in and out of my life, but God´s presence remains.

Preparing lunch on the back of the boat

October 3rd: Gator Island

After learning how to hang a hammock properly with a mosquito net in Sao Felix, the crew (13 total) packed our bags, filled our water bottles, and hit the Xingu River for yet another two day trip. I knew we'd eat lunch on the boat, but I figured (silly American me) that we´d have PB&J sandwiches or something that could be slapped together in a jiffy (ha!). Not quite. Three of my fellow travelers sliced meat and peeled greens right at the ship´s stern. As I later learned, the same platform we cooked on was also the designated squatty pot and bathing area. We had huge pots full of rice, beans, beef and tomato..and of course, farinha sprinkled on the side in the Brazilian tradition.

At nightfall, we stopped at a little island inhabited by creepy, white mosquitos and gnats galore. It was hard to stomach the idea of eating with bugs swarming all around in the dark, knowing  more than a few would hitch a ride on the Fork Express. But we ate. We also enjoyed a bit of excitement when our leader, Tchiwere, shined a flashlight on the surface of the water near the sand bank, and something caught his eye--a small jacaré or caiman/alligator. Well, we changed our bathing plans, tiptoeing in groups of three to the stern to bathe by the bucket instead of the river.

We stayed up for awhile to listen to Tchiwere´s stories of adventures from previous camping trips. His wife, Tia Alili, expertly held a citronella candle upside down, letting the wax drip onto a pan, then flipped the candle over onto the wax to hold it in place. I also found out about a natural, homemade bug repellent that actually smells kinda good and works well:

Put cloves and cinnamon inside of rubbing alcohol. Let sit for four days. Mix with Johnson baby oil.

Unfortunately, I dont know the amounts of the ingredients, but there are online recipes also if you google search "natural repellents".

October 4th: Arrival to island base:

Bugs! Eeek! While digging moats around our tents for periodic heavy rainfall, we came across plenty of creepy crawlies, including millipedes and cockroaches. The next day, while hacking away at vines to clear a space for all of our training activities, we uncovered a few scorpions in the sandy dirt. In short, there are big bugs and venemous insects everywhere.

After two nights in a stuffy tent, I tried out my hammock in a snake, scorpion and tarantula-inhabited hut, partly because I wanted to get use out of my R$80 mosquito net. It took me awhile to fall asleep initially, but you can imagine it only got harder after hearing about the top of the food chain on the island---jaguars.

Making Waves on the Xingu River

I'm without a phone, computer, watch, alarm, and music. The intense sun is the hour hand. The clanging of the meal bell is the minute hand. Beads of sweat are a constant reminder that a month in this exotic, wild place will be challenging, but good. I dont have means of connecting with family and friends, but I have my fellow campers to laugh and joke around with, to ponder and discover with every day.

Miscellaneous

Walmart in Brasilia has a tapioca stand--like crepes, but tapioca patties filled with savory and sweet ingredients!

I tried açai berry juice with condensed milk as a sweetener (left). Soooo good! Rose is giving thumbs up because she hails from Belém do Pará where açai is grown and it´s a typical drink there (right). I think I found a new favorite.
Too bad it´s expensive in the States....

2014 FIFA World Cup Brasil! Drive by picture.

Beyond Borders

Grounds of the mission center ALEM, view from my house

Saturday Sunset at ALEM  

Visiting a church, and the kids were asking us to speak English to hear what it sounds like. 

ALEM (Evangelical Linguistic Missionary Association in English) is not only the name of the organization I´m with here, but além also means "beyond" in Portuguese. The motto of ALEM is "levando a Biblia alem das fronteiras" or "taking the Bible beyond the borders."

I spoke in a church last night about an experience I had while I was in México with my Aunt Bonnie. I was journaling about that day´s events, and just began to ask God question after question. One of them was "How did the other nations hear about you before Jesus´ birth?" How could they come to salvation? Immediately after setting down my pen, the book of Ezekiel popped into my head. Weird, I thought. Then, a second later chapter 36 came to mind. At the time, I hadn´t the slightest clue what Ezekiel 36 was about. So I ignited my Kindle fire to find out. In Ezekiel 36, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the nation of Israel that God will restore life and blessing to Israel after it had become oppressed by surrounding nations. Israel had been profaning God´s name among other nations, and God says to them specifically that He is not restoring them for their own sake, but His holy name´s sake:

22 “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. 23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:22-28 NIV)

I read the chapter and saw that "Then the nations will know that I am the Lord." is repeated three times...And that´s a promise.

How can I keep from praising a God who teaches me something even when I only understand about 15% of a sermon in Portuguese? How can I not seek a God who gets my attention no matter where I am on this earth, whether it be home in Washington, DC, Mexico City, or Brasilia? How can I not be humbled before a God who loves me even when my thoughts are far from Him? How can I not worship a God who offered me hope tonight in another language through an interpreter? How can I not magnify a God who surrounded me with wonderful, encouraging friends and role models here in Brazil who pray for me and care about me as if they´ve known me for years? He is praiseworthy. He reaches beyond borders--nations´ borders, cultural borders, and the borders of our hearts.

Osga

WARNING (!): This blog contains a disturbing image. A blood-sucking critter was definitely harmed in the making of this blog, but rest assured, it was for the health and safety of four persons. 

The other day, my housemate Edinea warned me there was a little intruder in our bathroom. She had grabbed a can of poison and sprayed it in the bathroom with high hopes that the neon green thing with bulging eyes would keel over and die within an hour.

It wasn´t until after she secured the bathroom area that Edinea thought of a better tactic--let Leona the cat into the house to hunt. Well, it was too late for Plan B because we didn´t want to be held responsible for "chloroforming" the cat.

Plan A: Death by Poison

Plan B: Death by Cat

Plan C: Death by "Suffocation" 

Val, another housemate, happened upon our conversation and marched straight to the bathroom to come to the rescue. She grabbed toilet paper and the next thing we knew, she was "suffocating" (in her own words) the thing to death between her blue Havaiana flip flops and the shower tile.

After all the commotion (no shortage of screams), I suggested that we keep the cat indoors from now on ;)

So these lizards, called osgas, eat mosquitos and spiders and other insects, but apparently they are rumoured to feed on human blood while people sleep. I looked it up online, and as far as I can tell it´s just a myth. Needless to say, that night, I slept with the sheets up to my chin and wrapped the blankets around my shoulders. I may have even switched the light on a few times to see if I could spy anything scurrying up and down the walls.

And now, to lighten up the mood for those of you who get queasy around creepy crawly things like I do. Rose taught us how to dance sambá in the kitchen. I can´t say I have it down pat, but I´ll be rehearsing the steps :)

Portuguese Language Misunderstanding #2

Simone and I walked to a small church this morning for a 9 AM service, then came back for lunch and relaxation.

So I went to church again tonight for a 6 PM service, arriving late with a friend at 6:37 PM. About ten minutes later, after the choir closed their books, the gentleman announcing church events said something about me in front of the congregation.

Who me? (I motion to myself and quickly whisper to my friend if I´m supposed to say something)

So, it turns out he was just commenting that I was a second-time visitor.

PHEW!

Then, a few minutes later, he motions for me to approach the pulpit.

Ok, wait a second. I usually have to wave or stand up at the most. I hope someone told him I don´t speak much Portuguese.

Again, I turn to my friend Alesson to ask what I´m supposed to do. He tells me "canta uma musica em inglês" (Sing a song in English!)

Great Jehoshaphat! That´s not what I was expecting. [queue quivering legs and pale face] As I reach for the microphone, I´m frantically scanning my memory for songs I know by heart.

Let´s rewind to the 9 AM service, when I was talking after church with some church leaders. They asked if I would sing next Saturday (or so I thought) at a youth service because my friend Simone told them I sang. Turns out that they were talking about TODAY.

So I took the mic and mumbled something like "Vou cantar uma musica em inglês. Então..." (I´m going to sing a song in English, so...) and then I sang what many in my situation would likely sing..."Amazing Grace." That song never gets old to me, but somehow I forgot the second half of the second verse, so I just repeated the second half of the first verse....Hopefully, nobody noticed. When I sat back down I grinned out of pure amusement because this same thing happened to me eight years ago when I started learning Spanish. The only difference between this story and the one eight years ago is the language that I obviously did not understand. I´m starting to think I need to be prepared for being unprepared....

I just had to smile big and shake my head, thinking "God, I´ll have to take this up with you later ..." :)

Moral of the story: Never say "yes/sim/si" to something if you don´t know what you´re consenting to! I guess I still haven´t learned that lesson, but I´m hopeful that after Portuguese Language Misunderstanding #142, I will.

Still, this anecdote is not nearly as bad as one that I recently heard. Note the following vocabulary differences:

Embarrassed (English) = feeling a shameful discomfort
Embarazado/a (Spanish) = pregnant
Embaraço (Portuguese) = perplexed; embarrassed

A young lady visiting from the USA was embarrassed because of something the pastor said in a Spanish-speaking church. When she said "Es que estoy embarazada y es culpa del pastor", she thought she was saying "I´m embarrassed and it´s the pastor´s fault"...
The shocked congregation understood: "I´m pregnant and it´s the pastor´s fault!" 

Talk about embarrassing...