September 23, 2009
Hi All,
I just returned from Yanashi at 2 a.m. this morning and thought I would write a quick update to let you all know about the trip. We arrived last Wednesday at the mouth of the Yanashi River after a 12 hour boat ride. We then had to transfer to a smaller boat since the water is way down and the bigger boats cannot enter. We ended up having to get out of the boat and push at times as we kept getting stuck in the sand. This can be dangerous at night as the stingrays burrow in the sand and have a sting that can kill a person that is weak. Apparently it is very painful and causes days of fever.
It was a night for the animals as first we passed an alligator, then there was a highly venomous snake swimming right beside the boat (they said this indicated bad luck) and finally the fish were jumping and we had 16 fish jump into our boat so we had breakfast delivered to us. Here are pictures of the fish and us eating in the kitchen.
Pastor Juan of Yanashi had to return to Iquitoslast year due to health problems. Since then, his nephew, Emerson, has been in charge of the church and it has been maintaining pretty well. Last year, Lucy and I donated money to build a church in Yanashi since they had no place to congregate but now it is needing to have the thatched roof changed—they put an inferior leaf on it and it really needs to be enlarged to hold the people. We are wanting to enlarge it 3 more meters and actually change a lot of the wood on it to a different, harder wood. We talked with the man who will cut the wood and the man who will bring the leaves for the roof and it will cost about $200 total. We are praying for funds and hoping to be able to do this within the next month as the rainy season is coming up and the roof leaks too bad to have services when it is raining. One reason a lot of the wood needs to be changed is there was severe flooding last year and the water came up as high as the church floor (seen here).
We held services every night and twice on Sunday with a good turnout each time. Last year I made a book of coloring pages in Spanish for each of our churches. The churches that are near towns with electricity take their book in each week and make copies but since Yanashi only has electricity 3 hours a night—from 6pm to 9pmthey have no copy machines so we bought carbon paper and typing paper and drew the pages so that we could color (seen here).
Thanks to all of you that donated crayons. The kids really enjoy being able to color their story lesson—of course the adults did too. I have learned to be ready in season and out of season with Lucy. She usually gives me at least a half an hour to get ready if I am going to have to give the lesson but this time she asked me from the pulpit. But God is faithful and gives us the words to speak if we are but an open vessel.
Several days while there, we went out to work in the fields. There are a lot of poisonous snakes in Yanashi so you have to be careful when you are in the fields as it is a 24 hour boat ride back to Iquitos for medical attention. It was watermelon season and I ate so much watermelon, I probably could have floated back to Iquitos. It was delicious though.
I am often amazed at how difficult life is in the villages. I am sore from sleeping on the floor for a week but they sleep on the floor every night. I was hungry from not having much food for a week but they never have much food. We bathe and wash our clothes in the river—pictured here and the night before we left, the 9 month old baby next door died from diarrhea which could be easily treated in the city. Life is very difficult there. They are mostly farmers but if they take there produce into the city to sell it, they barely make anything after paying people to help harvest it, their boat ticket plus a fee on the boat for transporting it, then they have to pay for people to take it up the hill and then they have to sell it very cheap. My heart hurts for them.
As I said, it was a very good trip and we plan to return after the conference in Amazonas to hopefully be repairing and enlarging the church. It is a difficult trip as the 24 hour boat ride coming back is tiring but I enjoy it at the same time. I will leave you with 2 more pictures: One of the sunset
and the other of Lucy saying I love America. I hope you are all well and blessed. Please write me an email if you get a chance.
In His Precious Love,
Kayleen
