This morning Amy and I loaded up our kids and 12 other people into two vans and we drove about an hour down the road to Chazuta where brother Roberto had our boat all ready to go.  Our team for this trip included Amy and I and Josiah, Mya, Ellia, Megan, Dallas, Jose, Elliot, Mayer, Josue, Pool, Elizabet, Julio, Gretty, Stephany and Cesia.  It was a full boat... especially when you consider all our stuff!  We had good weather for this first day of travel and as we headed down the turbulent and muddy Huallaga river everyone was filled with great anticipation at the adventure that was set before us.  After about an hour we arrived at our first village, Achinamisa.  As we paraded up the main drag and into town we were met with much excitement from the villagers.  Many were asking me: "Vas a predicar?... Are you going to preach?"

*I marched straight to the towns loud speaker and after announcing that we had arrived and that we would be starting a children's meeting and an eye clinic within the hour, I went on to preach to the whole village from Revelation 22. Many people gathered at the door that I was preaching from and when I finished there were several souls to be dealt with. 

*Elizabet, Gretty, Stephany, Cesia, Megan and Mya put on an amazing children's meeting (over 100 kids came from all over the place). 

*The guys (Dallas, Josiah, Elliot, Mayer, Josue, Pool) gathered up the youth and seemed to have a real impact with their games and then a Bible lesson about "Who is Jesus?".

*Jose is an ophthalmologist from the coast that we've known for more than 20 years.  He's a great brother and I'm so glad that he's here with us on this trip.  He immediately set up his eye clinic and started attending to the people.  Lines of people were wanting to get their vision evaluated and then either receive glasses or sign up for surgery.  Huge blessing to the villagers! 

*As evening approached, torrential rain descended upon Achinamisa!  Tremendous display of lightening and thunder!  The storm canceled the open air meeting but as the rain poured down outside we stayed inside brother Rember's house where we sang worships songs and read the scriptures out-loud for about an hour.... After that I preached Revelation 1 into the dark but packed out living room where many sat on the dirt floor listening intently. 

*Finally at about 10:30 pm we headed back to the church building where we set up our tents for the night. Some of the guys went down to the river to bathe but I decided to take advantage of the water that poured from the heavens and I just shower right there in the middle of the street (swim trunks on of course :)  

*Nothing better than falling asleep to the sound of heavy rain beating down on a tin roof overhead.  

*Woke up early.  Rain was gone. Prayer and Bible alone in the solitude of my tent.  

*Chicken soup for Breakfast.  YUM! 

*Preached to the brothers on the four anchors for weathering a storm (Acts 27:29).  Lots of good discussion!  There are many good brothers in this village. 

*Another children's meeting (even more kids than yesterday). The kids always come crowding around, yelling our names. They love to hang on us. I always imagine it was probably kinda like this for Jesus.  

*While all the ministries were going full-steam ahead, Amy and I snuck off to a rather quiet corner of one brothers hut and we had a hot coffee date.  It was great to escape the pandemonium and be "just us" for an hour or so.  I'm sooo glad Amy comes on these trips with me!!  

*There's a man here named Arnaldo that said he was from another village that I've never been to before. He said that there was no church there, and although he himself was not a believer, he desperately wanted us to come and preach in his village too..... NEED EVERYWHERE!  

*After many painful good-byes we headed down river to the next village. We stopped along the way to enjoy my favorite hot springs waterfall.... swimming, rock-jumping, showering.... exploring... Awesome!  

*We piled back into the Chasqui and we headed toward the next village but this time Ellia and I sat right up on the prow of the boat.  With the wind in our faces we tried to take in all the beauty of the river and the surrounding green paradise of the jungle. Absolutely glorious!  Special moments with Ellia! 

*Arrived in Huimba.  Coca capital of the Huallaga river.  Lots of evil and corruption here. 

*More than 100 kids!  More than 50 youth!  More than 50 adults! Unusual interest in the things of the Lord. Not normal for this village!  Praise the Lord!  

*Once again many people lined up to see the ophthalmologist! 

*As the afternoon stretched on, dark rain clouds stacked up in the south.  Another storm!  Once again our open air-meeting was rained out....  I guess the Lord wants us to focus on the believers here.  

*An arm-wrestling contest broke out amongst the youth after dinner... They "forced" me into the competition..... I ended up winning the championship .... Ha! :) 

*No church building here so we had the evening meeting under a tin roof pole barn type structure (no walls).  Totally awesome time together.  Lots of singing and prayer.  The brethren were hungry for the word!  Pool led the meeting, Dallas gave the first message, Mayer gave the second and then I wrapped things up with a third and final sermon (seeing Jesus past, present and future. Jn 12:21, Heb 2:9, 1Jn  3:2) 

*One of the brothers here paid to put some of the team up in a "hotel" (7 of us had our own dark empty 8'x8' brick walled room) Luxury! 

*Slept great! 

*Prayer and Bible in the solitude of our four brick walls. 

*Mya found several cockroaches in her clothes in this morning :)

*Breakfast was balls of smashed plantains with pig manteca and a salsa of lime juice and hot peppers (tacachos) YUM! 

*This morning I was called to go visit and pray for a guy who had been beat up and trampled by an enraged bull a few days ago...  He was bruised all over and had several broken ribs... His story was horrifying... five full minutes of being thrown around by a "demon possessed" toro. He's lucky to have survived. It was a great opportunity to share the gospel with he and his family.  

*The eye clinic, children's meeting, youth meeting, and adult meeting all filled our time between breakfast and dinner.... I taught the adults from the book of Daniel (3 hours) while each one waited their turn to see the ophthalmologist. 

*The believers in this village were so encouraged and there was so much need that they all begged us to stay another day....  so after lunch we decided to split our team up into two groups...  Six people stayed in Huimba, while the others journeyed on with me farther down river.  It was hard to leave but there are so many more villages that need to see and hear the love of Christ.  

*After about an hour boat ride we came into the port of Navarro.  This has always been a difficult village and you can feel the spiritual oppression here.... Something seems to be off with the leadership of the church.... Everything was in stark contrast with the last two villages... We walked into the village with no greetings and no hearty welcome..... That's OK... Must do the work in the difficult places too!  

*Our team went to work, rounding up the kids, setting up the eye clinic, doing door to door evangelism and organizing an evangelistic soccer game. 

*No rain tonight so we were finally able to do an open-air meeting.... Surprisingly many people came out and many others were listening intently from their doorways.  I didn't really feel like preaching tonight but the Lord gave help in the time of need... I simply read aloud all of Revelation chapters 6, 9, 12  and 20.  I gave a brief explanation and then when I was finishing (no altar call) one man stood up and came forward wanting to give his life to the Lord.  After praying with him another came forward and then another.... What victory!!! What encouragement!!!         

*Today we woke up to the sounds of crowing roosters.... It is resurrection Sunday!  Easter!  Can't think of a better place to be than in a jungle village preaching Christ risen from the dead!  

*The meeting at church this morning was special.... The new converts from last night were there with their families and two of them even shared at the breaking of bread! Dallas, Elliot and Josiah each preached short messages...  They did a good job!  Then, to wrap things up,  I preached two messages... one from 1 Cor 15 and another from Philipians 2. Great time together with the saints.

*For lunch a brother brought a whole mess of fish that he caught in his nets.  Boca chico!  They roasted them up with some kind of amazing seasoning.  Best fish I've ever had!

*One of the villagers caught a baby wild boar. Cute little guy... They told me that we'll eat it next year when we come back... Hopefully they can put that same seasoning on him that they put on the fish...  

*Ellia has made a lot of friends in this village.  The girls follow her around everywhere she goes :) 

*It was sooo good that we came to Navarro even if it was spiritually oppressive The Lord did great things! After praying with the brethren we loaded up the boat and we headed back up the river to Huimba where we picked up the rest of our team that we had left off there.  They had great news of great things that God had done.  The already big crowd from Saturday, had doubled on Sunday.  Praise the Lord!   

*Dark rain clouds were mounting in the south again and we needed to get to Pulcalpillo, so off we went.  We were about halfway to the village when the storm caught our boat.  Lightning and thunder and rain and overflowing tributaries made the whole river blow out and soon there were big waves and submerged logs and whirlpools to navigate.... It was awesome!  

*When we finally arrived at Pucalpillo we were soaked and the lower part of the village was all under water.  A few of the villagers said this was the highest they'd seen the river in 40 years! 

*We quickly put on our rubber boots, slogged through the mud and rain, and went throughout the village inviting the kids to the children's meeting.... To our surprise the mud and rain didn't hold anyone back... kids came out from everywhere!  Their parents came, the youth came, the old people came.  It was amazing!  Of all the villages this one turned out to be the most encouraging.  The church here seems to be more encouraged and active and unified than all the rest that we've visited until now.  

*The rain stopped in time to have our open air meeting this evening.  Pretty much everyone from the village came out to listen as we sang, read scripture and prayed.  Jose, Mayer and Elliot all gave their testimonies and then I wrapped things up with a rather long evangelistic message.

*As I preached two drunks were listening and one of them got a bit agitated and said he was going to punch me.... The other one responded saying that he better not do that because "The bearded gringo looks like he knows Karate"  Ha!  I guess my scary looking beard saved me :) 

*After that there was a real sense of God working on the conscience of many.  You could hear a pin drop as the whole town listened closely to every word.   

*Woke up at 3:00 am this morning. Amy and Ellia needed to go to the bathroom which was at a brothers house down the road... I didn't know how we were going to get in at that hour but we were desperate so we headed that way.  To our surprise, most of the brothers and sisters were already over there and very much awake, while getting breakfast ready for us!  3 am!!!  

*Sweet time of bible and prayer back at the tent

*Breakfast was boiled eggs, tacacho, rice and a hot cacao drink (harvested, toasted and milled right there)

*After a great devotional from Julio Abel the brothers asked if I would spend the whole time until lunch answering their theological and ecclesiological questions.... the next three hours were very profitable as I tried to clear up some divisive issues that the brothers didn't know how to deal with.  In every village I had similar meetings like this but here in Pucalpillo the brothers specifically asked for it and they soaked up every minute as we opened the scriptures and evaluated each question.      

*While I was in that mens meeting half of our team went and invaded the school (classes went back into session today).  The director of the school let our team in and allowed them to give a bible lesson to all the kids..... I love that you can do this in Peru! 

*After lunch it was time to say goodbye.  It was sad to go.  These brothers and sisters had really won our hearts and we could have stayed another week.  But after lots of hugs and backslaps and handshakes we finally prayed together and headed to our boat down at the port.  

*Thankfully the river had dropped about 4 feet over night and now it was much safer to travel back to Chazuta where we could catch a car back to Tarapoto..... 

*There were a few dangerous moments as we motored through some raging rapids but the Lord sent His angel ahead of us and after about three hours of plowing against the current we made it safely back to civilization.  

*It was a fantastic trip and the Lord blessed us greatly!!! 

                                 

Missions quote for the day by Robert Moffat: "In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been"

Micah for the Tuttle's!