Amazon Project Special Update - Part 1

Posted by: admin on Monday, March 10th, 2008

Greetings to our friends……

Jill and I have been battling through the logistics of getting ourselves moved to Brazil. Each time we have set a date, it seems that complications come. But we have sold our house, found a great replacement to take over Missionary Resource, and other things have fallen into place. Yet, we are hesitant to set a finite date until we actually buy our tickets. Currently, minor (we pray) medical issues need to be taken care of while we still have good medical insurance.

Our previous planned departure date of Feb 18th was cancelled, but I (Joe) flew to Brazil on Feb. 20th to the 29th. I had 4 major goals:

#1 was to meet with the federal customs agency at the exact port where we will be sending our personal items. The written law of Brazil says we can bring our “personal and Business” items in tax free. But we have had trouble getting clear answers from the consulate office in Miami. I did in fact meet with the “Afundega” 4 times and gained valuable information. But this whole issue will take much prayer. The consistency of these laws seems to be up to interpretation.

#2 was to secure a rental house to live in. The house we wanted in the Missionary community is being turned into office space so we lost our reservation. Our next best option was a house that is somewhat occupied now, By a thousand termites. (a problem in Brazil) Our prayer is that they will be evicted before we arrive.

#3 was to find out about boats in the area that can be used for ministry. I looked at a lot of boats and visited shipyards in the area. But the most important contact was made when I visited the Brazilian Bible society for the 2nd time. A year ago they were thinking about selling a boat but then opted out. The good news is they now lease this boat to other ministiries. This will allow us to host short term teams almost immediately. it will also give us a chance to learn special dynamics to this type of ministry.

#4 was to take enough video and pictures to produce a nice promotional video for the riverboat ministry. I am happy to say that the mission accomplished and the video is in basic production now. Once it is done everyone will get a copy. I had great fun doing this. I took a 9 hr boat ride up the Amazon and a 40 minute flight in a two seater plane powered by a snowmobile engine. The result was I got over 200 video clips and 200 still pictures.