Amazing Amazon Adventure

As I begin this posting, I would be remiss not to start at the beginning. The team was formed in early spring. How blessed we are as a body to have so many willing to serve and be a part of spreading the Gospel. Who would know the lessons we were about to be taught before the trip to the Amazon Basin even began!

After the initial meeting, we began to raise funds. These gave us an opportunity to get to know each other a little more and just have fun together. Then began the preparation process, getting necessary shots for trip, collecting items to take with us for the people we were going to minister to and Evangelism Boot Camp. Jay’s wonderful secretary Barbara, would e mail us advising of what we needed to do, how to do it and the dates for completion. Brenda Bailey from Amazon Outreach sent us words of encouragement and most importantly how to fill out our visa applications. Ah, visas, that a story unto itself…..and so the saga begins.

Things seemed to be “rockin” on just fine. Fund raising, collecting items for the Amazon people and visa applications were mailed, along with passports to the folks who were to process our visas for us. But, before I continue with my story of our Amazing Amazon Adventure, let me say that this is God’s mission trip…….and He is in total control of everything. As Christians we know that our God is sovereign and there is nothing He cannot do. But, often times we take Him for granted. We go about our busy lives and we forget He is there beside us, behind us and in front of us. We forget that we can do nothing without Him. How blessed we are when He reminds us!

Now to continue an extremely important chapter to our adventure….lets talk about visas. We had another meeting and we were updated on where things were at that time, including visas. They were with Universal Passports and Visas who were the folks contracted to do this for us. Ah, we placed our trust man because you do that when dealing with a business….you place trust in certain entities because that is their area of expertise. It is June 4 and our departure is scheduled for June 9. Visas, we cannot enter the country without them, are they here yet? In the afternoon we get an e mail, they are here. They were sent to the church. Hoorah! Oops…guess what, passport and visa applications are here which means no visas……………so we have approximately two working days to get visas. In the flesh, this appears to be an unobtainable goal. Jed Thompson is sent from Texas to Montgomery to Atlanta. In Atlanta Jed tries to convince the Consulate of Brazil to issue our visas. Jed returns to Texas after two valiant days of effort. No visas were issued. The team has a packing party on Monday June 7th to make sure the bags with medicine and supplies are ready to go……………….we stepped out in faith as we should.

When we first go the word that we had no visas, did our team get down? No! Were we disappointed? Maybe a little, but one thing we knew for sure, the one thing that was brought forward to us was that we control nothing. This is God’s plan, not ours. His hand was and is on this trip. Everything is under His control. Nothing happens without His reasoning behind it. He allowed this to happen…………….and we are grateful and humbled.

We had options that the Amazon Outreach folks came up with. Today, as I am writing this, Jay is on his way to Houston to meet with the Consulate there to get our visas issued. It is not important who created all this additional work and the blame game is irrelevant. What is important is what we have learned. Romans 8:28 tells us that God works good for all who love Him and are called according to His purpose, not ours, His. Psalms 93:1, “The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength.” God has gently tapped each of us on the shoulder and reminded us of the mighty God we serve and that He is in control. What a blessing! The team will be packed and ready to leave tomorrow for the airport………….flights are re-booked and God is at work. What more could we ask?