It’s more than three years since my family and I left Maues – our home in the Brazilian Amazon for over 12 years before we left to take on pastoral roles at Gateway Elim Church in Yate.
When we took a team from church on a mission trip there last summer, we were returning for the first time.
It can be difficult to move on. You get accustomed to life in the Amazon and, even though it has its difficulties, the place and the people of Maues, especially those in Living Word Church, had become our family.
We kept getting reports about how well the church was doing, how 47 people were baptised in one year and 47 the next.
However, much-needed support was slowly declining. The Rescue Project built four years previously had closed its doors temporarily. And in May, we heard there wasn’t enough finance coming in to cover the monthly outgoings for Living Word School.
It seemed the timing of our trip had been divinely orchestrated. Our team’s first experience of church life in the Amazon was a visit to the Saturday night life groups.
It was incredible to see the ease with which chairs and benches appeared on pavements or verandas so people could hear the Word of God. This made us expectant for Sunday, and we were not disappointed. We heard testimonies at the morning ladies’ conference of Jesus’ impact in their lives and families.
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