In the decade of the 30’s, Henry Ford, owner and president of Ford Motor Company, acquired an immense area of the Amazon forest in the margins of the Tapajós river in order to produce rubber. One of the cities that he built was Belterra. About 40 kilometers from Santarém, this city in the middle of the Amazon was modeled as a typical North American city. Our health team went there last week to work in a community close to Belterra to do evangelism and health care. I participated in this trip on the weekend of March 5th to the 7th. The rest of the team stayed until the 11th. We had the participation of some volunteers from São Paulo: Leandro, Elizabete, Mônica and Ivanet and from Santarém: Juliana, Silvia, Tatiane, Joelma and Josimar.
Juliana and Joelma traveled some hours before us to Belterra on Friday. They met with Pastor Paulo, responsible for the PAZ Church of Belterra, as well Raimundo and his wife Nazaré, the couple that housed the team in the city. The others went later in the afternoon in the Kombi, and me on the motorcycle. As soon as we arrived at Raimundo’s house, we introduced ourselves to all the members of the team. After we dropped of our suitcases we went to the Bela Terra, a restaurant close to the Paz Church. There we had dinner and also got to know better the people that had come from Sao Paulo.
We had devotions the following morning and Juliana shared the word, emphasizing the fear of the Lord and loving each other. The message was an encouragement about us serving Jesus, through serving our neighbor, and also loving Him with fear. The message reaffirmed our motivation in serving Him, which is out of the love and gratitude that we have for Him. And the fear that we have for Him is one of the sources that feed our perseverance of serving Him daily in our lives.
As soon as every one finished breakfast, we loaded the equipment and the boxes of medications on the trucks and we traveled to a community called Revolta. In spite of the fact that the community was located just 15 km from Belterra, it took me about 40 minutes to arrive. The street was very slippery with a lot of mud; it was difficult for me to go the same speed as the trucks. Even trying to follow the guide, I got lost, but thank God I was able to find the community through the residents’ help.
After arriving we set up the dental clinic in the community’s school and I began attending the patients that morning. We didn’t see a lot of people when we arrived, but after we began working, more people started to come. The need for a dentist is always huge, especially when we do fillings. They know how to take advantage of that rarity!
The volunteers from Sao Paulo did a great job working with the children. There were games and Biblical stories. On Saturday night we showed an evangelistic film and the Pastor gave the invitation for those that wanted to make a decision to surrender their lives to Jesus. That night there was about 30 people in attendance. It seems that most of them were believers. Some people stayed outside of the community center looking in, watching the film. It could just be curiosity, but I believe that many of them were interested in the message of the film. In spite of not having conversions that night, we know that the Lord used us to plant a small seed in the hearts of those people. A cell group has already started and little by little, more and more people will come to Jesus. We prayed that shortly a church would be planted there.
We returned from this community on Sunday afternoon to the city of Belterra. The team stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. That night they went to the Paz Church in Belterra for the Sunday service. The following days the team assisted in the communities of Amapá, Trevo, São Pedro and Nova Aliança. I could not be with the team in these other communities, but I heard reports later that many people were blessed by their work.
May God bless you all. Until next time!
Edson
Please, click on this picture to see the album.
