People Call Me Yeti

We will be heading home today.  It has been a great trip, but I’m ready to be back to the states.  The dedication of the boat was fantastic.  Thank God the boat is in the water and she floats!

Yesterday we were able to visit a more tribal village.  They already had a water filter so we took them some food packets and got a tour of the village.

It seems like this trip we’ve just been going going going!  It has been great!  We spent about two and half days out on the river.  While out we were able to install three water filters!  It’s hard to pick out stories to tell so here are a few photos with my quick descriptions.

This was an amazing view leaving ASAS.  The trip has been amazing weather wise.  I don’t think the temperature hasn’t been over 90 degrees (F) and I think the humidity has only been about 85%, which is MUCH cooler that when we were here in March last year.  Some rain, nothing too bad until today… (photo below)

One of the water filters that we installed was at a school.  The kids were very interested in our camera’s.  Mike let them take a few pictures with his camera.

Before we left the school some of the kids wanted Josh’s “power juice.”  He had some gatoraid in his water bottle and they all thought that it was power juice, so he delightfully shared the power.

One evening we were able to attend church in the interior.  Walking in I was able to take this photo of the stars.  It was gorgeous!  (A little hard to see this small…sorry no bandwidth)

The next day we installed a water filter in this house.  The woman in the white shirt is the director of the school that we installed the water filter in the day before.  It is always exciting to install a new filter in another home.

Behind the family on their porch was this sewing machine.  I thought that it was pretty cool and that Chel would be interested!

The next day we were able to install this water filter.  This filter was extremely special for Josh, because it was funded by his son, Jacob.  Jacob was lead to raise money to support water filters, and in two weeks he raised enough money for SEVEN filters to be installed.  (He’s nine years old!!!)

One afternoon we took the canoe out to get some video of the ASAS OA boat traveling down the river.  Josh and Redi in the middle and Redi Naldo (sp?) driving for us.  Redi Naldo has been trained for the water filter installation and he did the second two installations on this trip.

The sunset that evening was AMAZING!

The morning rain was a great way to wake up.  It was very light and peaceful.  It really felt like being in the jungle.

The last day on the river on our way back to ASAS, Josh baptized me on a beach of the river!  And then we swam for a little while!

We we got back to ASAS we were able to take a flight in the Cessna 206 float plane.  It’s incredible to see the jungle and the river from the air.

We did some interviews at the OA water filter plant at ASAS.  The stacks of filters waiting for delivery was a good reminder of what we’re doing and why we need to raise more support of OA.

Today at the boat builder we were truly able to experience the Amazon rains.  Unfortunately it was raining as they were trying to put the Nova Vida into the water.

Josh, Dennis and I were all sitting, watching and praying that the boat would go into the water without any more problems or any injuries.  During the rain the tractor pulling the Nova Vida got stuck in the river.

That’s all of the photos for now!  We will be up in the morning for the dedication of the boat.  Sunday we will be going by speed boat to small village that is more primitive than anywhere I have been before (still painting faces, etc).  These are the ‘plans’ but every day we take our flexibility pills and take things as they come.

I will post video when we get back to the States the internet connect here is spotty at best!

Today we were able to visit the boat builder and see the progress being made on the Nova Vida.  Unfortunately its not looking like we’ll be taking her out on the river on this trip.  There are a few things that the builder is planning to have finished this week.  They are also planning on putting the Nova Vida in the water on Friday, and we will be there to film the process.  And we will still have our dedication ceremony on Saturday!

Here is the Nova Vida ‘on wheels’ close to being ready for launch.

The CAT engine was donated by Caterpillar in Brazil.

There is so much I would love to share but so little time in the day!  It really has been an amazing trip so far and we haven’t even left for the jungle!  I’m excited for the video work that we have been doing.  We have been improving each day.

Over the next few days we are going to be installing at least three water filters for families who haven’t ever had clean water.  And we will be visiting a couple of families who have had water filters installed and they can see a huge difference in their health.

We’ve had a couple of long days!  Today we were up early and travelled about an hour and twenty minutes up the river by speed boat to an island named Terra Da Paz (Land of Peace).  Ray of Hope was given part of the island to build a community center, which we were able to get a quick tour of.  We were also able to meet a family that lives on Terra Da Paz who has had  a water filter for about a year and they explained that it’s been very good to have the filter and they haven’t been as sick as they were before having the filter!

They said this thing wasn’t dangerous, but they were about to kill it anyway (just in case…HA).  It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the legs stretch to about the size of a softball.

This last photo is for Chel.  She loves graffiti and there is plenty of it here in Manaus!

There is much more to share but I’m exhausted and it’s time to crash!

This is a short post, I hope to post a couple pictures in the morning.

We made it to Manaus and so did all of our bags! And now it’s bedtime!

Boa noite!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take the above photo, but Google provided it free of expense!  When we left Morton for Bloomington Airport this morning the temperature was -4 Degrees!  The weather in Miami a little different, 75 Degrees with 81% humidity, scattered rain and overcast (hence not being able to take the above photo).

Our flights today were both great and we ended up with all of our bags.  Mike, Dennis, Josh and I had a nice dinner here at the hotel and some great conversation!  It’s going to be an incredible week!

We have a 3am wakeup call tomorrow, leading to the airport at 3:30.

Over the past few weeks we have been preparing to head to Brazil.  Tomorrow is the day!  We head down to Miami tomorrow then to Manaus!  Over the next 12 days we will be shooting a documentary for Operation Amazon.

I think that we will have internet access while in the city, so I am going to try to blog about our trip and the progress of the documentary.

The ASAS OA boat (above) will be our home while we are out on the river.

New blog for the new year…and my Brazil trip, official first post to follow!