For most of the FAME team, excluding Kelly Warren, this was the first trip with CBM and the Amazon boat ministry. We were very competently led by Kelly, wife of FAME’s director. Navigating the varied details from airport to airport eventually found us arriving safely at Manaus, Brazil, our launching off point. After quite some time with Immigration, we were whisked through customs; boarded the bus and drove through the darkened city, to arrive at the docks and the CBM boat around 4:30 am Wednesday, meeting the Portuguese Captain and sailors during boarding.

The boat immediately headed east on the Amazon, through the night and into the morning, over the next 15 hours or so. I was overwhelmed by my first daylight view of the vast Amazon a few hours later. We feasted on an outstanding breakfast! Every meal was delicious and included the local cuisine. During the first day on the boat, we met most of the rest of the competent, friendly crew, and Wednesday evening, we stopped over at Sao Sebastian to pick up other essential, Portuguese crew\team members. (CBM runs a “tight ship(boat).”

Shortly after breakfast Wednesday, we began our first of many assignments in the days ahead, sorting out the suitcases of OTC medications, children’s items, and more which we’d all brought in our second suitcases. We divided up the bottles of medicine into smaller portions to be dispensed as needed per the American nurse practitioner, Erika Borlie-Crawford’s or Brazilian dentist, Ana Paulo’s, directions. During this time, we were able to come to know from both Earl Haubner, CBM’s Director, and Kelly, more about the needs of the thousands of villages in Amazonia, how little medical, pharmaceutical and dental care they had available to them...none within the villages themselves, it all came from the outside, with long hours by river travel. CBM’s mission trips with their teams have brought this and the”hope that anchors the soul” to many isolated villages over its 24 years of outreach in Amazonia.

By Thursday, a routine kicked in, starting with “circle up” time topside with all the American team, and as many of the Portuguese crew\team as could be spared at the moment. The views were distracting. There were Portuguese\English lessons led by Earl, songs sung in both languages and devotions shared as the daily after breakfast itinerary. By Thursday afternoon, we’d arrived at our first village, and we took up our assigned roles and began to complete the work we’d come to Amazonia to do. We’d repeat the routine eight times over the next six days, visiting eight different villages (though a ninth village came by boat while we were serving one of the villages). We were also blessed to worship twice with two different villages.

I’ve only a few paragraphs, and it cannot begin to describe the team’s individual experiences as we touched the lives of the villagers, and they in turn touched ours. Learning the ways of life on the river takes time and dedication, which is what CBM has done. Each trip could be a book within itself, and the decades of CBM’s ministry would fill volumes. Suffice it to say that whether we played with the kids, supervised funneling the villagers through, took vital statistics, passed out worm medicine, assisted the dentist (my role), passed out reading glasses or took on the significant roles of medical and dental care, each role was vitally important to meet the villages’ needs as a whole. Heb. 6:19a states: “this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure & steadfast…” and this is what I’m sure our team shared, and other teams in the past have shared, and, God willing, more teams in the future will share.