Happy Thanksgiving!

God is opening up doors of opportunity like never before in Brazil.  The needs are great and yet the laborers and resources are few. The Lord is allowing us to partner with several other mission organizations to speed up the process of getting our folks a viable/ functioning flight program in Western Brazil. Pray with us as to how you can be involved.

Moving onto Bolivia.  In this last trip to Bolivia, I was so impressed with the miracles of God.  My time in Bolivia was very short and jammed with agenda items.  First, I was to fly with a returning pilot and make sure our standards were being met.  Second, I wanted to meet with all of our team and make sure things were going well and moving ahead.

Wouldn’t you know it, the Indigenous people decided that it was time to burn their gardens and the whole country was covered with a blanket of smoke.  Needless to say, flying was a little more challenging and the first day the Lord allowed us to get into a mission station in the middle of the jungle.  The folks there were very grateful for all we were able to take in.  The one Bolivian missionary had been in the tribe for nearly a month without his wife.  We were able take her and their son back into the tribe.  What a miracle to see them reunited again in spite of the smoke, wind and the marginal strip to boot.  God’s hand was on us for sure.

Because of the conditions there, Tony, the pilot, and myself were not able to finish the required flight check.  We decided to come back the next day with some sick Indians that had been getting help in a hospital in Cochabamba. Along with those Indians, it was decided to take the missionary’s pastor, Gustavo, into the tribe for some time of encouragement and fellowship.

The pastor and I spent some quality time together talking about Bolivia and the ministry going on in his own country.  He wanted to express to me the need of the aviation program in Bolivia.  He said it was a necessary tool, even for the national people, to reach these remote Indigenous groups with the Gospel. 

I asked him to explain.  He told me that the very people that we had flown in the day before, which by the way was a 1.5 hour flight, had taken between 2 and 3 weeks to arrive in their village.  Can you imagine taking a small child and a pregnant wife on that long of a canoe trip, topped off with a long, difficult jaunt through the jungle?  The miracle of having a tool like the airplane, for sure, speeds up the advancement of the Gospel.  Besides that, having missionaries that are willing to sacrifice, make what we do so worthwhile.

Okay, so we didn’t make it into the village that day with the sick Indians and Pastor Gustavo.  God had another miracle in mind.  We flew through smoke that was so thick that we could barely see the village, let alone see the small runway hewn out of the thick jungle.  After a round trip of 3 hours, we made it safely back to Cochabamba only to find out that a lady from Gustavo’s church had a sick sister in the hospital and she wanted the pastor to come talk to her. 

This lady’s sister was ready to accept what Jesus had done for her on the cross.  I believe it was around 11:00 am that morning.  You see, the miracle was that we were supposed to be in the village, but the smoke was so thick we couldn’t land.  God knew all along that this lady needed to hear the truth of HIS Word and He used smoke to turn us around.

I am reminded that God can use a donkey or smoke or even us to do HIS work.  Let’s partner with him in what HE is doing around the world.  Please join us in this effort to reach the unreached or least reached people groups scattered around the world.

In His service and serving together,
Jason for the family