Snakes, Robbery, Murder and the Zika Virus

What do snakes, robberies, murder and the Zika Virus all have in common? They’re all a part of life here where we live in Brazil.

Over the last month or so these things seem to have become commonplace here in the jungles of SE Brazil. It’s crazy when you really stop and think about it.

There have been a long string of robberies and home invasions all over the mountain. It’s weird. It seems like the first few years we lived here there was almost zero crime here in Terra Boa. But, here recently, it’s escalated to the point where you kinda wonder what’s going on.

A month or so ago a group of robbers tried to rob one of our neighbours and he (our neighbor) pulled a gun out and the robbers fled. Only problem is that they returned and blew up one of his houses with dynamite (for real- see photo) and fire bombed the other house, literally, burning it to the ground! What the heck!? This is Terra Boa, Brazil! This kind of stuff doesn’t happen here… so we thought.

All that remains is the chimney and the bathroom. the rest was burnt to the ground.

Here's all that remains after the house was hit with dynamite 

There’s a motorcycle track that Matthew and his friends go to just a few kilometers from our house. The family that runs it charges $ for people to race there and for the food that they serve during events. Here recently, after an event that they held, robbers waited until the event was over (and everyone was gone) then they shot and killed the owner of the track and stole his money. He was holding his infant daughter in his arms as it happened too. Very Sad.

Last week one of our son’s friend's was shot and killed right on main street in Terra Boa. It’s like we’re living in the wild west or something. And with practically zero police presence way out here in the jungle it’s a little sketchy sometimes.

A view of what our mountain looks like from the highway. It's the tallest peak on the left.
The town of Terra Boa lies at the bottom of the mountain.

The town of Terra Boa looks so quiet and uneventful. It's hard to
believe that this is where a murder just took place.

Then there’s the whole Zika Virus thing that’s happening. I read this morning that they're calling it a pandemic and everyone’s freaking out about it. The World Health Organization has declared a global emergency in response to the spread of Zika. The main concern is for pregnant mothers and the brain damage that it’s causing with their unborn children. As of now there’s no cure or treatment for it either.  

They actually just found the mosquito that carries the disease right here in Terra Boa too. Great, huh? And get this- the symptoms are fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes (conjunctivitis), muscle pain, neurological problems and headaches. Well, here’s the crazy thing- Me, Matthew and MJ are all showing symptoms for it! Ha! 

Mosquitos and mosquito bites are just part of where we live. Expecting to live in the jungle without mosquitos is like thinking you're gonna live in the city and never see a car. So what do you do?

But, even with all those things happening, the thing that’s totally insane right now is the amount of snakes that we’re seeing. It’s almost like someone’s playing a bad joke on us or something. Here, I’ll just give you an example of our snake drama this week alone.

We’re having to put in a new septic tank. And the way they do it here is to dig a massive hole (vault) in the ground. And then they brick the inside walls of the hole after it’s dug. Once it’s bricked they pour a cement cap on top of the huge vault. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… it’s all dug by hand too! That’s right, we (and, by we, I mean Matthew and one of his friends from the mountain- haha!) had to dig a huge hole 8’ deep x 6’ wide x 15’ long. Not fun.

Here's Matthew down in the hole that he was digging for the septic tank.
Can't you tell how excited he is? lol!

When we had the brick delivered for the project we went ahead and put part of the bricks down in the hole so that we could start mortaring them-in the next day. Well, it rained that night so in the morning Matthew jumped down in the hole to throw the bricks out so they didn't get waterlogged (because the hole had filled with rain water). 

As he was grabbing bricks and throwing them up to his friend- suddenly his friend jumped back as he let the brick fall to the ground. There was a Jararaca (one of the world’s most poisonous snakes) coiled up inside the brick that Matthew had just grabbed and threw with his bare hand!

The next day we killed another Jararaca right in our backyard. Then, the day before yesterday, MJ and the kids took the dogs for a walk out on the trails here at the camp. When they got to the part of the trail where you have to jump over a small creek, 2 of the kids and a couple of the dogs jumped across first. Then, when MJ was just about to jump, the kids yelled, “Mom, stop!” And when she looked at the spot where she was about to jump to- there it was! The biggest snake (her words) she's seen since we moved here. It was raised up and ready to strike! And it was a Jararaca: ( They held the dogs and waited for the snake to leave- which it finally did.

When she got back from the walk and told me the story I was thankful and I was mad. I was thankful to The Lord that He protecter her, the kids and all the dogs. Any one of them could've been bitten but they weren’t. And I was mad because I didn't get to kill it and it’s still out there somewhere.

Later that evening Me and MJ were going to the truck stop to use the internet. We got into the car and as we were headed up the driveway on our way off the property, MJ yelled out, “there's another snake!” So I stopped the car and backed up. Yep, there it was. Another freakin’ Jararaca. Coiled up with it’s head raised in the air, mouth open displaying it’s hypodermic-like fangs- just wanting to strike. 

So I got out of the car, opened the trunk and looked for something to kill it with. All I could find was a tire iron. So I picked up the tire iron and as I started walking towards the snake I realised that trying to hit it with a tire iron wasn't going to be a good idea. The tire iron was only about 18” long and the snake was lunging toward me, striking, trying to bite me every time I got close to it and I was just gonna get bit. So I started re-thinking my strategy.

There wasn’t anything around to kill it with. I was so frustrated because the only good snake is a dead snake, right? But then, as I looked around, I saw a cement culvert pipe laying about 30’ away (we were in the process of installing it under our driveway) so I tried to roll it over the snake. But the closer I got to the snake the more it tried striking me and I couldn't roll the pipe over the snake because it kept backing up every time the culvert pipe got close to it: (

Here's the cement culvert pipe I unsuccessfully rolled over the snake

Eventually it slithered away into the jungle but I was furious at this point. That’s 2 snakes that got away in the same day. Man!

Then, yesterday, Matthew put his hand on top of the wall in front of our house and thought he was touching a piece of rope. Nope, it wasn't a rope- it was another stupid snake! This, thank God, was just a 4’ long tree snake. Non-poisonous but still aggressive. He threw it on the ground and then killed it. 

Here's the snake after Matthew threw it on the ground and killed it: )

Matthew had Diogo hold up the snake (for scale) and it was almost as long as he was tall!

And MJ just wrote me a minute ago and said Kevin just killed another Jararaca next to the orange bunkhouse when he was weed eating! Craziness. What’s up with all the snakes!?

With all this stuff happening right now, I’ll be honest with you, it gets you wondering if it’s worth the risk of even being here. I can honestly say that if this would've happened earlier in my walk with Christ I would've already cut a dust trail so fast off this mountain- it would've made your head spin. Because who wants to be robbed, killed, contract the  Zika Virus or be harassed or bitten by poisonous snakes? No one.

But here’s the fact of the matter- none of those things should determine whether or not we stay or go. Answering the question, “what is God’s will for our family?” is what should determine if we stay or go. 

By us not running, we’re showing our kids what it looks like to truly follow Jesus. And if we leave just because things are stupid-crazy then we’re not showing them that ‘following Jesus at all costs’ is what our lives are suppose to look like.

If we left solely because of the circumstances it’d be like saying to them "hey, follow God’s plan for your life unless it gets dangerous or uncomfortable. Then, if that happens, just do something different because God will understand. He wants you to be comfortable and safe kids.” No! We can’t show them that.

Now don’t get me wrong. We’re praying for wisdom and we’re definitely ‘willing' to do something different. lol! Trust me on that one: ) And we’re not living oblivious to what’s happening around us either. We keep our gates closed/locked, we have a bunch of dogs that will attack anyone who comes on the property uninvited, we keep our eyes open and we carry machetes to kill the snakes with, we spray bug repellant on our bodies (trying to keep the mosquitos away)- we’re trying to live wisely. But we’re not making decisions that will change or alter our path unless it’s what we think God wants us to do. Because that’s what true christianity is, right? 

So I say all that to say this- “what is it in our lives that dictates what we do and what direction we take? Is it a desire to do what He wants? Is it a desire to follow His plan for our lives? Or is it something else? Because, when it’s all said and done, I think it would be better to suffer (and possibly die) inside the will of God than it would be to live safe and more comfortable outside of His will.” What do you think?

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

               Jesus- in Matthew 16:24-26

Love Ya,

Jim

PS- As MJ and I were on our way to the truck stop tonight (to post this blog) we saw a Jararaca crossing the road. So I backed up and ran it over... 4 times! Man, that feels better: )

Weakness

Ever wonder what it looks like around our house? Here's a typical view- thick vegetation and jungle: )

There’s never a dull moment here at the camp. The other day our water went out for the millionth time. In case you didn’t know, we get our water from a small plastic pipe (about 1/2" in diameter) that runs about 1km up toward the top of the mountain. This pipe weaves it’s way from the camp, through the jungle, up the mountain and into a small stream near the top. There, the water goes into the pipe and it flows 1km (gravity fed) all the way down the mountain, back through the jungle and into a big water tank that sits at the top of our property. There, it fills up the main tank and then the water is distributed to all the other tanks on the property. That’s it. There's no back-up plan and there's no water company to assist us when the water is out either. 

Here's the view, looking over the tops of the canopies of the trees, high up in the
mountains (at cloud level)- that's where we live.

And the water is constantly going out. Either by the pipe becoming clogged (with sand) where it sits in the creek, by the pipe breaking (do to it becoming brittle because of the elements) somewhere along the 1km route it travels on it's way to the property or by air getting into the line. When the latter happens you have to follow the pipe and, by the process of elimination, disconnect every connection/fitting until you figure out where the air is. Then you have to bleed the line so that the water can make it’s way, once again, to the camp. The funny thing (funny ironic-not funny haha) is that it usually happens at night. So most of the troubleshooting and repairs are done in pitch black darkness. Awesome, huh?

 Well, the other day, our water was out so I asked Kevin (Maryssa’s boyfriend) to ride the motorcycle up to the main tank to make sure that water was flowing into it. When he got back from checking it he handed me his phone and this is the picture that was on it.

???

What the heck!?

One of the churches that we do camps with had donated 2 large water tanks to us last year to try and help us out with our water problems. Water outages is one of the biggest issues we have- next to 1,000 different types of spiders, poisonous snakes, jungle cats, rats, bats, porcupine attacks, deadly mosquitos, sweltering heat, flooding and constant power outages, that is: )

Anyway, they gave us these 2 large fibreglass tanks. One was 3,000 litres (approximately 792 gallons) and one was 5,000 litres (approximately 1,321 gallons). They were both used and had cracks, but they made the repairs to them before they brought them out to the camp. Well, after only a couple of months the 3,000 litre tank sprang a leak. We tried to repair it but it just sprang a bigger leak so we decided to just ‘punt' on that tank. It supplied water to the 2 upper bunkhouses and was only used during camps anyway, so no biggie. We had an extra 250 litre plastic tank just sitting around so we just put that in it’s place. No problem.

But the 5,000 litre tank, that they gave us, was our main reserve of water for the whole camp. Without it we had no way of feeding all the other tanks on the property. So back to the picture… Our main water tank looked like someone had detonated a stick of dynamite in it or something. What in the world happened?

After closer examination we saw that what had happened was this… the place where the repair was made (the weakness), with that much water constantly pushing against it, eventually just gave way and burst. Causing all 5,000 litres of water to rush down the hill and left us with nothing but a partial shell of a tank and no water on the property: (

So, long-story-short, we had to go out and buy a new tank so that we could restore the water and actually function again. You don’t realize how ‘not’ having water totally paralyses you and how much you really can’t live without it until you don’t have it (water). Anyway, the new tank is installed now. It’s smaller but it’s plastic and should last us for years: )

But, now that it’s all said and done, I guess there’s a lesson in this whole thing too… "If something is gonna break, it’s probably gonna happen where the weakness is.” 

Just because we fix something in our lives (aka- make a repair) whether it's something spiritually, emotionally, relationally, financially, physically, maritally, etc., we can’t just neglect that area by thinking that it’s gonna be OK forever. We need to pay attention to that area and be aware that if something’s gonna go wrong it'll more than likely be there (in the area that we already fixed). Because even though it’s fixed, it could possibly still be vulnerable.

That’s hard for my personality. I tend to look at life like a punch list (or a check list). I have this list. And I’m constantly going through my list and knocking-out tasks. And as soon as the task is completed (or conquered) I move on to the next item. But I can’t look at everything in life like that. For some things I need to be preventative rather than just curative. Proactive rather than reactive. Observing rather than oblivious. Because there are some areas in life that need to be constantly maintained. We can’t just fix something once and yell out, “next!”- thinking that it'll never need our attention again. Everything doesn't work that way.

What about you? Could there possibly be areas in your life that you’ve already worked on that you need to go back (and look at) to make sure that the repair is still good? Or do you just keep moving through life until it (whatever ‘it' is) explodes and leaves you in a real mess? I guess it’s something to think about.

Love Ya,

Jim

Something I’ll Never Forget

They finally graded and added asphalt to the big hill near our house! WooHoo! We're almost like city folks again: )

Sometimes I question what we do here in Brazil. Is it really making a difference in the kids’ lives that we try to minister to? Are we making any kind of impact at all or are we just entertaining them with all of our activities? Actually, I question our ministry all the time. I don’t want to just stay busy doing ‘stuff' and, in our busyness, not really be making an eternal impact in the lives of the ones we’re trying to reach.

Looking back over the years I can see that there were so many times that we did things (i.e., programs at church) that kept us busy but that’s all it was- us staying busy. There was no real eternal significance to the program other than just having something scheduled and going on. It’s like we equated busyness with effectiveness. If you’ve been in church for any amount of time at all you know exactly what I’m talking about, right? It’s something that just happens.

Well, here in Brazil I feel like we’re literally 'pouring out our lives’ doing what we do. And I’m not meaning that to sound like something that’s admirable either. I mean I literally feel like we’re pouring out our life. It’s like I feel older and more beat-up with each passing day. It’s pretty pathetic, actually. Over the last couple of years I really can’t remember waking-up in the morning thinking- “man, I feel refreshed!” No, I just consistently wake-up feeling tired, sore and covered in bug bites. 

Actually, just to give you a typical occurrence in our life, the other night MJ woke me up around 4am saying that she just got bit by something. I flipped on the light only to see that her entire body was red, swollen and covered in little bumps. She had been bitten by some kind of spider. 

No, these aren't goosebumps. This is day 2 and even though most of the sweeping was gone,
MJ's body was still covered in these little red bumps caused by the spider bite.

She’s OK now but it was touch and go for a few days. So, to think that we could ever just be ‘staying busy and that’s all?’… no thank you!  It’s not worth it. 

So, having said that, I’m always evaluating and re-evaluating what we do to make sure that what we do really matters for eternity. I’m always questioning our programs to make sure that they're not just ‘fun events’ but rather events that are pointing people toward Jesus. 

Here recently I was doing that again (questioning our real effectiveness) and as soon as I start asking The Lord if what we’re doing is really working, it’s like He’ll pulled back the curtain and let me see something that really encouraged us to keep doing what we’re doing. 

We had just finished a church service at one of the orphanages that we minister at regularly. The Lord really ministered to the kids- you could tell. Then, after service, everyone left except one little girl. This particular girl is one of the wilder ones too. She came over to me at the soundboard as I was breaking everything down and asked me to put on a worship song (that’s in Portuguese) for her. We went through my playlist together and found one that she liked.

Right then MJ walked up to ask me a question and this little girl asked her to sit with her on the front row and listen to the song with her. It was really unusual for this little girl to ask for something like this because she’s typically running around and not sitting still. So, MJ said OK and they sat down as I hit play.

MJ put her arm around her and this little girl buried her face in MJ’s chest, closed her eyes and they began singing this song (in Portuguese) together. After the first verse I looked over and they were both sitting there, both with their eyes closed, crying and singing this song. It’s at that point I could tell that God was doing something special and that this little girl was getting it ('it' being’ the thing that we’ve been proclaiming to her over the last few years- which is The Gospel). 

Even though nobody else even knew that it happened- it was probably one of the most fulfilling things that that I’ve ever experienced in our 18+years of ministry. To think that God cares so much for this one little orphan girl that He sent a family from another culture, to another country, just so she could hear the Gospel and experience His love- it’s overwhelming to think about.   

As long as I live I’ll never forget that picture in my mind of that day. My wife, that little girl, their tears, the way they were holding each other and that song. Oh yeah, that song. It wasn't some cutesy kids song either. It’s a song that we actually sang/sing back in the States. It think it was written in 2007 and You’ve probably heard it before. But think about these lyrics being sung in Portuguese by a little Brazilian orphan girl as she's sitting alone in a room with an American missionary, weeping and singing to The Lord. Think about what’s being sung and you’ll see why I knew she was getting what we’ve been telling her and why it impacted me so much. Here’s the song:

To the cross I look

To the cross I cling

Of it's suffering I do drink

Of it's work I do sing

For on it my Savior 

both bruised and crushed

Showed that God is love

And God is just

At the cross You beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees

and I am lost for words 

so lost in love

I’m sweetly broken

wholly surrendered

What a priceless gift, undeserved life

Have I been given

Through Christ crucified

You’ve called me out of death

You’ve called me into life

And I was under Your wrath

Now through the cross I’m reconciled

In awe of the cross 

I must confess

How wondrous 

Your redeeming love and

How great is Your faithfulness

At the cross You beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees

and I am lost for words 

so lost in love

I’m sweetly broken

wholly surrendered

Love You Guys!

Jim and MJ