We are Alive!!

Hello everybody! We are alive! Hahahaha! I know that you have not heard from us for about a week now so you were all probably wondering if we ever made it here, haha! Well, we made it safely to Brasil and we have been on an Amazon Outreach boat trip for about a week. The trip was so great and God really showed His might and power on this trip. Michael and I joined a group of students from Baylor including one of our really good friends from high school, Landen. They were so kind to let us come with them on the boat and travel to 3 different villages to do ministry. They were such great friends to us and it was such a blessing to serve God with them. We were also able to build new friendships with our translators and, of course, they helped Michael and I with our Portuguese. It was just great to see God's hand move in such powerful ways.
In the first village, Barreira Do Andira, we were able to see the future sight of their church. The people are very excited to have this church, but are a little skeptical because it is new and they have had past experiences with corrupt churches. The Amazon region, as a whole, has a problem with a very corrupt form of Catholicism. The doctrine is not much different than Catholicism in the US but their leadership and influence is very dishonest and damaging. Please pray that the Lord will open their hearts to see Jesus in this church rather than simply a building or imperfect people.
 In the second village, Castanhal, we were invited to come and meet all of the families and spend time playing games with their children. There are only about 30 families in this village so it was a great time to get to know each family and share the love of Christ with them. Like the other village, they are only aware of the corruption among the other churches so many of the people were surprised when we came explaining what a personal relationship with Jesus is. Many of them were very eager to accept Christ rather than just adhere to an impersonal set of rules and regulations that the church usually gives them. Many of these people are held captive by the "church", but the blood of Jesus has set them free! Although my blog title does mean that Michael and I are "physically alive", we are also "spiritually alive" through Jesus Christ! He is the only one who can give us true freedom. This week, for the first time some people were able to see that through Jesus Christ comes freedom! By his wounds we are free! It was so awesome to see their faces light up with joy when they learned of the sacrifice Jesus paid for them. All too often we take for granted Jesus' sacrifce and it was a great to be reminded this week that there are still so many people who have never heard what Jesus did for them!
The final village, called Sao Sebastao, was such a great place because God did amazing things in this village. This village has never had any visitors from America before and they were so surprised to see that we had come to visit them. At first, they were very hesistant and scared but throughout the day, we could hardly separate from them. God really opened their hearts to hear the message that we were bringing to them. This was the first time many of them had even heard of Jesus! We had so many to accept Christ including the President of the village (who was a woman) and her husband. We gave out many Bibles and just showed the love of God to them. It was such a powerful time and you could just feel the Spirit of God working in that village. Please continue to pray that all of these villages will continue on the right path and continue to seek Jesus Christ daily.
The entire week, I had the amazing privilege to work with a family of dentists from Nebraska. Mr. and Mrs. Bush are amazing dentists and it was so cool to learn from them this week. At all of the villages, we spent the whole day extracting teeth and ridding the mouths of infection, while teaching public health. Even though I'm really not interested in pursuing dentistry, it was so great to work with them and just love on all of those people while they were getting their teeth pulled. It was so evident that the Lord was with us this entire week and we just give Him all the glory for everything that He did this week.
We are now back in Parintins where we will spend the next 6 weeks. We are having so much fun spending time with the family that we are living with. Today Michael and I watched both Avatar and Toy Story in Portuguese, haha! We are learning so much from their two kids, David and Daniel. Continue to pray that the Lord will be with us daily and continue to guide us in everything. Also pray for good health and safety. So far, neither of us have been sick! We miss all of our family and friends so much, but know that we are having an amazing time and the Lord is really teaching/using us in powerful ways!

Graces a Deus,

Michael and Leah Shell