Porto Velho - Resseca Community

Well here is the first of a number of entries I hope to make on the various places we visited and on the many things I learned about them. One of my hopes and goals was to learn as much as I could about each place to be able to share what I have learned with you so that you may have ideas of what God is doing in South America.

In our final week in Porto Velho, our group had the opportunity, along with a few staff from the base and a few students of Missions Adventures, to go into the Amazon and live alongside the river community people of the Resseca Community. It was quite an amazing experience in that week and I don't think any of us will forget that time...along with the crazy ferry ride that took us to and from. They certainly do pack you in in hammocks on those things. The boat is shorter than I am and they stack you 3 people on top of each other. It definitely made for a fun but long ride :)

We had the opportunity to work with the children there. They are amazing and so beautiful. As well we had the opportunity to help them prepare to redo the roof on the school house. We went deeper into the Amazon jungle to help cut down these specific type of palms they would use for the roof. We split up into many groups, each going with a man from the community and would drag the many branches to our meeting spot and then it was another 30 minute hike back to the little canoe boats we took in, carrying 5-7 palms at once. In total they needed 750 palms for the roof and we actually made this goal in the two days! These were an amazing but extremely exhausting two days. We learned so much, saw into the lives of these people and worked hard and got super muddy!

Louise and his wife are the missionary couple at this community and they have been there working for the last 7 years, arriving in 2003. Over the time there has been many positive changes and advancements in this community. For one, malaria is a big issue in these places and in 2005 they tested 180 people for malaria, a staggering 160 were positive. Since then they have been able to setup a malaria lab, which the community has been a part of and they themselves have become educated in and in 2009 when they tested for malaria, they only had 15 cases the entire year.

They held a microscope school in 2009 which included 6 people. At the end they took 3 to look for jobs in the city. 4 people have previously completed this school and found jobs. This is huge for them to have a job in the city, especially in healthcare fields, as those in the river communities are known for their lack of education.

In the last 7 years they have started a Malaria lab, a Pharmacy and even have a place for a Dentist and Doctor. Currently, however, the Dentist only pulls teeth if there is a problem. Their hope is to have some one come with equipment who can actually fix and prevent as well as do fillings and put on braces. The Pharmacy is the best on the river (that starts in Columbia and approximately 150 + communities along) as it has the most medication. There is a Doctor that works in the pharmacy and every 45 days he goes down along the river to check on the people and to attend accordingly and administering medication as needed. They do still need more Doctors and Aid female nurses are definitely needed.

Catholicism is big, sometimes prohibiting their kids from coming to the Christian school they built. They try to work alongside but it doesn’t always work, but the health care has helped to reach them more. God told them to work only with little kids with alphabets even though they may be prohibited to go to church things. They now have 30 members in the church, and the pastor of the church is right from the community and this is huge. He did YWAM and has no previous schooling but studies about parasites and works in the lab as well– and all this is with almost no schooling. Gods work in all ways here.

There are approx. 50, 000 river communities in this place on 3 connecting rivers (black river, wood river and ??). The obstacles that get in the way here are the same as in the big city – prostitution, abuse, drugs, adultery.

There are usually no teachers for the pre-school age and until last June there was only one guy in the clinic. They need doctors, teachers, and economics, those to work with young kids so they don’t get into drugs, and the need for people to come and live here and help. Churches in the area don’t get involved because the communities are too small and therefore not enough to be converted.

Average children for a river community family is 9-10/family as children are gift from God but the problem is there is not enough planting space as the area becomes more built up for these large homes and then not enough food is grown. The young ones have to leave and go to the city. Girls of 16 years already are going into the city into prostitution. Also there are no stores or shopping places anywhere around. The closest one is over 2 hours away or the 9-13 hours to Porto Velho. They grow what produce they can and then have to go into the city to sell and at the same time buy all their necessities to bring back to their communities.

Louise shared two visions they have for the future. The first being they want to be able to build a water system, which would be built away from the community into the jungle, approximately a 50 min walk to higher level land, where it does not flood. They would need pipelines built that go directly to the housing so that even in flood times (which I believe can last around 5 months) there will be clean, drinking waters. They pretty much lose their clean water during the flood season and end up having no choice but to drink the same water that they use to shower in, pee in, clean with, etc. Thus the reason for the many illnesses. Thankfully though because of the pharmacy they are able to give the children medication against worms twice a year.

Another vision they have is for a school for trades and higher education. A school that would be so great that people from Porto Velho would come for training. They were given this vision 2 years ago and were told that someone would come to help start this school. Well the amazing part of this story is that it appears as though God brought Alef (one of the members of my group) to this community to fulfill this vision. Alef began talking to them as he saw a need for a school there and as he is a teacher and also had begun the process of starting a school in Africa, felt God calling him to do the same for this community. It was truly amazing to see how Alef has been used in this and how excited and amazed the community was to have hope that this vision was now able to begin that process. The goal is to have something started in 2 years time. Please pray for these people and for Alef and for all who are a part of this project. God can and does work and use anybody and everybody to put together his plans for his people.