Three months in the Jungle

Twelve weeks ago today I arrived at the Puraquequera mission school in the Amazon rainforest. It’s hard for me to believe that so much time has passed already and yet at the same time it seems like I’ve always been here. I love all the kids and missionary staff, the jungle setting of the school with a great view of the river is always beautiful, and I really enjoy all my different jobs.  My days here have fallen into a regular schedule that starts by getting ready and simply walking to work at the dining hall by 8:30 am. In the dining hall 3 or 4 of us cook a variety of foods (mostly American and Brazilian but we also make Mexican, Italian, Korean, Chinese, etc) all morning until we serve lunch for students and staff at noon, usually to around 50 people. After lunch is cleaned up, I have an afternoon free for cleaning teeth some days or my scheduled classes: helping with drama, teaching piano lessons or art, and Portuguese lessons for me. Sometimes I can even squeeze in extra hour or two to rest from the heat in my rede (hammock), sleeping or reading books from the school library… I’ve finished almost 23 books so far. Around 5 pm I head back to the dining hall where I’m in charge of preparing or setting out and serving supper to the students by myself, but only four nights a week. One of the things I like about fixing meals at night is the view from the dining hall of some amazing sunsets reflected on the Amazon River. Clean-up from supper is usually finished a little before seven, which gives me a few minutes to walk over to the school where I’m study hall monitor from 7-8:15 on Monday night for middle school students and 7-8:50 on Wednesday night at the high school. Then I find my way home through the dark and do a few things around the house until the campus generator is shut down and the lights go out at 9:30 pm. In the dark I can still read by candlelight or flashlight and also work on my computer until its battery dies. And as long as there are no scorpions in the shower or spiders in my bed, I usually have a quiet evening and soon turn in for the night. The next day starts the schedule over again with some variation, but not much… So sometimes- as much as I love my cooking job, classes, and especially the students- the kitchen does get very hot, washing dishes seems to never end, and the bugs are a constant problem. And at times God has to remind me exactly why I’m living in the jungle and how it all relates to knowing Christ and making Him known. So in honor of my 3 month anniversary in Brazil, let me share what God has been teaching me. Soon after I arrived at the school, I noticed some of the staff wearing school tee shirts with a picture and printed words on the back saying:
                 

“We teach…”
(the silhouette of a tribal person carrying a long set of bow and arrows)
“… so that they can be taught”

 

While the school teachers here are not actually teaching people in the jungle tribes, they are teaching the children of missionaries working in tribes such as the Yanomami, Mayoruna, Kulina, and Marubo, and other indigenous people groups. Other parents are working at the mission office in Manaus, and serving as missionaries in Sao Paulo in southern Brazil, or even other countries such as Mozambique, Africa. Jesus says in Matthew 28:19-20 to “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even until the end of the world.” As the staff here provides missionary children with a safe and stable place to live, learn, and grow in the Lord during the school year, their parents are enabled to concentrate on teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every tribe and tongue and nation where many of us will never be able to go. So God has been teaching me that right now my part in the Great Commission has to do with the tee shirt saying, just slightly modified – I cook, so the students can eat and be taught, so they AND the tribes can know Christ as Savior. And that is what makes living in the jungle of Brazil, cooking for the kids, and teaching their classes not only a joy, but the heat, bugs, and mountains of dirty dishes worth it all as well.