Michael & Katrina Geurink - Brazil

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February 2010

I´ve had a FANTASTIC week teaching at the Ticuna seminary!  THANK YOU so much for your prayers upholding me this week.  We started off Sunday with a service that included presentations from each tribe showing the rest of us how they praise God in their culturally appropriate way.  I´ve been to several other indigenous people´s meetings in which this is done, and it´s always a taste of that future time when people from every tribe and ethnicity and language will worship God together; it´s also an incentive to get the job done, to work in the harvest to see it happen.  What a privilege to be here! 
 
Check out the attached picture of the Ticuna presentation.  Also in there is a shot of Ian in the front of the canoe on the way to church that morning with Peru on the left bank and Brasil on the right as we approach the mouth of the Javarizinho River before hanging a right on the Javari and then merging onto the Solimões for the rest of the trip.  Google Maps hasn´t quite figured out how to give turn by turn directions on the rivers here, but if you ask around you can get there eventually.  The other two pictures are of the whole seminary group and my 3rd year theology class.  My class was small because for various reasons they weren´t able to hold the seminary for 3 years in a row.
 
Our warfare is not against flesh and blood.  Our adversary does not want this seminary happening, does not want students from all the different tribes in this region to be allowed out of their area to study.  I can´t jeopardize the non-Ticuna students who were able to make it by sharing with you the names of the different tribes represented or showing pictures of them.  If they asked permission to leave their tribe and study, say, health care or generator maintenance, there wouldn´t be any problem.  Leaving to study the Word of their Creator is absolutely forbidden.  But God knows that, and if we pray according to His will, if we pray that every tribe would hear the good news of the Kingdom, He will hear us and do great things in His perfect timing.  Meanwhile, we´re not waiting around elsewhere for a door to open wide so we can start to mobilize; we´re your representatives right here on site so that if there´s a crack in the door we can stick our big toes in there right away.  Keep praying!
 
Just got word day before yesterday that Customs reversed its decision that the ultralight only needed to be sent back out of the country.  Quick recap for those who may not be up to speed: we´re attempting to import a small ultralight as a first step into a different type of aviation that drastically reduce operation and maintenance costs and actually allow us to do ministry with the airplane more than just a couple hours per month.  The goal is to restart medevac operations in an area that will generate points of contact and relationships with tribes that have been off limits.  Despite much research into the best way to import the airplane, the paperwork was not to Customs´ liking and we are required to ship it back out of the country to try again.  (They could just as easily have seized the airplane, and we would have lost it.)  We were planning to ship it upriver to Leticia, Colombia and then right next door into Tabatinga, Brasil, and we had all the shipping and customs process lined up; I spent two days in Colombia last week setting all that up which would have been MUCH less expensive than shipping back to the USA.  Then this week Customs announced that we could NOT send it to Colombia, we HAVE to send it back to the country of origin to be able to try again, and when they told us this we had 3 days to get it on a boat out!!!  Here I am teaching Indians in the jungle, and Katrina had to deal with it.  (Phone contact between Katrina and me, even when I go upriver to the city, is VERY difficult and expensive.)  Looks like it´s going to cost us US$3,600 just for shipping to get it to the USA plus another US$1,500 for the paperwork and freight forwarder and port fees on this side--still don´t know what the receiving end is going to charge.  I then have two months to either ship it back to Brasil which will probably be about the same price, or truck it up to somewhere in the USA to wait until we can put enough money together to try again.  So, there´s a US$10,000 project totally above and beyond what we had available for this container.  Please help us with this by praying, and if God leads you to give toward this, please let ABWE know it´s for the Geurinks´ aviation fund.  Thank you!
 
What news a week generates!  I guess we just stay busy here. 
 
I´ll close with some Really Good News: the rest of what was in the container with the ultralight, including Katrina´s gas dryer for the very very wet season and solar panels so we have electricity while we travel the rivers and the kids´ school books ... were released and are now On Our Boat!!!  WooHOO!!  That has been a long road.  Thank you so much for praying for that.  Your prayers have been answered!
 
Michael
 
 


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