The team of dentists from Brasilia came again and they brought more dentists and more helpers. Since the inception of this project the leadership felt God calling them to serve others to share Christ through acts of love by taking care of people teeth. The teams t-shirts read “Because Jesus sent me”. They had a busy two weeks serving the needy by providing dental services. For the first week we converted CDR into a large dental office. One room has been permanently transformed into a dental office for more upcoming visits. We set up 5 working dentist chairs and the dentists worked almost non-stop each day, sometimes not ending until past midnight. After the week at CDR finished, they went on the river to serve people in 2 river communities near Porto de Moz for another week. Richie Bouthillier met up with them with his mission boat to help with the work. They converted one boat into a dental office and they also went out into the community to teach the importance of dental care. All in all it was a huge success. I think it would be fair to say that they helped hundreds of people and performed several hundred procedures.
Unfortunately, this year was no different than last and they had to perform many teeth extractions. However, the dentist team came better prepared. They brought 3 professional denture makers with all their denture making equipment. They worked tirelessly trying to serve the needs of the people. They setup up shop in our mission office where they would make molds of the person’s mouth, plaster the molds, set the fake teeth, and then polish and refine the dentures. It was awesome and I believe that all the recipients were very grateful. It was a monumental task but they were able to complete the goal and the results were amazing.
Recently we had the death of a very nice man in a rural community that the church has been reaching out to in missions. We had the wake at the church and he was surrounded by many family and friends. To give you some insight, when someone passes away here the wake and the funeral happen almost immediately, and they usually have the body buried within 24 – 48 hours. The family members will stay with the body for the whole time.
Introspectively, death has a rude way of reminding us of our own mortality. It is a slap in our face that says that we are mortal and wakes us up to the reality of death and what lies ahead for us when we die, like, will we go to heaven or hell. During funerals here, Elba usually poses that question to the living and gives them an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Savior so that they can have the full assurance of a place in heaven. Maybe, 1 or 2 people will indicate that they want to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. At this funeral, we had many people stand and come forward to seal their destination with Christ. In the midst of sadness….there was joy.
Camilly and Alyssa are doing well and the latest thing going on their lives is Pokemon. Whenever we are driving around we are always on the look for those sly characters. We have even went out as a family to search for Pokemon. I think the girls are on level 10. Here are the girls with some of their friends waiting to see the dentist. Alyssa looked scared…they did great. Camilly gave me this sweet card for my birthday.
Prayer request: Elba and I are going to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey with some of our friends from the Brasilia and Central church. We got the offer to go last year but refused because we would not be able to afford the cost. Our friends came back to us and said that if we could pay for 1 ticket they would pay for the other. WOW, what an amazing generous offer. We accepted and we have been saving our money month, after month, after month and finally paid for the trip last month. As you can imagine, we are very excited to go. Please pray for our safety and peace to get there and back home, that the trip will draw us in deeper relationship with Jesus, that the girls will be safe and have a great time with our family here, and that everything will go along as scheduled without incident.
Thank you so much, and please also continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.
Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa
Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:
The Xingu Mission
P.O Box 340785
Columbus, Ohio 43234
Or On-line donations at:
