Over the last few months the airplane has been in use–Praise the Lord. Although I continue to tweak things to improve performance (added steps to make it easier to get in, changed the angle of the floats to take-off quicker, etc) I have also had a chance to be involved in a few projects. The airplane has been used to transport pastors / workers to assist them in their evangelism efforts (and when I’m along, I get to be involved!). However, I thought I would share a few building projects I was fortunate enough to be involved in. Igreja da Paz (the church “arm” of Project Amazon) at any one time has 5 to 7 projects in some stage of construction. Here I was able to transport Joaquim, the Brazilian that oversees the construction, to various works at various stages of the process:

Barrarinho: needed some TLC when we arrived:

Still needs some paint, but Jaelah is on it!

And when we left:

In Jupinda is the church my family was a part of building:

Initial “ground breaking”:

I blessed the bricklayer with a 30 minute plane ride instead of 5 hour bumpy bus ride so he could work a little longer.

Jaelah, Luke and I went back one weekend to continue the work.

This is a wooden church started in the village of Costa do Tapará. Here is the first meeting to plan the building:

The next visit as they put in the posts. This village is under water for about 2 months of the year.

This week we returned to monitor the work. You couldn’t wear your tennis shoes anymore (video)!

The church in Maripa had been using a building that is 20 years old. The church has grown and the building was in bad shape so the decision was made to build a new building. Old building:

When Janelle’s parents were visiting, we took out the bricks for the new structure. The water was not high enough to bring the big boat to the shore so all 6,000 bricks had to be off-loaded to canoes and then hauled to the shore. Praise the Lord we didn’t lose any bricks to the river Click here to see Luke learning how to drive a canoe.

We got all the bricks to the shore and then the whole community was involved carring them to the site:

This week we went back to make sure everything was ready for a team of Canadians coming next week to help put on the roof and pour the floor.

 

The kids show up and its an opportunity to do sunday school with them. It’s not a diving board, but they sure had fun (video)

All praise to the Lord