Aurora Conference

On Sunday 4th March we met with the team from the States who we were partnering with to run a conference for the local indigenous Aruyani tribe in the Amazon. Meeting them was a little overwhelming as they were the biggest group of white English speaking people I'd seen in months!!! They were a really great group of people who I loved getting to know. Ministering with them was such a privilege and great experience. The group consisted of the man who invented solar bibles. They're neat as you can take them deep into unreached places where people do not have power to charge devices, nor do they written bibles as books. Another man who is part of the company who films the Jesus movie in different languages, a man who works with the Faith 
Comes By Hearing company, a doctor, nurses, a dentist and others.

Playing with the kids on the boat before heading out from Nauta

These people all work very hard at taking the gospel to the very unreached parts of the Amazon, where people have never heard the gospel. They also devote their time to getting the gospel into a form that these indigenous people can understand it. These indigenous people's languages are not written so a lot of work is done to learn and translate the bible into these (often still being discovered) languages. 

David and Stephanie lead the conference. They have been working with the Aruyani people for many years. They own some land along the Maranon River (which is just below the Amazon river) called Aurora which they have developed and which we used for the conference. The purpose of the conference was to upskill the Aruyani people: the team ran literacy classes, music (for worship) classes, bible classes, practical classes to teach the men how to fix their peki-peki (small boats like canoes which run up and down the Amazonian rivers) motors, a medical clinic, a kids program and more.

Every year this lady has a different pet. This year she had a monkey which went everywhere 

with her holding on to her hair. Last time she had sloth!

Her daughter with the monkey

I was involved in the kids program, helped out at the medical clinic, the woman's afternoon (we organized afternoon tea for the ladies) and general running around helping other ministries. It was a lot of fun teaching the kids to wash their hands with soap, brush their teeth, playing with the kids, organizing the woman's afternoon and then seeing them enjoy themselves so much. Aruyani women are not pampered with things like afternoon tea in their culture. They are too busy working, preparing food, raising children etc so it was great to bless them in this way by loving them and serving them.

Enjoying a sweet

The Aruyani people are not very expressive. It's only after building relationship with them for many years that they will touch you or look you in the eyes. So when by the end of our week with them some of the women were hugging me hello/goodbye that really touched my heart. They are also very unmusical - when they clap it sounds more like rain as they have absolutely no rhythm so they all clap out of time!!!

Evening meeting

This was such a special week for me, ministering with great people, getting to know and love the Aruyani people, and enjoying being in the beautiful Amazon jungle. It was also a lot more luxurious than my last jungle outreach, it really took us by surprise. We stayed on a boat which even had air conditioning!! Ok, so it didn't really work, but still! When it wasn't working the boat company sent another replacement boat for us!! We had cabins, 2 people to a room, real beds and a bathroom! Ok so the water came straight from the river so was dirty, but still, after the last time when a didn't shower for a week... ;) We also had 3 cooked (very good) meals a day plus filter coffee!!! Well, most of the time, when the generator was working, which was a bit sporadic! Swimming in the river was also great fun. We got in just above the boat, drifted down with the tide and then had to swim quite intentionally to get out again - the tide is pretty strong!!

Who couldn't love a child with a smile like this!