Danny Meyer, who pastors a Vineyard Church in Ohio, has come to visit and coach us out here in Altamira more than ten times in these past 10 years. I think Penny has come about six times. He has repeatedly emphasized the importance of family, and of the going the whole distance. "You are not in a sprint here."

Recently we have been challenged again:

"God is more interested in what He is doing in you than in what He is doing through you."

"You will reproduce who you are and what you really value, not what you say you value."

We are so grateful to the Lord for Danny, and for the many people He has brought into our lives. It is not a small thing to make a trip out here to the Amazon, yet it is primarily through friendships, both with Brazilians and North Americans, that God has blessed the work here.

Here is a photo of the truck Danny's team went on as they went to visit a frontier church at Virgilho's. It's kind of primitive out there.

Yesterday at lunch this iguana fell out of a tree just outside our kitchen table. He hung on for dear life for about half an hour. After we finished lunch I went out, took these photos, and then he let me grab his body and help him back up into the acerola bush. He was probably half grown, about a meter long, including his tail.

A couple of years ago a big iguana, about 4 or 5 feet long, fell out of a tall tree and onto the trampoline, while Olivia was jumping. It was a big surprise for both of them!

End.

The sump pump on the boat was not working so Edivam pulled it apart to see what was the problem. When he opened it up, a snake slithered out. When Edivam got over his surprise the snake was all the way up to the front of the boat.

A couple of weeks earlier on our survey trip to Breves and Portal, there was a scuffle in the kitchen as the cook killed a snake which she found curled up in one of the cooking pots in the cupboard.

The air conditioner in our library quit working this week. When we were tinkering with it to find out what was wrong a tarantula tumbled out of the fan area.

In these photos below Isabella is now reading chapter books, and this photo is of an iguana in our acerola tree out front.

Deanna and Emma just got back from a week long ministry trip with a team from Ohio. The trip ended with a youth rally near Porto de Moz called Cristovál, which the churches host to give their people an option to the national Carnivál holiday.

Warmly,

Rick Bergen.