Today we woke up and had the chance to go to visit an indigenous tribe. While we visited a different tribe than last year’s trip, the kids were a little confused because they heard from kids on last year’s trip that this was a “fake” indigenous tribe. This was true and false. Brazil has a couple hundred thousand indigenous people in the country, many of those who live in unreached tribes along the Amazon. It is illegal for us to go visit those tribes without the blessing of the government, but there are groups of indigenous people who have moved closer to the city to give their children more educational and work opportunities, in doing so, these indigenous people have been given the land to live on and now they recreate the way they lived in their tribe to help educate others on this lifestyle and their traditions. We would find it similar to people in Hawaii showing us their traditions of the luau or people on the reservations in Arizona showing us their traditions of Native American dances or ceremonies. The funniest part of this encounter was that the leader of the tribe spoke broken Portuguese, so our translator, Neto converted it into broken English. After clearing up a big misunderstanding about girls getting “beaten when they started their period” we understood a little bit more about their ceremony that turns boys into men. Later in the day we went to another location in the Amazon River where we saw the remains of Jacques Custeau’s Amazon River research center. We then rode a little further in the boats, pulled up to a tree through the reeds, and were handed bananas. Suddenly we had a ton of spider monkeys coming onto our boats and we were able to feed them! It was so cool! When feeding the monkeys was done we tried one more time to catch some piranha and were much more successful this time around! Ellie Edwards and Luke Fuller won the prize, pulling in four a piece this day! Finally, our last night on the boat we loaded up onto the John boats one last time and went out for a surprise. The Amazon Hope staff had created a magical luau for us, complete with hand braided crowns and bows & arrows made out of palm leaves. We had a great time eating a delicious meal together one last time, took lots of photos, then headed back to the boat to complete our final time of Devos on the boat and start packing. It’s been an amazing trip with Amazon Hope, and we are thankful for all they have done for us. They embody servant leadership, love for others, and joy that can only be found in Christ. Many of our kids and chaperones are looking forward to seeing them again next year! Tomorrow we will disembark and head to a hotel for our final two days as another church group will be boarding the Paul Marin boat at 2:30 AM to start their adventure on the Amazon.
INDIGENOUS TRIBE
“This was a really neat experience. Throughout the trip we traveled to villages and spent time with the people, but didn’t really have many opportunities to get a look into their cultural and traditional practices. It was really interesting to get a glimpse of some of the rituals they performed after important events, along with getting to see their tribal attire. To end the visit on a fun note, we all got to join in their step dance, and try out some of their cool instruments.”- Abigail Stipp
FEEDING MONKEYS & FISHING
“It was an amazing experience getting to feed the monkeys. They would come right up next to us and grab the food right from our hands and some even came in our boats. We also went piranha fishing and caught many of them to bring back to the boat. Ms. Clausen also caught a rare catfish.” - Luke Fuller
LUAU
“The luau was a wonderful way to close off the trip with Amazon Hope and say goodbye to all of our translator friends. It was a fun little party and we all had a blast just hanging out and relaxing after a long week of evangelism.” - Luke Chalmers
INDIGENOUS TRIBE
“This was a really neat experience. Throughout the trip we traveled to villages and spent time with the people, but didn’t really have many opportunities to get a look into their cultural and traditional practices. It was really interesting to get a glimpse of some of the rituals they performed after important events, along with getting to see their tribal attire. To end the visit on a fun note, we all got to join in their step dance, and try out some of their cool instruments.”- Abigail Stipp
FEEDING MONKEYS & FISHING
“It was an amazing experience getting to feed the monkeys. They would come right up next to us and grab the food right from our hands and some even came in our boats. We also went piranha fishing and caught many of them to bring back to the boat. Ms. Clausen also caught a rare catfish.” - Luke Fuller
LUAU
“The luau was a wonderful way to close off the trip with Amazon Hope and say goodbye to all of our translator friends. It was a fun little party and we all had a blast just hanging out and relaxing after a long week of evangelism.” - Luke Chalmers
Such a strong experience you all are having! Keep it up Team Brazil!!