Bible Workers to the Rescue

Generated on January 24, 2012

The motor purred so quietly you could hardly hear it over the sound of the waves softly splashing up on the side of the boat. Here we were, sitting in our new aluminum boat on the Black River! Minutes after the boat entered the water, we loaded it up with supplies, food, extra fuel, and the Bible worker and his family. Destination: Saracá. Here our Bible worker (theology student on his practicum months) will be spending 3 months living with the river people, giving Bible studies and starting a new small group.

Our new boat was purchased with donations from several Brazilian brothers: a brandnew 22 foot hull with an aluminum covering to protect from sun and rain and a 115 HP Suzuki outboard engine straight from the factory! We are so thankful to have this new boat in the water to service the Black River with more ease and speed, taking Bible and health workers into the jungle. Thank you for each person who made this purchase possible!

LIGHT Course Underway

We are currently two weeks into our one month LIGHT course, training 9 participants in the area of health and evangelism. The course is well underway and it is so exciting to see some of our own volunteers learning side by side with the river people. Two of our students told me that their favorite class so far has been on the book of Daniel. They said they had never studied Daniel before, and even didn’t like reading it because they didn’t understand anything it said! Our LIGHT course professors are helping to equip these jungle people in becoming effective Bible workers and reaching more souls for Christ. Please pray for us as we finish this course and hold our first Health Expo in about one week.

“Medical missionary work brings to humanity the gospel of release from suffering. It is the pioneer work of the gospel. It is the gospel practiced, the compassion of Christ revealed. Of this work there is great need, and the world is open for it. God grant that the importance of medical missionary work shall be understood, and that new fields may be immediately entered”.–Medical Ministry, p. 239

Medical Missionary Conference in Coari

Our first medical missionary conference in Coari, a small city up the Amazon River, was a success. The first weekend of December Amazon Lifesavers Ministry held its first conference trying to encourage volunteers to get involved in medical missionary work. The conference had over 100 persons at each meeting, one held on Friday night and three

on Sabbath. We shared stories of our project’s experience and encouraged them from the Bible and Ellen White’s writings of their need to get involved in God’s chosen method of reaching the unreached. On Sunday we rented a boat and took some 150 volunteers out to the jungle village of Camarão to inaugurate the new SDA Church that our ministry recently finished building. In the morning we finished the last details in painting and then in the afternoon had the official inauguration of the church. Amazon Lifesavers Ministry has been able to leave one more church sitting as a light in the middle of the jungle, to bring Bible truths to the river people.

Current Prayer Requests

We currently have three families out in the jungle on three different rivers doing Bible work. Each consists of a theology student that is involved in doing his practical training as he reaches those in the jungle. Please keep these Bible workers and their families in your prayers the three months of January, February and March.

Salva-Vidas II, our medical launch, left the base on the 10th of January with our full time husband and wife team of nurses. We don’t plan on seeing the boat back at the base until May. Please keep them in your prayers as they are concentrating their work on the Massauari River, an area predominantly Catholic with very little access to medical or spiritual care.

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry is feeling God’s leading in starting a full time 6 month Bible and Health Training School. We have prayed about this for over a year now and feel that now is the time to actually move forward. With such a great need in the Amazon jungle for Bible truths, we feel the most effective way to reach more people with the gospel is to train an army of Bible workers. We are finishing up the drafts for construction of staff homes and the actual school building at this time. Please keep this in your prayers as we will need financing to make this happen. We also are considering the possibility of starting a bakery to provide the students an industry to pay their studies, and to offer a health food ministry to Manaus. Please keep these plans in your prayers. We will share more details as they progress.

May we continue moving forward and seeing God’s work expand. Thank you each for your continual financial and prayer support to make this project possible.

Brad Mills

Program Director

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Bible Workers to the Rescue

Generated on January 24, 2012

The motor purred so quietly you could hardly hear it over the sound of the waves softly splashing up on the side of the boat. Here we were, sitting in our new aluminum boat on the Black River! Minutes after the boat entered the water, we loaded it up with supplies, food, extra fuel, and the Bible worker and his family. Destination: Saracá. Here our Bible worker (theology student on his practicum months) will be spending 3 months living with the river people, giving Bible studies and starting a new small group.

Our new boat was purchased with donations from several Brazilian brothers: a brandnew 22 foot hull with an aluminum covering to protect from sun and rain and a 115 HP Suzuki outboard engine straight from the factory! We are so thankful to have this new boat in the water to service the Black River with more ease and speed, taking Bible and health workers into the jungle. Thank you for each person who made this purchase possible!

LIGHT Course Underway

We are currently two weeks into our one month LIGHT course, training 9 participants in the area of health and evangelism. The course is well underway and it is so exciting to see some of our own volunteers learning side by side with the river people. Two of our students told me that their favorite class so far has been on the book of Daniel. They said they had never studied Daniel before, and even didn’t like reading it because they didn’t understand anything it said! Our LIGHT course professors are helping to equip these jungle people in becoming effective Bible workers and reaching more souls for Christ. Please pray for us as we finish this course and hold our first Health Expo in about one week.

“Medical missionary work brings to humanity the gospel of release from suffering. It is the pioneer work of the gospel. It is the gospel practiced, the compassion of Christ revealed. Of this work there is great need, and the world is open for it. God grant that the importance of medical missionary work shall be understood, and that new fields may be immediately entered”.–Medical Ministry, p. 239

Medical Missionary Conference in Coari

Our first medical missionary conference in Coari, a small city up the Amazon River, was a success. The first weekend of December Amazon Lifesavers Ministry held its first conference trying to encourage volunteers to get involved in medical missionary work. The conference had over 100 persons at each meeting, one held on Friday night and three

on Sabbath. We shared stories of our project’s experience and encouraged them from the Bible and Ellen White’s writings of their need to get involved in God’s chosen method of reaching the unreached. On Sunday we rented a boat and took some 150 volunteers out to the jungle village of Camarão to inaugurate the new SDA Church that our ministry recently finished building. In the morning we finished the last details in painting and then in the afternoon had the official inauguration of the church. Amazon Lifesavers Ministry has been able to leave one more church sitting as a light in the middle of the jungle, to bring Bible truths to the river people.

Current Prayer Requests

We currently have three families out in the jungle on three different rivers doing Bible work. Each consists of a theology student that is involved in doing his practical training as he reaches those in the jungle. Please keep these Bible workers and their families in your prayers the three months of January, February and March.

Salva-Vidas II, our medical launch, left the base on the 10th of January with our full time husband and wife team of nurses. We don’t plan on seeing the boat back at the base until May. Please keep them in your prayers as they are concentrating their work on the Massauari River, an area predominantly Catholic with very little access to medical or spiritual care.

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry is feeling God’s leading in starting a full time 6 month Bible and Health Training School. We have prayed about this for over a year now and feel that now is the time to actually move forward. With such a great need in the Amazon jungle for Bible truths, we feel the most effective way to reach more people with the gospel is to train an army of Bible workers. We are finishing up the drafts for construction of staff homes and the actual school building at this time. Please keep this in your prayers as we will need financing to make this happen. We also are considering the possibility of starting a bakery to provide the students an industry to pay their studies, and to offer a health food ministry to Manaus. Please keep these plans in your prayers. We will share more details as they progress.

May we continue moving forward and seeing God’s work expand. Thank you each for your continual financial and prayer support to make this project possible.

Brad Mills

Program Director

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Many Waters Cannot Quench Love

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28

The death of Dafne and the near total loss of our boat, Salva-Vidas III, was a huge blow to the Amazon Lifesavers Ministry. As we struggled through many hard days afterwards we would often find ourselves questioning why this all had to happen. Why, when we were just getting started in a new region would God allow us to lose the precious life of a volunteer? Why after so much work on our boat would the Lord allow it to turn over and loose practically everything? In the midst of our suffering and questioning, we always found comfort in God’s word.

Our conference president addressed the group of survivors in a thanksgiving worship service held after the shipwreck. He read to us from Song of Solomon 8:7 which says, “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it.” He reminded us that love is what impelled us that day to use the right arm of the gospel to reach a community that did not yet know God’s love. And even though our boat sunk to the bottom, even though we were trapped inside the boat under water, those waters could not drown out our love!

Exactly one month after our shipwreck we traveled back to the very village of Saracá with the whole group of survivors plus our conference president. We spent the whole day Sabbath visiting the residents of that jungle village. We shared with them what the joy of the resurrection day meant to us. We visited each person in their home and prayed with each family, asking who had interest in Bible studies. We then had a volunteer husband and wife come and dedicate their one month of vacation to staying in the village starting Bible studies with the village residents. Nearly every person in that village has signed up for and started Bible studies with our volunteers! Praise God for the turn of events. We may never fully know the answers to all our questions on this side of Heaven, but may we have enough faith to hold on to God even when the times are tough! Please continue praying for this village and the gospel work that will be carried on.

Read the whole story of the boat wreck.

Medical Missionary Conference

The third weekend of October we were blessed to have our fourth Annual Medical Missionary Conference here in Manaus. Our speaker was Dr. Viriato Ferreira, a physician who currently works and ministers in Portugal. Dr. Viriato is the president of a church supporting ministry, board member of OCI, and in addition, the director of Health and Temperance for the Euro-African Division. It was such a blessing to our project, encouraging our volunteers to continue stepping forward for God’s service in the medical missionary work!

LIGHT Course in January

The Amazon Lifesavers Ministry will be hosting a one month LIGHT course in January at our base in Manaus, Brazil. We are excited to have this training opportunity to better prepare some of our own volunteers as well as to offer training to other church members. We hope that this will be a step closer to opening a full time 6 month Bible-worker training course in Manaus. Please pray for the success of this project.

New Couple Joins Our Team

We are so thrilled to announce the arrival of a new couple to our team. Osnilton and Michelle join us from Parana, a state in South Brazil. The couple spent the last 3 and a half years studying and living in England, where Osnilton graduated from Computer Network Administration. Michelle had previously studied Administration and Accounting in Brazil prior to moving to England. With a couple so well prepared and fluent in English as well as Portuguese, we are thrilled to welcome them on board to help out in the administrative aspects of the project. Osnilton will help in the coordination of activities at the base in Manaus while Michelle will serve as the Administrative Secretary of the project. Praise God for a dedicated couple!

OCI Mission Trip Great Success

A big thanks to OCI and each volunteer who came on a mission trip this month to partner with the Amazon Lifesavers Ministry. With a small group of 7 we were able to make so much headway on several projects the ministry is involved in. The biggest blessing to us was the progress made on the small church started in Giró that we built nearly two years ago. With a beautiful new paint job and a pretty sign, one village resident already commented that everyone was going to want to visit this church! Praise God for their help! Thank you so much OCI!

Future plans

• The first weekend in December we will be holding a medical missionary conference in a large city in the jungle to increase the awareness of medical missionary work. Please pray for the success of this event.
• In December we will be opening a new base on a new River, more details to come. Please keep this in your prayers.
• We are currently having a new support boat fabricated, Praise God for one more boat! More details to come.
• We will be having three theology students with their families spending their four months of summer break working as Bible workers and evangelists for our project starting in December. Please pray for the success of the evangelism that will occur.

Brad Mills

Project Coordinator

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302

*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Tragedy on the Negro River

Generated on Sept. 27, 2011

To our many friends, family, and prayer supporters. Many of you may have already received the heartbreaking news, but we would like to briefly share officially of what happened this weekend. Our mission boat, the Salva Vidas 3, left Manaus on Saturday morning bound for

Boat Before Capsizing

Saracá, a small community located on the Rio Negro about 70 kilometers from Manaus. Our goal was to start with medical missionary work and then place a bible worker in the village and see the plantation of a new SDA church.

Sabbath was a huge success. We spent the day doing a worship service and medical

The Group With Some Villagers

medical care. The people received our group very warmly and were very interested in our return. That evening we loaded the group back onto the boat and planned to depart back towards Manaus around midnight. We had a total of 20 volunteers on the boat, made up of healthcare professionals and university students from Manaus. We also had two visiting Americans with us. Around 12:20 in the morning, just prior to our departure, a violent storm started out of nowhere. Without any warning and no time to respond, the wind ripped the top off our boat and then proceeded to turn over the boat in the river, nearly 600 feet offshore. The boat immediately filled with water and began to slowly sink, with all of us still inside the boat.

Many prayers went up to God, and many angels were busy at work on that boat

The Boat After the Storm

that evening to save God’s children from certain death. 19 of us were able to get out of the inside and onto the side of the sinking boat, screaming and crying for help. One man, a physician volunteer, was pulled from the boat unconscious and by God’s grace we were able to bring him back with CPR. Tragically, we lost one young female volunteer. Dafne Paulino, a young psychology student, was unable to get out of the boat and we were unable to find her in time. Her husband was the man we did CPR on.

We are suffering a great deal at this time and we implore you for your prayer support for each victim that was on the boat that evening. All 19 of us are now safely at home with our families and are trying to recuperate both physically and mentally. Please pray by name for Anibal, who lost his wife. Please pray for each of the volunteers. Also please pray for God’s wisdom on how to move forward at this time. We need divine wisdom to show us the steps in which to walk so that Satan does not win this victory, but that by the very death of a young missionary, more souls can come to accept Christ in the village of Saracá and all over the Amazon.

Thank you for your prayers. We will send more detailed stories of God’s miraculous intervention in future emails.

God bless,

Brad Mills

Program Director

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Cabori Outreach and other Updates July/August 2011

After nearly 12 hours of navigation downstream the large Amazon River, Joca, our local boat captain, and myself were very grateful to pull into the small inlet that led back to the small jungle village of Cabori. Being our first time to visit this community, we had no idea of what to expect in regard to its size, development, or receptivity. We were arriving on the mission launch with a medical and dental team to support the evangelistic efforts of the local pastor in starting a church in an otherwise non-penetrated area by the Adventist church.

During the month of July, Amazon Lifesavers Ministry partnered with our local conference office using the medical mission work coupled with evangelism and church planting. We spent the whole month traveling between seven different locations taking a team of healthcare professionals to provide much needed medical care and invite our patients to attend the evangelism and church planting taking place. We took part in witnessing the growth of many new congregations.

Returning to Cabori….. The first day there we set up our makeshift medical and dental clinic in the government post and begin seeing patients. As I mingled with the local people who were helping organize the clinic I began inviting them to participate in the evening program that would be help in the newly constructed Adventist church. That is when I discovered that Cabori also had a Seventh-day Adventist Promise church, an offshoot of Adventist that is found in many areas of Brazil. Being the first time to encounter such a situation, I determined to know more about this church.

Not even thirty minutes later, a pleasant lady entered into my consult room for a visit. She immediately shared that she was from this SDA Promise church and that my next patient would be the pastor of the church. This lady and her husband had been the pioneers who donated the land to start the church.Our medical care opened the doors to form a wonderful friendship with her family and the young pastor and his family.

Later that afternoon, after I finished attending all my patients, I quickly made my way to where they told me the church and their houses were located. We spent the afternoon visiting, talking of God, and sharing more of the Adventist message. The young pastor and his wife, who felt as lonely missionaries in a foreign village, were so excited for a visit and study together. They eagerly accepted the DVD Bible study series I gave them and the reading material to inspire God’s remanant Church. And most exciting of all, that evening for the inauguration ceremony of the new SDA Church, the SDA Promise church with pastor and all were there sitting with us to celebrate a new church.

Church-building in Coari

For most of the month of July we had a group of 7 people with us from the Hemet SDA Church in Hemet, California. The group, led by their Pastor Mike Wilson, spent their vacation helping build a church in a small village of the Lake Mamia in our Coari base. Pastor Mike and his wife Kathy had lived in Brazil nearly 25 years early as they worked in many pastoral positions with the church. He flew the mission plane for the Luzeiro program for many years on the Amazon River. They were thrilled to see old friends and church members that they had known so many years before. The village of Paraiso was blessed to receive a new church and reconnect with Pastor Mike and Kathy Wilson. The group also had a dentist who was able to provide dental services to many river dwellers at the church construction site. Harvey Harder, who grew up on the Amazon considering Leo Halliwell a grandpa, also was with the group. It was a special group to have visiting our project.

80 year commemoration of Luzeiro project

The month of July also marked a special date in Adventist history for the Brazilian SDA church. On July 4, 1931 the first Luzeiro boat was inaugurated by Leo and Jessie Halliwell. That first boat opened up the very first church in the north of Brazil as well, in a small village called the Fazenda Centenario, belonging to the city of Maues. On July 2, 2011, we celebrated together with the Union office 80 years of Luzeiro. The Union rented a huge facility and had two programs, with nearly 7,000 SDA church members attending the programming in the morning and 7,000 in the afternoon. Our project presented jointly with the church the Luzeiro project. Our union President, Gilmar Zahn, personally thanked our project for the supporting work it is doing for the Adventist Church.

The last week of the month, all our boats converged at the Fazenda Centenario for a campmeeting at the site where the first SDA church was constructed in the Amazon. We had the privilege of receiving our South American Division President, Erton Kohler, to be a part of that programming. Amazon Lifesavers Ministry is thankful to be able to support our official church body in providing transporting and continuing the medical missionary work in the interior of the Amazon of Brazil.

Special Blessings at ASI

To end the month and begin August, we were present at ASI’s national convention in Sacramento, California. Amazon Lifesavers Ministry had a booth and shared our newest DVD highlighting the story of our project’s growth and God’s leading. We are so thankful to ASI and all its donors to announce the $20,000 donation that we will be receiving from ASI this year to begin construction on a new boat. Please keep this project in your prayers. We will be building a larger aluminum bottomed boat with an inboard engine that can carry 20 passengers much more quickly into the jungle. This boat will allow us to receive groups and transport them for less cost and more time economical to reach more un-entered areas of the Amazon Jungle. Please pray for this project, as the donation received will not be enough to finish the construction.

Future Pans for Medical Missionary Training School

As we enter into more areas and sense the need for more properly trained Bible workers, we have felt God’s calling to open a Bible training center. We are prayerful studying out the challenge of starting a training center in Manaus to prepare Bible workers to continue opening up areas of the jungle. We will be partnering with LIGHT to do a one month medical missionary training school in January of next year. Then we plan on continuing the plans to develop a full 6-month course. Please pray for our project as we continue growing and search for more ways to reach the Amazon with the Three Angel’s message! Praise God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is coming soon!

Brad Mills

Program Director

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Heartbreaks and Joys

Generated on June 7, 2011

Updates on Coatá

If you recall from our last newsletter we had a group of young people from Madison Academy with us helping to build a church in Coatá, on the Andira River. The church building has still not been completed, however we are so thrilled to announce that the work continues. As the group departed and made their journey home, two of our volunteers continued on in Coatá, Joca (one of our young boat captains) and Milton, a Bible worker and registered Speech Pathologist. The jungle dwellers of this village received some of their first lessons on healthy cooking, including baking whole wheat bread. After one month of door to door visits, Bible studies, and church planting work, 10 people took the step of baptism to publicly declare their love for the Lord! Please pray for these people and that we can finish the small church in Coatá.

Churches going up everywhere!

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry has been very busy these last two months in building churches. Besides the church in Coatá, we are currently trying to build three churches simultaneously on the Solimões River. We will have a group join us from the Hemet SDA Church in Hemet, California, at the end of June to help erect a small church in a village called Paradise, on a beautiful lake off the Solimões. We also recently received a donation from a Brazilian lady in Manaus of nearly $8,000 USD to sponsor one whole church in a hard to reach area on the Solimões River. If you are interested in helping , please enter in contact with us to bring your group or to donate money for a local group to build.

Death in the Family

It was with very heavy hearts that we received the phone call from Satur, our boat captain of the Salva Vidas I, informing us that his youngest son had been killed. Two weeks ago, Satur found his 22 year old son Adiel, dead in the river. He had been shot by a relative in the midst of a disagreement. This news leaves us all totally shocked and disheartened. One of Satur’s other sons, Joca, is our boat captain on the Salva Vidas II. Please pray for this family as they recover from this huge loss.

Face lift to the Luzeirinho

This month we received a donation of a new 60 horse power outboard engine for our small fast boat, the Luzeirinho. Our old engine, which was a 40 HP, was not reliable for long trips into the jungle. The new engine will allow us to travel without worries and also will save on gas consumption!

Mission on the Massauari

At this moment we have a small team of missionaries working on the Salva Vidas II, the catamaran, on the Massauari River. In cooperation with ADRA, two nurses and one dentist are living on our boat and working to reach a very distant and underserved population on this river. There has been no medical or dental work provided at all in two years on this river, since we were last there with our team two years ago! Daniel, one of the nurses, already commented how the medical work is immediately opening doors to evangelism. They have been giving Bible studies to several interested families and one whole village has expressed interest in us opening a Seventh-day Adventist Church in their village. Praise the Lord for the third angel’s message reaching even into the depths of the Amazon rain forest. Please continue to pray for this small group as they continue the rest of this month. I will be joining them with my wife and boys next week to spend about 10 days providing medical care.

We want to thank each one of you for your participation and support to continue helping this project to grow. Truly as we unite together we are being used to share God’s love with river people in the Amazon. The full results we will only know in Heaven.

God bless,

Brad Mills

Program Director

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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April Newsletter

Generated on April 10, 2011

No More Tarantulas!

Brick by brick the walls have slowly gone up! Last week we had a group of 18 young people join our mission from Madison Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. The group boarded our boat, the Salva-Vidas (Lifesaver) 3, and traveled nearly 20 hours into the jungle to the village of Coatá. If you remember from our October 2010 newsletter, this village had a small church filled with tarantulas and bats and walls falling apart from rotten wood.

The first day we were there, on Sabbath morning, we took the whole group into the small and falling down church to have a special service with the local people. Someone from the group looked around at the church and asked if this was the same church that we had mentioned in a newsletter that was filled with tarantulas. We chuckled and said we couldn’t tell. However it didn’t take long to figure it out. As I called Aluisio, the church leader, to come forward so that I could introduce him to the group, shrieks of terror were heard. Confused, I wondered why the visitors would scream at the sight of this friendly-looking man. Aluisio then turned around to face the group and I saw it too, a huge black tarantula slowly crawling up his back. As he had waited at the back of the church for me to call him he leaned against the wall, allowing this monstrous spider to jump on for a ride. Needless to say, it was a fun Sabbath (and some people choose to worship from outside the building after that event!).

In the five working days that the group was in Coatá, we were able to get the foundation laid, the supports all put in place for the walls and ceiling, and the first 3 feet of brick wall laid. We had a great time with so many young people working together to serve God. Thank you Madison Academy for reaching out to your brothers in the Amazon River.

Man overboard, or… underboard!

Wednesday morning during our week of construction at Coatá, our local district pastor was loading up his small aluminum boat to travel to town. He was going for some meetings and would be taking my wife, our two boys, and my mother (who was visiting with the Madison group). It was a rainy morning and our whole group was still on our large boat, anchored in the middle of the river. We were all asking ourselves why the Lord had allowed it to rain when we had a church to build. The pastor’s boat was tied to our large boat and as we brought him luggage he carefully wrapped each piece in a tarp to avoid getting everything soaked on the 2 hour trip to town. Lina was getting the kids ready and almost all was set to go.

After the last piece of luggage was wrapped, Joca, our boat captain, climbed on the aluminum boat to help tie the luggage down. Suddenly he felt the boat tipping to one side and let out a cry for help. As I stepped out of our large boat I arrived just in time to see the top of the aluminum boat disappearing into the dark depths of the river. I let out three screams of “Oh my goodness” as I ran to see how I could assist.

Getting to the edge of our boat, I reached down and was able to secure the rope tied to the front of the aluminum boat, to keep the boat from sinking to the depths of the river. At the back of the boat was the pastor, treading water, his face as white as a ghost. Behind him sank his brand new 40HP outboard motor. As I looked around I noticed that Joca was nowhere to be seen. “Pastor, where is Joca?!!” I yelled several times, but the pastor was not sure. Quickly I sent a prayer up to God, “Lord, please help Joca.” Could it be that he was stuck under the boat? The seconds ticked by like hours as I waited and tried to decide whether I should jump in or wait. Suddenly to our sheer joy Joca surfaced, slightly behind the boat. When the boat had turned over, his foot had gotten caught in the rope tied to the boat. He worked hard and with God’s help was able to get freed from the ropes and made it to the surface. Praise God!

All these events were simultaneously happening when a group of young men from Madison Academy heard my cry and leaped into the water to help. Several guys quickly swam to each side of the boat and were able to keep it from sinking any farther. With the help of each person we were able to save every single piece of luggage, evangelistic material, and the boat itself. By a miracle, though all the luggage was soaked, the Lord kept the pastor’s computer and my wife’s Bible from getting wet. We praise the Lord for His divine protection in all times!

OCI Mission Trip

We are excited that Outpost Centers International is planning to join us on a mission trip here in the Amazon on November 6-20. Here is the opportunity you have all been waiting for. If you would like to come and get to know our project first hand, please get in touch with OCI. We are planning to take the group into the jungle on the Amazon Lifesavers 3 boat, to do a construction or community workbee project. No specific skills are needed other than a willing heart and flexibility. Check out OCI’s webpage for more information: http://www.outpostcenters.org/missiontrip

New positions for volunteers

The project is growing quickly and is always in need of new volunteers. Please check out our webpage and look at the volunteer opportunities that you can get involved in. Having three operating boats with small support boats, we are in need of a full time volunteer mechanic that wants to dedicate his talents to serving the Lord. Also needed is a maintenance man and Portuguese speaking medical and Bible workers and boat captains. Visit our website and keep up to date with all the ways in which you can get involved.

Thank you to all who are faithfully praying for and financially supporting God’s work on the Amazon!

Brad Mills
Program Coordinator

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to: Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302
*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

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Amazon Lifesavers Ministry

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After one full year of medical mission work on the Copea River, two weeks ago witnessed the very first baptism of a Seventh-day Adventist on that river. The new district pastor eagerly made the several hour boat trip from the center of his district to join our mission boat and team of excited volunteers. 18 people gave their lives to Christ that day in the previously only Catholic community of Camarão.

When our mission boat pulled alongside the banks of Camarão nearly one year ago, several teenagers ran off to put their clothes on. Due to the poverty in this village, the people tend to keep their one change of clothing stored for an event or the arrival of someone to the village. After breaking the ice with medical and dental care, Dr. Ricardo, base coordinator of Coari, decided to return on a monthly basis to this community to try and reach the people with the message of Christ. The small village of Camarão was a typical Catholic community, many people claiming to follow a religion and not even opening a Bible. After friendships were made and hearts were opened, we placed a full time local Bible worker in the community to begin Bible studies. So many people were excited to read the Bible and hear so many beautiful teachings for the first time in their lives. During Christmas, Dr. Ricardo and his wife Suzy took a small group of volunteers to the village to share the story of Jesus’ birth with the children. Two weeks ago 18 persons dedicated their lives to the Lord in the public act of baptism.

We are currently making plans to build a small wooden church in the village of Camarão for these new brethren to have a place of worship. If you feel called by God to help, you can send your donation to OCI and make a special note that it is for church construction for the Amazon Lifesavers Ministry. Please join us in praying for these new brethren and the ones that studied and have not taken their stand yet.

Boat captain Medical Missionary Training Course

The very last weekend of January the Amazon Lifesavers Ministry in collaboration with ADRA Brasil held its very first boat captain medical missionary training course. All our volunteers working on our four different boats came together at the project base in Puraquequara for a one weekend training and further education course. On Sabbath we had 4 pastors ranging from district level to union level come and present workshops on evangelism and importance of Bible work in the jungle. We also did training on holding evangelistic series for adults and children. On Sunday we held medical and nautical workshops, including such topics as: Anatomy and Physiology, basic care for snake bite victims, Boating 101, Boating safety and Brazilian regulations, etc. We had nearly 30 volunteers present at the event. These participants are all directly involved as volunteers in our project, some full time and others as part time volunteers, dedicating their extra time to service of others. We were thrilled at the opportunity to organize and advance the cause here in the Amazon and to be able to better equip the local volunteers who are dedicating their lives and talents to God’s work. We are planning on continuing this course for our volunteers as a one weekend event every three months with different topics and subjects.

Future events

This very week we have a group of 10 medical professionals here from Southern Adventist’s University’s School of Nursing. This group is traveling in one of our mission boats on the Mamia Lake bringing healing and health to the residents of that area. Please keep the group in your prayers.

In March we will be receiving a group from Loma Linda University who will be traveling together with ADRA Brasil’s boat to a newly explored area in Manacapuru. This group will be focusing on the dental aspect of care.

Also we will be receiving Madison Academy from Nashville, TN at the end of March. This group of 18 young persons will travel into the outskirts of an indigenous area to help build a small wooden church.

News

We were just able to get a USA phone number for our project that rings us on our computer here in Brazil. If you need to call the project for some reason, feel free to call us at 615-863-3722. Whenever we are in the office we can answer your call. This is a local call from Nashville, TN.

On last note, I (Brad Mills) am experiencing a complete recovery from my illness. Praise God for health and energy to continue His work. Thank you all very much who prayed for my health, we found true comfort in the many emails received of people praying! Thank you all!

Please keep this project in your prayers and thank you for your financial support.

God Bless,

Brad Mills
Program Coordinator

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:

Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302

*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

Web page:

www.amazonlifesavers.org

www.outpostcenters.org

Thanks again to all who are praying and continue remembering us in your prayers.

God Bless,

Brad Mills
Program Coordinator

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:

Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302

*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

Web page:

www.amazonlifesavers.org

www.outpostcenters.org

Thank you all for your prayers and pray for my quick recovery to execute the many plans we have for this and next month in the project! God bless all.

God Bless,

Brad Mills
Program Coordinator

Amazon Lifesavers Ministry

If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:

Outpost Centers International5340 Layton LaneApison, TN 37302

*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for Amazon Lifesavers Ministry.

Web page:

www.amazonlifesavers.org

www.outpostcenters.org