Water Filter Update

It has been a very busy post flood season.  We estimate that almost 2.000 filters were in the affected areas.  As soon as the rain stopped and the water began to recede, the work to recover these filters began at full throttle. 

Our strategy has been to select key communities, take all the material necessary (hundreds of kilos fine sand, coarse sand, and rocks),   invite church leaders from neighboring communities, conduct a basic training on how to recover the filters, split into small teams and them we work on filters for two to three days, so everyone has a chance to get hands on experience.

 

A letter from PAZ Canada

Dear Faithful Partners:

Let me begin by thanking you for your faithful giving to Project Amazon Canada. Thank you!! The gifts you have offered have gone to so many worthwhile people and projects. It is a huge investment in God’s work.

We are pleased to inform you of some administrative changes we have made with respect to our accounting functions. Your donation receipts will no longer be issued by our office in Cranbrook, BC. We have partnered with The Great Commission Foundation of Medicine Hat, Alberta, and they will be continuing this function for us.

As many of you are aware, there are more and more regulatory requirements that have to be met to ensure not-for-profit organizations remain compliant with Canada Revenue Agency. The time and current knowledge required to keep compliant has become more than we are staffed to accomplish. Our primary calling is to help evangelize the Amazon basin, and we have decided to continue to expend our efforts in this direction.

This change will have no impact on where or how your donations are allocated, as this remains a function of our board. This will affect the mailing address for those gifts. For future giving, please continue to make your donations payable to Project Amazon Canada, and mail them to the address as shown below. Your receipt will be issued by The Great Commission Foundation.

Again, thank you for your faithfulness and generosity. If you have need of further explanation, please don’t hesitate to talk with Paul at 250-919-4142 or myself at steve.gross@sunlife.com

May God Bless you

Sincerely,

Steve Gross, Chairman, PAZ Canada

New Address:

Project Amazon Canada

c/o The Great Commission Foundation

3 – 1335 Trans Canada Way

Medicine Hat, AB T1B 1J1

A church is born

Sometimes our plans are not God’s plans.  Açaizal was not on this year’s list  of targeted communities, but, due to the floods, a few days before the trip the plans had to change as the community where we were going was inaccessible. 

Pr. Zezinho, the missions pastor for Monte Alegre, had been praying for some years for Açaizal, where his in-laws live, and saw this as the perfect opportunity to reach out to them.

The reception from the community was amazing as also their spiritual thirst.  People walked for hours, sometimes under rain, to receive medical and dental care.  The evening services were well attended, with  people from the neighboring communities.  Everyone was listening carefully to every word from the sermons, testimonies, and evangelistic films.  Thirty-eight adults and twelve children surrendered their lives to Christ.  Three of these accepted to host a cell group in their houses, one in Açaizal and two on neighboring communities.  Pr. Zezinho’s in-laws donated the land for the future church building.  The first Celebration Service was marked to start the following week.

As for the health clinics  . . .

  we saw 240 people needing medical attention, mostly due worms or other parasites. 193 people had some dental work done,  mostly extractions or restorations.   

We also taught about proper nutrition,  dental hygiene, women’s health issues, proper posture, and how to avoid injuries from repetitive movements.

We also installed a BioSand Water Filter at the local school and soon will be shipping 32 more filters to be installed on the homes.

 

The road back from Açaizal to Monte Alegre proved to be interesting.

One of our trucks got stuck in the mud

Sengs’ update

My cousin Aimee has posted an update on her mom’s health on her blog.  Here is the address: http://andrewandaimee.blogspot.com/2009/06/news-on-mum-seng-june-22.html

Açaizal Trip

We are leaving on a Health Ministry trip from June 19 through 26.  We will spend the whole time on a community called Açaizal, situated close to 2 hours of dirt road east of Monte Alegre.  Açaizal is one of the targeted communities to have a church plant this year.

We’ll be taking a team of 2 dentists, 1 medical doctor, 1 Occupational Therapist, and a few nurses.

Although we’ll be stationed in Açaizal, people will be coming from the neighboring communities for medical and dental appointments.

We will treating the people physical needs during the day and their spiritual needs at night, through the preaching of the gospel and showing of evangelistic films, such as the Jesus Film.

Prayer requests:

• Safety in travel from/to Açaizal.  Travel, both by land and river, is more difficult on account of recent floods.
• Unity within the health team.
• The medical and dental equipment would work trouble free.
• The equipment used on the evening service (generator, video and sound equipment, etc) will work trouble free.
• As the purpose of the trip is prepare the way for the church plant, please pray that the hearts of the people will be softened and made ready to receive the gospel.