An August trip to the Amazon involving participants from the United States included Pastor Bruce Rudd of Mt. Sylvan Baptist Church in Tyler. (Steven Gray Photo)

Amazon Outreach—a Texas-based organization that connects churches in the United States with congregations in Brazil—is touching the lives of people along the Amazon River.

Churches in Brazil identify the needs, said Steve Trammell, executive director of Amazon Outreach.

“We ask them where they need us, and that’s where we go,” Trammell said. “Our mission is to assist the Brazilian church and where they need us. … We’re not doing this on our own. We’re connecting two churches.”

An August trip to the Amazon involving participants from the United States included Pastor Bruce Rudd of Mt. Sylvan Baptist Church in Tyler.

“Our goal when we walk into that village is to show the love of Christ so powerfully,” Rudd said. “We forget about the heat and humidity and the bugs … and the little sleep. We have to forget all of that, because we’re there in the name of the Lord Jesus to represent him. We are ambassadors.”

Phyllis Woodward, director of development for Amazon Outreach, also participated in the trip.

“On a lot of our trips we don’t work with indigenous tribes. On some of them we do, but this one was not with an indigenous tribe. It was with people that they call Ribeirinhos,” she said.

Ribeirinhos means river people, and it refers to groups living in villages along the Amazon. These groups are so far removed from areas where health care and other resources are available, they may go five years without receiving any medical care.

 “We mobilize short-term mission teams … by really following Jesus’ model where we meet physical needs. That’s why we bring doctors and dentists and pharmacists and nurses,” Trammell said.

Aside from medical care, Amazon Outreach ministers to the villages by taking family portraits, digging wells, offering discipleship, distributing eyeglasses and caring for the community.

Steven Gray, the August trip leader, explained the process of making family packs, one form of ministry the organization uses.

“One thing we do as participants on the trip is we’re able to bring a 50-pound bag of luggage that we would check as our checked luggage, and instead of personal items, we would put donation items” in it, Gray explained. “We brought roughly 1,000 pounds of donations down with us.”

Items brought by the group filled about 100 family packs. With bags specified for men, women and children, there was no shortage of joy when the villagers receive their items, he noted.

The packs distributed on the trip make a profound impact on the villagers, Rudd explained.

“They’ll wait all afternoon to get that family pack,” he said. “We divide up the supplies that [were] given as part of the trip … and when you hand them one, their eyes light up because [you’ve] got to remember they’re not used to receiving things like that.”

Aside from providing for the physical needs of the villagers, the mission group works to provide for the spiritual lives of those they serve as well. With this in mind, Gray talked about an especially powerful moment for him.

“One young girl … had gone through a very bad tragedy in her life. … She was scared that God could not forgive her for what had taken place,” Gray explained.

“So, we were there to talk to her and describe to her about grace, which she had never heard of before, and draw her back into the Lord.”

A different moment had significance to Rudd. A water well dedication service took place during the trip, and the life-giving water that comes from the well is a powerful tool for the villagers to share the gospel with others.

“I used the Scriptures out of John chapter four, concerning the Samaritan woman,” he said. “They can carry out the mission by sharing the hope of Jesus Christ by using the illustration of that water.

“In other words, don’t forget Jesus; that’s what the dedication means. … Don’t forget that it’s because of the Lord that you have this well, and honor the Lord with this well by not getting greedy with it. … Use it as an opportunity to share Christ.”

Due to the connections between Amazon Outreach and their primary partners, First Baptist Parintins and the Central Presbyterian Church of Manaus, returning mission participants may get the chance to see the villages grow. Woodward spoke to this as she explained the dynamic of the trips.

“I get the honor of really seeing the growth and the changes in the villages because of our presence there,” she said.

Woodward recalled the village of El Shaddai, where an Amazon Outreach team helped build a church for the village president in 2001. In the years that followed, El Shaddai grew and prospered.

“It’s just really cool to see the changes of different places when you have invested … time and time again,” she said.

The mission work in the villages has reciprocal benefit, providing life-changing experiences for the villages receiving the missionaries and for the mission participants, Rudd observed.

“There’s such a nearness to God when you’re on mission with his people for one cause,” Rudd said.

Trammell noted, “It is a beautiful thing that happens on the river” as churches from the United States and churches in Brazil accomplish more than they could do alone.

“Cross culturally, God does unique things that he can’t do when you’re here in the U.S.,” he said.

“God always has the exact moment and the exact person that you need to talk to,” she said. “It reaches across the country, across the world.”

Rudd encourages other Texas Baptist churches to follow God’s leadership, step out of their comfort zone and consider pursuing “boots on the ground” work in the Amazon.

“There couldn’t be a trip if God didn’t move in the hearts of people to go,” Rudd said. “You could have a boat, you could have the supplies, you could have gas, translators, people. But unless God’s people say ‘yes,’ there couldn’t be a mission trip, because it’s people from churches and communities just like yours and anybody else’s saying, ‘I’ll go.’”

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