15-16 July - Hello everyone! Our team came together in person for the first time on 15 July at the Orlando International Airport. We boarded our flight to Manaus on Copa Airlines, and the adventure began!

After a long travel day on Tuesday, we arrived in Manaus at 2:30 AM Wednesday. The medical mission boat, CBM Amazonia, left Manaus at 4:30 AM, and as of 10 PM tonight, we are still about two hours away from our first village. We are bringing medical care and sharing about Jesus in villages on a tributary of the Amazon River about 200 miles east of Manaus. Your amazing generosity allowed us to bring 15+ full bags of medical and family gift bag supplies, and 5 puppets for the CBM team to use with children in the villages! Thank you for helping us serve the people in these villages!!

17 July - We woke up in the village of Araras on a side tributary of the Uatuma River, about 5 hours west of CBM HQ in Sao Sebastiao! We talked thru all the different tasks needing to be done, and divided the team out to cover all the requirements. We were there all day and saw 90+ Medical and Dental patients during our visit. We spent the night at the village, as it is safer to move in the smaller & narrower tributaries during daylight.

18 July - This morning, we moved from Araras to Leandro Grande. Here we "debuted" the CBM Amazonia Puppet Troupe! After some hilarious practice last night, five crewmembers became the "persona" of the five puppets - the Boy, the Girl, the Doctor, the Dentist, and Jesus! They were fantastic! The kids (and the adults...!) laughed hilariously and cheered as the Doctor egged them on! The script included a bible story, encouragement to come see the doctor and dentist on the boat, and concluded with some scripture from Jesus. After that, we saw passengers on the boat until the last patient was seen just before lunch.

After lunch, we moved on to Jacarequara. The river is so high, we were able to pull right up to the sidewalk that surrounds the city and park the boat right in front of the CBM church! This village is one of the larger ones. All of the homes are in a square around the center village green, and a concrete sidewalk literally surrounds the village. Patients were waiting when we arrived, so we got started seeing them right away. We did not get to see everyone in the village, so we stayed here overnight to see more patients here tomorrow morning!

19 July - This morning, we treated a few more patients in Jacarequara, then we moved about 90 minutes upriver - to the west - to Caribi. It being Saturday afternoon, we did not get as many patients as we had hoped. However, those that came (a little under 50) received the medical and dental help they needed.

While waiting for patients, we explored the village and discovered two previously unknown (to us...) interesting aspects of Caribi! First, it has a small (5-room) hotel and office complex reportedly built by Sylvester Stallone...! Second, it boasts an amazing wood millwork shop that provides wood for many uses throughout the region! We finished seeing patients, as it was getting dark, so the Captain kept the boat in Caribi overnight.

20 July - The Captain started moving the boat to our next village early - around 6:30 AM! It being Sunday, we did communion today after morning devotions. We arrived in Pedras around 8 AM. We began the visit with the Puppet Troupe; as always, they were a crowd favorite! We started seeing patients in the village of Pedras about 9 AM and had a steady flow all morning. We finished here just before lunch, during which we moved further west to Santa Luzia. We had a smaller number of patients here but again the flow was steady. We finished with the last ones near dark, so the Captain again stayed overnight. We got a chance to really explore this village, play with kids, watch a soccer game, see a Orange-winged Amazon parrot, and marvel at life in this village so far from our norm…!

21 July - We again started moving around 6:30 AM. We continued west to Abacate’ (which means avocado in Portuguese). This was a very small village, but it has a functioning church planted by CBM. It also has a hotel for fishermen (under construction), and it is part of a preserve area where five manatees were released last year to hopefully grow the population. After lunch, we started heading back east, stopping in Enseada. We saw a small number of patients here, and then closed the clinic for the day about 4:30. Many of the team enjoyed swimming in the river, and one of the cooks caught a large peacock bass!

22 July - We moved a short way downriver this morning to Livramento. This was probably the second busiest day we had - quite a good number of patients. Interestingly, many of them came from the County Government medical boat tied up next to us, since the CBM Amazonia has greater capabilities in many areas than that boat has. After lunch, we sailed for Sao Sebastiao, arriving around 4 PM. We then walked or rode to the CBM HQ Campus on the far side of town. It was great to see the campus, the greenhouse area, the Chicken Palace, Pineapple Plantation, and a soccer team practicing! Most special was seeing the new church being built right on campus!

23 July - After breakfast, we started our trip back to Manaus. Today was a day on the river, being caught up on rest, and re-living some of our great memories from this trip!

24 July - We arrived at the Encounter of the Waters (where the Amazon and Rio Negro meet about 7 AM. As always, it is an amazing sight, regardless of how many times we’ve seen it. After breakfast and our final devotion, we arrived at the city dock. We did a quick tour thru the fish, beef, produce markets, and then went to the Central Mercado for souvenir shopping. We hit multiple booths there, and then stopped into other shops for jerseys, hammocks, and snacks. The boat then moved to CBM's floating dock, where we swam, took a motorboat tour around the bay, had a great BBQ dinner by the crew, and sadly, packed our bags to go home. We left for the airport at midnight to catch our flights to our home towns.

It's been a fantastic 10 days of serving God by serving the people in the villages, seeing old friends, making new friends, and making many great memories. We are all thankful for this opportunity to serve alongside the CBM Amazonia team, and look forward to the next time we get to do this! Please join us in asking God to continue to richly bless this ministry!