We officially completed thirty years in Brazil this week! That means we entered our fourth decade. And I have a feeling we’re just getting started. I clearly remember telling people in 1993, “We’re going to the Amazon to learn how to be missionaries. Our real ministry may only begin in 30 years.” We’ll see. We have great hope …
On October 9th, 1993, we arrived in Santarem. None of us had ever been to Brazil or South America before. Deanna and Karin were both pregnant, and we had a one-year-old. We could not speak Portuguese, and the girls would soon give birth. What were we thinking? Ross was my best friend in Bible school in Texas in the 1980s, and we are still best friends. I hit the jackpot when I married his baby sister, Deanna. After Ross and Karin’s daughter Janaea was born, they returned to Canada, built an airplane, and moved back to the Amazon to work with us for fourteen years.
Thirty years later, we were helping with a marriage retreat back in Santarem. Our four adult daughters all moved to Canada.
Deanna got to skip out of church and hang out with all the other moms with small children during our first year in Brazil. That’s how she learned to speak Portuguese without any formal lessons.
Anni, Elba, Bella, Via, and Emma (1998)
Elba came to live with us in Santarem in 1994. The following year, she moved with us 500 km East to Altamira to help start a new mission base and to go through Grade 12 at school. Elba is a role model for our daughters and has been all of their lives. When our youngest daughter, Bella, was here visiting early this year, 2023, she made sure we spent a couple of nights at Elba’s house. So awesome.
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