A witness to change

Guest Blogger: Tom Pflederer (Josh's dad)

 The daily afternoon bath in the Amazon.
 
This is our third time visiting our kids in Brazil, and no trip has provided a more relentless flow of diverse experiences and impressions than this one.  After an exhausting and stressful flight, we spent our first few days in Manaus not settling in, but packing boxes and preparing to move out.  It was long enough to see both sides of city living--the congestion and the dirtiness and lack of security, balanced by the convenience in shopping and church options. 

The move was unlike any other I've seen--who moves by rope and pulley from the second floor, then by truck and boat and tractor and wagon?  We got a first hand look at Asas de Socorro, the aviation ministry where Josh works, and witnessed the dramatic arrival from Ohio of a donated Cessna.  I spent a day working with Josh, seeing what he does.  I shower and shave without hot water and--if I wait until after 9:00 pm, when generator that powers this community goes off--without light.  I sleep on the top bunk with Connie below me, usually sweating our way through the night with a battery-powered fan.

Lowering a heavy, Brazilian hardwood, wardrobe from the second floor balcony.

The transfer from truck to boat was made on the ramp used by the float planes when they are pulled from the lake to the hangar.

Arriving at the school.

Everyone chips in to help unloading the cargo from the boat and transferring it to Josh and Brin's new house.

And I got to meet Benny, the 71-year-old Pentcostal pastor/pilot who was the subject of one of Josh's blogs a couple months ago. Benny has survived a variety of crashes, is pretty casual about pre-flight safety checks, and flies without a seatbelt.  Nevertheless, Josh and I and a couple other mechanic friends accepted Benny's invitation to fly in to his fishing cabin on a remote lake in the jungle, where we caught around 70 pounds of peacock bass.

Pastor Benny piloting our fishing boat, his plane and floating house in the background.

Josh, Tom, Andrés and Joel with our haul (Andrés and Joel are fellow mechanics).

But more than anything else, I have been completely fascinated by this Puraquequara community (called PQQ).

PQQ was started in the early 50's not as a school, but as a print shop.  The ultimate goal of a tribal linguistic missionary is to make the Bible available in the language of a new people group, and for all of western Brazil, it is in PQQ that those Bibles are printed.  It is a far more complex task than one would think.

The rocks are a popular swimming spot at the school until the river comes up and covers them during the rainy season.

Mark, who has been the print shop guy here for almost 40 years, gave me a window into his world--developing unique fonts and keyboards for each tribal language, transitioning to computers in 1992, facing problems with layout and binding and production, struggling with changing technology and limited funds, working most of the time completely by himself, giving up the tribal work he was trained for and loved, spending his life printing books because there was no-one else to do it. 

Mark and his print shop (we're going to let the Cubs shirt slide, only because it was probably a donation).

Still, his shelves are full of copies of New Testaments in strange languages, most spoken only by a few thousand people, evidence of his faithful, unheralded plodding service over four decades.  Mark is a wealth of knowledge and history, but when we part he expresses appreciation for my interest.  He says hardly anyone ever asks questions about his work and really listens to his story.

Of all the perks and curiosities of living at PQQ-- the jungle sounds, candy drops from the sky, swimming in the Amazon, eating peacock bass grilled over an open fire--it's the people who live here who have captivated me most. Like Mark, most of them have some very personal connection with an indigenous people group somewhere in the Amazon Basin, where they have left their hearts and to whom they long someday to return.

Janelle, our nearest neighbor, grew up as a missionary kid in Colombia, living with a tribe there until her family was forced by the government to leave.  Her parents still live there in the city, still trying to minister to their tribe as they are able.  Lots of people here have some connection with the Yanamami Indians, whom we have been told used to have no word in their language for "forgiveness."  It was a graceless culture, based on retribution and consequences.  If your wife slept in too long, you would go and poke her with a hot stick.  Eroch got malaria five times during the four years he lived with the Kulina Indians, says it was the most difficult thing he ever did, and is living now at PQQ trying to figure out the next step.

I will not be here long enough to hear all the stories of the incredibly unique people who live at PQQ.  Brin says every one of them is like a one-in-a-thousand person in the U. S., treasures to be mined.  I am looking forward to hot showers and snuggling with my wife again.  But I am deeply grateful that the Lord in His providence and perfect timing has brought my son's family to this place.

The Pflederer's new house.