An Incredible E Mail from Joe Posted 6/26

Hello from Rio Branco,Trust this finds all of you well. All here are well and in good spirits.Too much to tell in one email but wanted to give you some insight into what we encountered during our visit to Tarauca.Pastor Edinaldo traveled from Tarauca to Rio Bronco to meet us and accompany us back. The team making the trip included Bruce, Andy, Aaron, Wilson, Enderson, Edinaldo, Joe, and Theresa. Wilson is a multi-talented individual and served as our guide on BR364, the Federal highway/road/trail across Acre, Brazil. It was amazing to see how many people he knew along the way. Enderson is an English teacher and served as one of our translators. His interest in verbal expressions (y'all) was always entertaining. Both were critical enablers within the team.Count them, eight people in a Toyota truck (crew cab w/bed cover) plus clothing/personal items, road food, 16/8pks of water, Bibles, tracks, projector, DVD player, tools, and the hammer, hoe, and nail. We traveled with 5 persons in the cab and 3 in the bed; rotating all men through turns on the tailgate! Seating consisted of approximately 2ft inside the bed plus tailgate, on a thin piece of foam that got thinner with every mile. Visualize three men, sitting side-by-side facing rearward with a rope tied across the tailgate as a stirrup to keep them from sliding out. Our trip to Tarauca on Monday took approximately 22 hours along BR 364, which consisted of 400km of asphalt w/serious potholes/bulges, one-lane dirt road/trail w/butt jarring holes, and countless mud pits (approx 150km paved+250km dirt). We crossed three major rivers via ferry, dodged ranging cows/goats, passed out candy to roadside children w/ a "Jesus loves you", helped stranded vehicles, navigated around/through countless mud pits, and received a government tractor escort through the worst stretch late Monday night. The Warn winch on the front of the truck was invaluable because at times the truck was high-centered in the ruts of larger tractor trucks or just buried too deep in the mud to push out. Trees were rarely close enough or strong enough to serve as an anchor. We then resorted to driving the nail in the road ahead to give us the anchor we required. The nail was a 3 inch diameter/3 ft long steel rod with a large gear welded on one end. The hammer was a similar piece of pipe w/gears welded on one end to create a sledge (getting it back out of the ground is another story). I trust this sounds entertaining and it was at times. There were numerous times we just trusted God and pressed ahead, realizing that safe passage was totally in His hands. God was soverign over all we encountered! We arrived around 2am Tuesday in Tarauca, found our hotel, took a cold shower, and got a few hours of sleep before beginning our first day in the city.Details of Tarauca and the trip home (only 14 hours with better roads and lots of on-coming traffic) will have to wait until a little later but I want to share that God overwhelmingly answered two of my prayer requests...the ability to find and join Him at work...and the ability to make meet key people that are or will be critical to His plans for Rio Bronco, Feijo, and Tarauca.Look for a blog entry from Rio Branco later this afternoon (www.ebcbrazil.blogspot.com). Pics ( yes we have pics!) will have to wait until we get home because this PC will not support camera downloads.We travel to Manaus then Miami tonight (11pm departure), overnight in Miami, then home on Wednesday (4pm). Please pray for our health/safety and for God's work in Rio Branco, Tarauca, and Feijo. Love you guys and much appreciate the love you show us. Teary-eyed Joe