Airplane repairs are nearing completion, and Rick and Sharon are happy that the time is soon coming when it will again take flight.

We drove down some of the most incredibly muddy jungle roads right in the height of the rainy season. We arrived at the end of the trail, after driving all night, and began to unload the gear and get our boat into the water.

Brother Napo was the only one of our foursome who had ever been that way before.

The jungle was green, clean and bursting with life after the morning downpour and we were excited to get started upstream on the milk-chocolate, slow flowing, tropical waterway. We joked about anacondas, alligators and piranha as we settled into seriously keeping our eyes pealed for tree branches sticking out of, or just under the water.

A careless maneuver could easily tip us over and into full-contact with the water creatures we only wanted to talk about!

Our "Jungle Master," designed by Tom Clark, hung over the stern, pushed us steadily up stream at about 3mph. It seemed like a long time had passed when we turned up the Kusuimi, a cleaner, smaller river that shrank to only about 30 to 40 feet wide. At the shallow spots, we all had to get out and pull the boat over sand bars or fallen trees.

It was dark by the time we finally found the dugout canoe which signaled the place where we would spend the night. We carefully made our way up from the shore to an abandoned hut overlooking the river. We immediately began gathering wood for a fire to ward off mosquitoes and other unwanted "insects," when José nearly stepped on a poisonous snake, coiled up in some branches beside the house. The snake got away at first, but we finally found it again and were able to kill it, which allowed us all to sleep a little bit better that night.

The second day, amidst sunshine and rain, we stopped at villages, preached to Indians fishing or paddling their canoes along, while avoiding overturning ours. Finally, after traveling 13 hours by water, we arrived at "Nuevo Israel."

The Shuar pastor there, Domingo, was very happy to see us. His wife killed a chicken and we had our first real meal since the day before. It was so goooood! The evening service was great. I was privileged to give the message, "Jesus' Soon Second Coming." God's favor was with us during the whole trip and lots of people prayed to receive the Lord.

Like I said in the beginning of this letter, the trip was fun, fruitful, and unforgettable, but both Napo and I kept reminding ourselves that we could have been there in less than an hour by air. The airplane gives us lots more time and energy to preach the Gospel and talk to people about the Lord. Please keep praying that everything will come together soon for HC-BTS, and we can get back to flying the Gospel out to these remote spots.

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