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Local Charity Global Impact:Amazon Vision Ministries
“My life is changed because of the trip.”
“The people of the Amazon are so gracious and accepting.”
“I would definitely go again.
” Ask about their experiences as missionaries to the villages dotting the tributaries of the Amazon, and the stories flow easily, like the river itself. In humbled voices, they speak about helping the little girl with a congenital heart defect, one that would have been quickly fixed in the United States but had been left untreated there. They talk about the children who stole their hearts singing bible school songs and about the smiling young women who had their teeth repaired by a dentist for the first time. And, with enthusiasm, they tell about sharing the gospel.
The inspiration for Amazon Vision Ministries came nearly four years ago, when Gary Crawford, senior pastor of Westside Baptist Church, took a fishing trip that resulted in a movement of the spirit in his heart.
“Pastor Gary was on his way back from a crusade in Brazil when he stopped in Manaus, a city on the Amazon River,” said Derek George, director of operations for AVM. “He went west on the river to spend a day fishing, and while there, he asked to see one of the villages. In the village, he began asking the people if they knew Jesus Christ, but they had no knowledge of him. His son was with him, and they began sharing the gospel.”
From that experience, Crawford knew he wanted to create a ministry that reached the isolated villages west of Manaus, and thus, AVM was formed.
The first order of business for the nonprofit organization was figuring out how to send missionaries to Manaus.
“Originally, we thought we needed a plane,” George said. But how would they reach the villages stretched along the river once they got there?
“We really needed a boat,” he said. “The same week we decided this, LAB Airlines started flying direct from Miami to Manaus. I began looking at boats and ended up purchasing the Marco Polo.”
Today, the Marco Polo takes between 22 to 27 trips per year up and down the river, with each trip carrying teams of 14 to 16 American volunteers. “We take doctors, dentists and people interested in evangelism,” George said. “We’ve had teams from probably 20 different states.”
To participate on the trip, individuals pay roughly $2,500, which includes airfare, lodging on the Marco Polo, diesel for the boat and resources for the villagers.
In Manaus, the teams work with translators and Brazilian clinicians to set up medical and dental clinics.
“Team members that aren’t working in the clinics take johnboats up and down the river to visit with individual families,” George said. “They share the gospel with them, let them know that there is a clinic and provide transportation if they don’t have a way.”
AVM teams also provide health education, focusing on the risks of living along the river.
“We are working to purchase the equipment that would allow us to drill wells in every village we go into.”
While Manaus citizens appreciate the medical care, and the AVM teams are gratified by their ability to help, the motivation behind the trip remains evangelism and discipleship. Through group studies, one-on-one sharing and organized vacation bible schools, AVM missionaries have encouraged thousands of people to dedicate their lives to Christ. Because of the followup necessary to encourage these new Christians, AVM only visits areas where Baptist pastors want outreach trips. AVM provides these pastors with the names of people who confess a decision as well as information on how to locate them.
“In the two-and-a-half years we’ve been on the river,” George said, “we’ve had an excess of 15,000 decisions.”
And, he added, in 2006 alone, AVM clinics treated more than 2,000 medical issues and more than 1,000 dental patients. The numbers are large, but it’s the individual stories that tug at the heart. Take, for example, Jacob Amlong, who worked with the Brazilians to construct a church, or Jan Robinson, who was touched by the generosity of the citizens.
“Many of them lived in one-room homes with no furniture – maybe one chair – and when we visited, they would offer it to us,” Robinson said. “They would offer us anything they had, though they had very little.”
For George, who spent roughly 170 days this year in the Amazon, it’s the story of a Brazilian girl that inspires him. Myna, 11, and her family showed up at the Marco Polo as the ship was leaving. When George saw the girl had a double cleft — a severe cleft lip and cleft palate — he vowed to help.
“I told her dad I’d like to take some photos of her and that I wouldn’t rest until we got her to a clinic,” George said. “He had no idea that the double cleft could be fixed.”
Now, two surgeries later, she is a vibrant girl with a restored face.
“If we hadn’t done anything else in these two years other than help her, it would have been worthwhile,” George said.
AVM is making a difference, and the people of the Amazon are impacting the individuals of AVM. If you’d like to get involved, there are three ways.
“Any mission team is made up of three components: People that go, prayer warriors that stay and support them and people that send,” George said. “Maybe you can’t go but have the means to pay somebody else’s way or make a donation to the ministry.” G
For more information about AVM, visit AmazonVisionMinistries.com or contact Derek George at 352-745-2704