OUR MISSION WORK IN THE AMAZON VALLEY
By Missionary J. F. Brandon
p. 1
It was in January of 1928 that the First Baptist Church of Paducah, Kentucky, after considering the mission question from various angles, decided to send us to our mission field where we felt that the Lord was calling us to work. The field was a very large and interesting one and no doubt the greatest destitution in the world. The beginng of the field, was more than 1000 miles up the Amazon river in Brazil and extended at least another thousand. Along this river, where we were to exercise ourselves in the work of the gospel, there was much to do. Many tributaries to the Amazon from the north and south are large and needy and furnish wonderful opportunities for the work of the Lord. The population of this part of the Amazon Valley is no less than six hundered thousand peop1e; of course, scattered to the four winds and at times difficult to reach; but as a rule very eager to hear the gospel message of the Lord Jesus. We remained working in region for a little more than five years and in 1933 returned to the home country for a little rest because we were all run down.
Our climate there is very warm. We are just a little south of the equator, and the tropics seem to havea peculiar effect on one, so that a few years of hard work will actually get a man down. Upon our return in 1933, the Paducah church became discouraged and discontinued their support, but the work was immediately taken over by the Benton Baptist Church, which at that time and until now is pastored by Brother Dewey H. Jones; and we were able to return to the work in 1934, or after about a year in the home land. The support of the work has been provided by the Benton church and a number of other co-operating churches and friends.
While working upon the authority of the First Baptist Church of Paducah, we were able to organize seven churches, five of which were in the state of Amazonas and two in the territory of Acre, all in the interiior and widely separated. The membership of these seven were, at the time of our return in 1933, a little more than two hundred. This field, you must remember, has never enjoyed the ministry of any missionary or preacher except the writer or one of the natives assisting him; and that, of course, is one of the reasons that no more has been accomplished. When we returned in 1934, we felt greatly impressed to visit the churches and work with them for a season; and this we have done and feel that in many ways we have been greatly repaid, for we feel that they are much stronger in doctrine, the majority of them being now able to defend the faith once delivered to the saints. Our efforts in
p. 3
an evangelical way have also been fairly successful; there have something more than a hundred baptisms in the five and a half years. There are many also that we have reason to believe are saveed yet are unable to follow the Lord in baptism, because they became involved in such a way before salvation; and now they cannot meet the requirememnts of the churches to be baptized: for example, unscriptural marriages. We now have on this mission field, that twelve years ago was without the gospel of Christ, in at least thirty towns and community gathering places, believers sufficiently indoctrinated to defend the truth of the Lord Jesus. Our activities for the past four years have been limited to the highland region of the Jurua river, which is one of the tributaries of the upper Amazon.We are living in the town of Cruzeiro do Sul, some 2500 miles up the river from Manoas, which is the capital city of the state. Cruzeiro has a population of about six thousand, the most of which are interested in hearing the gospel. We have a church there now with an active membership of 78 and another in the village of Monso Lima, about thirty miles away, with a membership of 24.
The stock in trade of each of these believers is telling someone each day about the wonderful Savior who has redeemed them from the comdemnation of sin and blessed them with life eternal. They seem to feel themselves debtors to all, because they have found something so much better than what they had — peace with God while yet on earth, joy in their souls, profound and satisfying, and perfect rest upon God’s promises, so that the hour of death loses its fear; and the promise of salvation that follows brings comfort.
We have in the reach or these churches, no less than ten preaching points that are very well attended when we have services there. Some of these we try to serve each week and to others we can go only about once a month. We stand in great need of meeting houses in these places. The houses we now occupy are not our own and are quite insufficient. Our members are all poor people, and we find ourselves greatly handicapped because of this. Our Sunday preaching services will never accommodate the people who more often than not are more on the outside than on the inside. But few weeks go by that we do not have conversions, and most every Sunday that I am in Cruzeiro do Sul we have a baptizing. On Sunday afternoons when in Cruzeiro we have preaching services in the jail, where there are more than fifty prisoners; and there are always visitors so that our jail services are most always well attended. We have had the pleasure of doing extensive work in a small hospital. There, too, we have seen the hand of the Lord in salvation. In the past year there have been four prisoners converted, two of which have been baptized and the other two hope to be soon. Our Sunday school has more than fifty small-children as members and almost as many adults. The children have a meeting in the afternoon on Thursday of each week, and at this time they are taught the Bible and gospel hymns. The ladies have a Bible study class and prayer meeting on Wednesday afternoon of each week which is very well attended; often there are more visitors in attendance than believers. Last year there were 25 baptized into the membership of this church, the year before 22, and the year before that 18. We observe the Lord's supper at the evening service following each baptismal service. Each member is urged to bring at least one visitor with him to each service. The visitors will sit, in case there is a scarcity of benches, and the believers remain on foot. We feel that the Lord is blessing the work and hope that our brothers in this country will become our co-operators in prayer for its peace and prosperity.
===================== [From The Messenger of Truth, Benton, Kentucky, February, 1940; via Baptist Faith Missions website. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
More on Missions
Baptist History Homepage