After a very long trip into the Amazon, including three hours by car over axle-breaking roads, Jorge de Campos and I met with the Wapishana, the native tribe in Maloca de Moscow, Brazil, who make up the United Church of God congregation there. This was my first meeting. The days we spent there were memorable in the way that sticks with one for good. The people are kind, friendly, genuine and very quick in manner and action. In my days there I felt sometimes as if I were the one being educated. These people were eager to listen and patient to show us who they were. We ate outside at a large table. The food was good and more sophisticated in its preparation than I expected.

I was continually fascinated by the mixture of ancient and modern cultures interacting in the people to produce a lifestyle that was at once both very traditional and adaptive. For instance, the Feast of Trumpets was held in a open grass hut with a dirt floor, but we had hymns accompanied by a CD. I felt genuine warmth from these people, which was gratifying, not merely because it reassured me that I was doing the right thing by visiting them, but also because outsiders have traditionally remained so in Wapishana culture. The men were quiet and soft-spoken but engaging. They enjoyed talking to us, and both the men and the women were willing to question me through Mr. de Campos, and then listen thoughtfully to my responses. They were eager to show me the things I was curious about—the production process for manioc root, climbing like a monkey up the perfectly smooth and very tall trees to retrieve the fruit, and most of all swimming in the rivers, which they laughingly told us indeed contained piranhas and snakes (they were amused by our concern). I will remember that swim for a very long time both for the fear of it and for the feeling of the very refreshing and cool water.

The thing I was most impressed with though—and the reason Mr. de Campos and I were there—was their mature understanding of the Word of God, which stood in stark contrast to their most remote and primitive surroundings. God places His name where He chooses. I have brothers and sisters in a place I could never have imagined.