Back in January I wrote mentioning that I was involved in co-teaching a CLA (Culture and Language Acquisition) seminar for our missionaries who are in the culture/language learning phase. The seminar was rather intense, especially since my colleague, Serginho, and I had to invent everything as we went along. Well, God is good and I survived the thing. What a relief! Now I could finally slow down and catch my breath. Uh… things don’t work that way around here.

Next thing I knew I heard that the family who would be moving into my apartment after I moved downstairs were coming two weeks earlier than expected, so I had to go into triple overtime mode to get my place ready to move in before they got here. Long story short: I’m downstairs living my worst nightmare, trying to finish the shelves and etc. so I can put all the stuff somewhere. Of course, the tools I need to make these shelves are all buried somewhere in the aforementioned stuff. Well, I had a few days off for Carnival Weekend, so have been able to make some progress, but tomorrow I’ll be back at the office again, picking away at the apartment in between other things.

Meanwhile, we in the consultant department are going to be super busy (for a change) getting ready for a translation seminar (I’m the interpreter, and there’s a lot of material needs to be prepared ahead of time). Of course in this interim I’ll be taking an intensive 3-week anthropology course. As you can see, there’s fun and games ahead! Please PRAY!

I have some belated pics of the seminar as well as a few of my apartment for anyone really bored, so feel free to click on the “Pics” link at the left of the screen.

Thanks again for your prayers, that’s the only thing keeping me moving!

Well, I’m back in Manaus at last! Feels like I’ve been traveling an eternity, but it seems that I’ll finally be staying settled for at least a couple months now.

This latest trip was rather interesting. I visited two tribes in the state of Rondônia, the Pacaas Novos and the Gavião. Both of these tribes have had churches established, and it was interesting to see the church functioning in a tribal setting, as well as to see how the differences in culture made for difference in style of the church.

The Pacaas Novos used to be quite feared cannibals. One missionary told me of a time early on when the mission began work with them. This tribe had a custom of eating the body of anyone who died. Due to contact with the outside world, there was a smallpox epidemic that was killing many tribal people. One of them came to talk to the missionary asking for advice. With so many people dying, they couldn’t eat all the bodies, and the birds and other animals were getting them. What to do? The missionary came up with a revolutionary solution: bury the bodies! They agreed, and that has been the practice to this day. Of course, now there are many people from this tribe who have come to know that true salvation through Jesus Christ.

The other tribe, the Gavião, is a much more reserved people. It was so interesting to see that though I had Pacaas Novos kids sitting on my lap for pictures within 5 minutes of arriving at the tribe, I don’t think a single Gavião kid said 1 word to me the whole time I was there! That didn’t stop them from coming to know Christ as Savior as well, and it was neat to see this reserved people singing praises to God in their language. They have a tonal language, which tends to make for good singers, so they had some really good singing times.

All-in-all, the trip was a success, I feel, and I was able to help the missionaries see where they’re at in their learning of the culture and language, and give some practical direction as to where to go now. As for me, I am on the committee to organize our field’s annual conference in January, as well as planning a seminar together with Serginho, my boss, so the next couple of months are not going to be boring! Please continue to pray, and thank you so much for all your prayers so far!

Check out the pictures from my trip by clicking on the “Pics” link at the left.

God bless!!

Scott Kennell

Well, I’ve been to Paradise and back. At least to a place that in my way of thinking is very like Paradise. I love rivers, rapids, beautiful mountains, etc., something that is in very short supply where I lived the last few years with the Katukinas. Up the Rio Negro (Black River) is some of the most beautiful parts of Brazil, in my humble opinion. What a privilege!

I mentioned in an email just before traveling that I would be doing some evaluations with the missionaries at one tribe, while Serginho, my boss, did evaluations at another tribe in the region. Because of traveling difficulties (lack of options, full flights, etc.) we had a bit of a rushed time. Despite this, God was good and we were able to accomplish most of what we planned.

I got an extra boat ride out of the deal since one of the missionaries had to take his visiting pastor to town in the middle of the time to catch a flight back home. That was even a blessing, having the pastor there during the evaluation, as he was able to see first-hand how the mission operates and is making a priority of accompanying the laborers in the field. He left very impressed and challenged with how his church can be more involved in missions.

Now I’m home again for 5 days before heading off on another trip where I’ll visit 2 tribes and do evaluations with 5 missionaries. I continue to covet very much all your prayers!!

Check out the “Pics” link at the side to see more details of this latest trip!

God bless!

Thank you all for your prayers for my latest consultant trip. As always, click on the “Pics” link to the left to see all the pictures and for more details about the trip.

God was good, and everything went well, including the 13+ hour boat trip upriver, and the slightly shorter trip back downriver. Some coworkers had recently made the same trip and had a major adventure on the river, but mine was a boring trip overall, just the kind I like!!

The time with the missionaries was very encouraging, and I trust that I was as big a blessing to them as they were to me. Please be praying that the things we talked about will be used by God to help them to improve their time of learning the culture and language of these two tribal people.

Once again, thank you so much for your part in my ministry!

Well, I’m finally back in Manaus after traveling all over the place. That is, traveling to the Peruvian border to help some missionaries who work with the Ashaninka tribal people, then to the Katukina tribe for my first extended visit since leaving there in February.

The time with the Ashaninka missionaries was pretty profitable, I think, even if it was my first ever consultant trip done alone. I hope the missionaries there feel it was as profitable for them, as they were the guinea pigs that I was learning on! All in all it seemed a positive time, and I was able to complete my evaluations and give them some suggestions that I hope will help them to better be able to spend their time of learning. If nothing else, everyone seemed to be encouraged when I left, which is my main goal!

My time with the Katukinas went better even than I’d expected. I was able to check all the portions of the Old Testament that my dad had sent down to be checked for comprehension. Now he will be able to move forward with getting these portions fixed up for the final okay by the translation consultant. I also had a very precious time with the believers there, with more opportunities than expected to teach. I would ask your prayers for the Katukina believers, as they are pretty much without teaching now during the time that I am gone. Pray that they will treasure what they have in terms of God’s Word, and that the Lord will continue to create in them a hunger to know Him and His Word better.

During this time I also spent time with the local Brazilian church that we had helped out while living near the tribe. I was pleased to see that the church is growing now with a full-time pastor. The same pastor decided to buy my house so that he could live closer to the congregation and be able to spend more quality time with them, so both he and I were pleased with that arrangement. I will be either staying at other peoples’ houses when I make future visits, or will build a small house a little ways away from the edge of the highway where I will be able to work with less interruptions.

Once again, thank you all so much for praying for me and my ministry both as a consultant, as well as with the Katukina tribe. Please check out the pictures of this trip by clicking on the “Pics” link at the left. You can see pictures of some previous trips by clicking on “Old Pics”.

God Bless!!

It was very good to be back out to the Katukina tribe recently. I made a 1-day trip before heading to the Ashaninka tribe to do the evaluations with the missionaries there. My heart is still very much with the Katukina people, and it was very good to be there among them, even if only for a short time.

The time with the missionaries at the Ashaninka tribe was also very good, a lot better than I expected for my first ever evaluation alone. We had a good time of fellowship and seeing what they are doing there in the work, and how they are progressing.

I am now getting ready to head back out to the Katukina tribe this morning to spend a little over 2 weeks working on the translation. Please be praying for this time that I will have with them. I did have an adventure yesterday (Sunday) as I went out there with my ex-coworkers, Robson and Alaiane. We had an old VW van that was falling apart, but it thankfully held together for the trip! Everyone enjoyed seeing them, and Robson got to speak in the local church while I did a little presentation with my dummy, Kotxo.

Thank you again for all your prayers, and feel free to click on the “Pics” link at the left to see some images. There won’t be a lot, since I’m still in Cruzeiro do Sul with the lousy internet, and have very little time to get anything uploaded.

Serginho and I just returned from another trip helping the missionaries that work with the Kulina tribal people. We had a quite adventurous trip to the tribe, ending up getting there a whole day late because of motor problems, but by God’s grace we did get there, and were able to do what we had gone there to do. At least most of it. Check out the “Pics” link at the left, where I’ll have pictures and details of the trip.

My latest adventure in the Amazon jungle?? Well, maybe the concrete jungle, but it is in the Amazon! For quite some time now, we’ve been without internet at the mission property where I live. There has been a new project to get internet connected to the main mission HQ here via an antenna system which a friend of our main IT guy here brought down. Unfortunately, there was some interference between two of the antennas that he installed on this tower, so the company that makes the antenna suggested putting a shield on them. That meant that someone had to climb the tower to do this, preferably someone with borderline insanity who doesn’t mind heights. At least not too much. Okay, I volunteered, but in my defense, I’m desperate to have internet at home!!

Go to the “Pics” link at the side to check out my photos and description of this wonderful adventure!

I just returned from a week of meetings of the consultant departments from East and West Brazil (New Tribes divided the country in 2 because of its enormous size). The meetings were L-O-N-G, but really good, and a lot was discussed and resolved that needed to be. That is a huge answer to prayer, since going into the meetings we weren’t really sure what all we’d be able to talk through in so short a time.

Of course, the long hours didn’t go well with the cold that I was coming down with, so I got back to Manaus with a sinus infection. Thankfully, we have a doctor here at the mission who was able to give me some antibiotics, and I’m already on the mend. Having said that, I’m heading home to take the rest of the afternoon off since I’m still feeling rather dizzy. Maybe right now isn’t the best time to be posting something on the internet…