Brazil's Father's Day and our 1st Baptisms

This year, we had been planning a baptism but it wasn't coming together due to folks traveling. But all things are in His timing and our first baptism couldn't of been on a better day!

Brazil's Father's Day

We planned a baptism and bbq at a really nice creek nearby. Everyone met at the house and we loaded everyone up and headed to the creek.

Poli and Clyde gathered all who wanted to be baptized and explained water baptism.

There were some 8 people who planned to get baptized.

The stories of each person are price less and special in how they came to Christ. For the missionary when one is baptized, we have a picture of what it is like to lead people to Christ and see the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts. It's an awesome day! It personally gives me great encouragment!! It shows progress in a work that is made without hands! New creations that embark on the special unity with Christ. Much like marriage! But not earthly. It's spiritual intimacy with the Lover of our souls! The One who came to set the captive free and walk us through the trials and testings of life. The One who loves

This day was extra special because our 8 year old daughter, Maddy decided to be baptized as well. We had been talking to her for several weeks about it and what it means. She understood and wanted to be baptized. So Clyde had the honor of being in the water with her and praying her through it and being by her side as she rose up out of the waters! It was very special and we pray that her journey continues on to a firm path that will lead her into greatness in the Lord.

After our baptism, we moved on to the BBQ part. One of our leaders, Carlinha, left to get in a quick visit with a friend who was passing through. When she arrived at her friends she mentioned that she left the baptism to get in a quick visit with her. The friend, Daffney is her name, said "I want to be baptized", so Carlinha brought her down to the creek where we were. Daffney, when she visits from school in Santarem, comes to our services on occasion. We all knew who she was. Daffney is as new in the Lord as Carlinha(just a year in July)is.

They arrived and Carlinha asked me "Can Daffney be baptized too?" I said "OF COURSE!!" There was a little embarassment since our baptism was over, but I can't see John the Baptist telling anyone NO because he was taking in his lunch break! So Poli announced that Daffney wanted to be baptized and again opened it up for anyone else. There was also one other young man, who has recently been coming to our services, who wanted to rededicate his life and be baptized! It was a divine moment and we all dropped the lunch plans and headed back to the water. After the precious moment of praying for them, we headed back to lunch.

That night, we had more celebrating to do. We had Father's Day! The girls planned a dance with Carlinha. Kids had a craft to give their fathers after service and a lot of cake and soda after wards in celebration. Poli shared a touching message about the Father's Heart and it was well received!

We continue on with this church plant to disciple each and everyone who have made decisions for Christ. They are the first fruits and we know that there are many leaders already in the mix! As we head home for 6 months, we have a lot of faith that God will do a tremendous work of growth in each one of them. Some will move into ministry with children, start cell groups, begin preaching and teaching on Sunday nights! This is the model of church planting and raising up leaders. We look forward to seeing the growth.

We ask for your prayers for this church plant. It is about 6 months old.

Currently the church is meeting at Poli and Nega's home on the porch. It is a large area and has room for some growth. We are praying for it to grow and in His time we will have the money to build a building for the church to meet in. We have started building the house that Poli and Nega will live in on the property that was donated to the mission/church. It is at a stand still until more money can be raised. This is again about His timing and we ask for your prayers. We'd like to see Poli and Nega in the house ASAP, but sometimes it's not our timing that is best, but God's! We thank you for praying with us!

Abundant blessings!

Ministry on the Iriri- Part 3

We met with the Maribel family on Sunday morning and had a wonderfully long service. It was emotional and wonderful to have nearly everyone there participating in the service. We had a huge lunch for everyone and a huge grab pile afterwards of our things we needed to give away before our trip to the US.

George and Josie, who had the baby in the back seat, dedicated their baby to the Lord.

The community leader, Milania, who is catholic, spoke up and with tears in her eyes shared how she wanted to thank Clyde for coming to Maribel. That he wasn’t just a man of words, but of actions too. He serves with his whole heart. She shared how our family has been such a blessing to the community and how much she and the rest of the community will miss us while we are gone.

This Sunday was a much needed confirmation for us. We have been dealing with discouragement in ministry. We hadn’t been out to live among the river folks this summer because of the commitment we made to build a house for the Uruara‘ family and church. We don’t know the fate of Maribel in regards to being turned into a reserve, but the hope is alive in the river people. They are not sulking, they are looking at the opportunity to restart over again. I have so much to share about just that, but this blog is already too long!

Our time was wonderful, blessed and left even our children saying “I’m not ready to go! I’m not ready to go to the US either. Can’t we wait???” God is faithful and He is leading us! We are looking forward to sharing with so many back home about this mission field on the Iriri river! And we are looking forward to returning to go up further the Iriri to share with river villages and Indian villages who are already awaiting our return!! Praise God!

Maribel Part 2 of 3

Part 2 of Ministry on the Iriri

We headed up river and didn’t quite make it to the village we had planned. Instead we stayed at the village below it by 3 hours called Boa Esperanca(Good Hope). We are becoming better friends with this village. A few have come to the Lord in the past few years. But this village has been more of a challenge because of their lack of hunger. The highlight for me was seeing the teacher who just transferred there in January. We met her at the village above. She is a sweet young woman who has a heart for God but was very confused when we first met her between legalism and traditions in the churches. Mainly 7th Day Adventists and Catholicism as her parents were of both churches. After a long afternoon of encouraging her, we felt a nice bond with her.

She has been a blessings as a teacher to Boa Esperanca and is very content in the new village. This time we brought a gift to her. “Purpose Driven Life” in Portuguese! She was so excited! The people in the village participated in our worship and testimony time in the new school house. This is the first time they have had a school in their village. I’m not sure how long the village has been established, but I can imagine it’s been a long time. We worshiped and shared songs for all ages by candle light. It was sweet, simple and most of all wonderful to see their participation.

We invited our dear friend, Carla Andresa to travel with us to Maribel for this ministry trip. Carla is 20 yrs old and has been walking with Jesus whole heartedly for a little over a year. She came into our lives last year in Altamira. God crossed our paths devinely again when we moved to Uruara’. She has been a major blessing to our church plant efforts in Uruara’. Her father died when she was a very little girl. She doesn’t even remember him, but has one bad photo of him she says. His roots were in the Maribel region and she had never met any of his family. So this trip was special for her and her quest to learn more about her father. God met her in a special way. Many people knew her father and had stories of him and she enjoyed hearing them and learning of his ways and nature. The trip was also an adventure for the city girl who doesn’t know how to swim and had never seen river life. She loved every moment of the trip and every person she met. She is next in line for the next possible trip!

We cruised up to Zezinho and had a wonderful time. The family we initially met last year on our first trip there was warm and welcomed us as if we were family. Laura and her husband were great hosts to our team. The message Clyde sent by radio didn’t get out of the radio house for some reason so the entire village had no idea we were coming to do a fellowship time with them. We arrived late afternoon and had enough time to meet the new teacher and visit one neighbor. Pataca and Paulo, from our team, went to invite the other side of the village. A few came and all the school chairs were filled. It was a special night of teaching them some fun kid songs and singing some they had never heard!

We had a great sleep and the next morning we pushed off after lunch!

We headed straight for the last village, heading down river back to Maribel to New River. There we have established great friends and they too consider us and treat us like family. This day we arrived also a bit unannounced and upon a Acai party.

Family from Boa Esperanca had come down to pick Acai and make it.

They had arrived from the jungle with the berries and the ladies were preparing it for the process to make it into the extract.

The water was boiling in huge metal pots on the kindling stove. In the end, Makenna pushed up her sleeves and helped 3 other women who were smashing the berries and getting all the skins off the pit. 82 liters later, everyone had their fair share of acai with farinha and sugar!!! Oh, I’ll always love acai and will miss it terribly while gone from Brazil!

The crowd was fixed on acai, so we understood that we were to be friends and not push on having a service with them. Instead, we hung out, watched them play soccer and at the end we gathered the immediate family together after their family left to go home. We prayed for them and encouraged them in the Lord. Many of the womenfolk have accepted Christ. We’re praying for the menfolk there!

It was a late start home in the dark and very dangerous for hitting rocks or sand bars. But God was faithful and we only jumped on a sand bar 2 times. No rocks!!! A beautiful night starry sky where we sang songs and the little ones slept all the way home some 2 hours.

The Process of Saying Goodbye….

Sunday the 4th was like feeling numb and yet from time to time a nerve ending would shoot off some pain. It was so good to see everyone and feel loved by their presence during our church service. I got through most of it without crying until the people began to share, then I got teary.

The hardest to say good bye to are the ones I wanted to have more time with. Fortunately I was able to pull folks aside and share from my heart the things I had been wanting to share. It was a great lesson to me to not allow one day go by without being honest with someone or sharing an encouragement or compliment someone. Even when the person looks like they won't receive it. Make the time, it can change their direction.

Saying goodbye to our things was harder than I expected. Not that I am attached to stuff, but our home, things turned into a flea market. Everything free and come and get it. I had to leave and not watch. It only lasted for a few moments and then I was distracted by showing some of my special friends things I had set aside thinking of them. That was very special for both of us.

Our Maribel family stayed all day Sunday and one special friend, Lindalva and her son, Pataca told me that whatever we don't take, they will take care of it for us including the cleaning of the house. That was a huge relief as in the midst of a move, when your running behind is thee greatest gift you can give someone!!! I have been in that position 2 times. The first time we left our house to come to Brazil and this time when we left our house to move back to the States.  I can only have thankfulness in my heart that my Daddy in heaven plans further ahead than I do and has all the arrangements under control! No sweat!

Leaving Monday morning was amazing too. Everyone returned to see us off for the last time, help in any way and take pictures etc. We planned on leaving by 10am but we didn't rush as there were a few last minute things to explain, orientate and of course those last minute good byes that were so precious. We left around noon and it was a hard goodbye. I didn't think I would have any more tears after that good bye. But sure enough we pulled into Uruara' and I had more there.

All in all the good byes are hard, but necessary. We are 4 steps away from our flight to the US on the 26th. We have 4 more places to say good bye and cry. I pray I can hold up and be strong yet tender.

Thank you Lord for getting me through to this point!

Here are some pictures of our time so far. Blessings!

Jan 4th, Sunday Morning Service

Jan 5th, Packing up and many came to help see us off

My sweet Dayane who was so  hard to break through with! I got a victory but feel like God will do the rest without me!!!!! I taught her to make cake and gave her all the stuff I used to make birthdays an important event!

My sweet Josi and two of her littles. She is one of my daughters in the Lord. She loves worship and will assume leading the church! May the Lord use her to do far more!

All my ladies who I love to pieces!

Maribel Family

More Maribel Family and our kids' favorite friends

My Carlinha who is studying Child Development to minister to kids one day on a deeper, healing level!

Girls that grew up with Makenna and Maddy in Maribel. They are living in Uruara' now studying as their folks are building a house in the city.

Girl friends with Maddy from Uruara'

Precious Cibele who makes me laugh and has such a sweet spirit!

My sweet Leonice who always opens her heart to me and makes me feel right at home….wherever she lives!

Leonice's husband, Nelson and Clyde. We joke that they could pass as family. Nelson is from a German background and a wonderful cook, craftsman and a miracle who is still in process!

Leonice and Nelson's girls, who made life long friendships with Makenna and Maddy

Departing Thoughts From Our Girls….

We are on the final days of our nearly 11 years here in Brazil and it’s been one emotional roller coaster. At least for me.

I have been the one melting down more than anyone. On occasion, Clyde will too when he’s talking to folks about leaving. The kids are more resilient with their emotions. So far they look forward to being with family. I’m sure their “saudade” or missing folks will come on the other side.

I asked the girls to write an exit essay. I wanted to share it with you. They have given me their permission to share with you all. I think it is interesting their perspectives and thought you might enjoy it.

Here are excerpts from Makenna’s essay:

“I personally would not change one thing about how God has planned my life. I am so blessed and lucky to be able to have grown up between two cultures and two languages. Most kids my age do not get the experience I got. Ten years of hard work and planting seeds into peoples lives. Ten years away from the comforts of our own culture. Ten years of growing up learning the Word of God. I’m not going to let those seeds die, and I hope to come back and water them.”

“Maddy and I are survivors of dengue. In case you don’t know what dengue is, it is a virus carried by a mosquito that gives you red spots on your body, high fever, vomiting, headache, diarrhea, body pains, dizziness, nausea and a stabbing pain in your eye when you look to the side. You will even reject your favorite meal, drink and snack. It lasts for about two non-stop pain weeks. “

“Now, after three years of living in Maribel, the community has a church. Dad is training some of the members of the church to become leaders. We have been friends with everyone. Mom and I became experts on cooking from scratch, cleaning fish, and learning what to do with meat that was killed half an hour ago. In the community, if someone kills game, they share it with the village. If their is a birthday party and you invite a couple people, the whole village comes. Our family feels like we have a family here.”

“Through all my adventures, moving, and fellowship with the Brazilians, it will be impossible to forget where I was brought up. Being raised in two cultures will always be a part of me.”

“Even though we will be far from Brazil and our Brazilian family, I will cherish them and they will always be in my heart.”

Excerpts from Maddy’s essay:

“I have experienced so many adventures as a pastor’s kid and missionary kid. I’ve lived in Brazil for the past ten years. It has been the most awesome experience of my life, so far.

“We have lived among ribeirinho people for three years on the Iriri river. A ribeirinho is a person that lives on the river and lives off of fish and land animals. These ribeirinhos get their money by fishing, harvesting rubber or mining gold. They have manioc crops and they grow a lot of fruits and vegetables like bananas, sugar cane, squash, green onions and more. They are very hospitable and relaxed. Once, we were doing missions on the river and my dad caught a fish. They made a fire, barbecued our fish and let us sleep in their house. In the morning, the got fruit and made coffee and cuzcuz.

God has blessed me with many things, but most of all with being a missionary kid and pastor’s kid. He blessed me by placing our family in Brazil. I will miss many things and many people, but I won’t forget the experiences I had in Brazil.”

As a mom and homeschooling mom, my heart delighted in their thoughts and articulation. I know God will use this fundamental time to build their foundation and that their perspectives will be different than all their friends they will hang out with. My prayer is that they don't feel their experiences were invalid when the mob of influences come.

Thanks for reading! 

We are heading back to Maribel after a 2 week tour around the Amazon and Xingu visiting and saying our last good byes!
We had a wonderful time in Portel with Richie and Christie and their family! They lived and worked in Porto de Moz for years and we had the blessing of working with them for about 3 years. Our kids played together, did school together and we ministered together! They have started a new work in a region that is rough. We were blessed to see a few Brazilian go with them and leave their families in Porto de Moz to serve alongside!
We celebrated Maddy's 12th bday and enjoyed our last missionary reunion!

Mission kids jumping from the dock in Portel

Church on the Maranatha 3, the mission boat in Portel!

Maddy's 12th bday with homemade pizza!

Opening presents with the mission family

Elizeu  moved from Porto de Moz to help with the water filter project and the church plant. He and Nate were best buds when we lived in Porto de Moz!

Richie and Christie and their family with ours! Final goodbyes!

 We traveled to Porto de Moz to say our last goodbye's!!! It was a good time and we enjoyed seeing everyone there! Here are a few pics from our time there!

The Porto de Moz gang. Waldenilson, Waldni and Waldomiro…domino junkies!

Opening prayer to our lunch on the beach in Porto de Moz!

Our Porto de Moz Family!!!!

Sitting with my girls, all grown up and sharing some pearls of wisdom with them!!!!

Clyde shared at the church

Prayer time

Our warriors in Porto de Moz, Mario and his wife who are pastoring 

Our final good byes to Porto de Moz from the line boat!

Special friends that will last a lifetime! Rosi and Nazare! 

 Kelsie turned 40!!!!!

Clyde and I on a surprise birthday retreat!!!

I just had to take a picture with this capybara trash can!!! So cute!


So little time to post, but at least a few pics paint the words!
We took nearly every mode of transportation on this trip. Airplane, line boat, speed boat, ship, bus, and truck!!! It was a lot of travel, but so worth seeing everyone and feeling good about moving on.

Enjoy the Christmas season and bringing in 2015!! We look forward to sharing our last 30 days with you in January!
Love the Bergquist Family

It’s November and we are just 80 days or so away from getting on the plane to head back to what we called home 10+ years ago. 
I personally have felt many ups and downs during this process, but thank the Lord for allowing us plenty of time to process this change.

Nate working hard on math on the porch, away from the noise of the others in the living room.

Chelsea and Makenna working hard!

Maddy working on math, looks like Hannah already did her work and was playing outside.

 We have been on a good home-school schedule trying to get most subjects done by Christmas or at least by re-entry to the States. 

Church life...
Church life is going well. We are working with our leadership team to get them ready for walking on their own.

Chico and Nilza, our main leaders in Maribel 

Chico and Nilza will be/are the main leaders of the Maribel church. 

We had a gal come back to the Lord a few weeks ago. I have had a few conversations with her since and asked Nilza to start discipling her. It brings joy to see discipleship happening and watching folks grow as they learn to walk with Jesus and show the way to others.

Alem do Veu

It took nearly 18+ months to accomplish a panoramic study from the Bible, but we did it!!!! 
Our friends, Steve and Sonia Armour, missionaries currently in Natal, Brazil, have worked many years developing this bible study in Portuguese. We were blessed to visit them last year and give them an update on our group. With the crazy, unpredictable culture of river folks, they were awarded certificates of completion. Some gave testimony that it helped them gain more knowledge and understanding of the Word of God and as Chico mentioned, it is the most treasured thing we have, the Word of God.

Chico with his certificate

Nilza with her certificate

Our Maribel Alem do Veu Graduates

Visitors…

We have had lots of visitors from Altamira and Maraba last month. The Snell Family are the newest missionary family living in Maraba and it was a mission for them to come all the way out(nearly 1000km) to see the work and bless us with bringing our sweetest Brazilian friends, Monica and Ivanildo and their family. It was a great surprise that they could also bring their kids(our kids were super happy) and a miracle that they could get the time off of school to come! We took them on a 3 day trip up river to visit communities that we regularly visit. We had 3 people give their lives to Jesus. Ivanildo shared and it was like a knife cutting through butter. We have visited this community many times and never had one salvation. We just kept planting seeds of friendship and watered them along with sharing the Lord with them. The Lord gave us a great gift in seeing hearts respond to Jesus! We were kissed by the sun and many mosquitos during that trip and the kids all did well!

Prayer time was very fruitful!

Special time of prayer over the youth in the village

A last good bye to this family and neighbors from Sao Fransisco!

Catching fish and eating mangos on the way.

Nate and his best bud, Marcos. Their birthdays are just one day apart!

Maddy, Bruna and Makenna in one last embrace.

Load 'em up and move 'em out! Jen, Phil, Ivanildo and Monica all piled in with the kids and heading back to Maraba!
Thanks for the chocolate and s'mores, it was what the dr. ordered!!!!

Last weekend we had another missionary couple, Art and Cyndi Rae from Altamira come. They also brought a Brazilian couple we have known, to visit. They blessed us with lettuce, cheese, meat and watermelon!!!! It was a great treat!
We made homemade pizza with cheese in Maribel for the first time ever!!! Thanks Rae’s!

Cyndi Rae, Sheyla, Maddy and Makenna fixing up our pizzas in our kitchen in Maribel

Short and Sweet, praying before the Rae's and our friends before they head back to Altamira.

Art giving the Brazilian thumbs up! Thanks for coming guys!

We look ahead at travel for the next week or so. We are traveling up to Portel, where our co-laborers, Richie and Christie Bouthillier, who were in Porto de Moz, have started a new base much further up the river and onto the Amazon River. We will say our last good bye’s to them and a few of the Brazilians that moved there to help them plant a new church and work on the filter project there.

Maddy won "mustache" stickies from a treasure hunt!

Maddy surrounded by friends from Maribel

Maddy will celebrate her 12th birthday on Wednesday. The following day we will travel to Porto de Moz to see all our old gang, youth that are 6 yrs older now and some who have married and are starting families! It will also be our last good byes to them.

Our first visit to Porto de Moz in 2004. Lots of bbq's on this beach,  relationships built, baptisms and relaxing family days happened here.

Our first months in PdMoz, taking the kids for a walk! Richie and Christie had little ones too and it was great fun!

We appreciate your prayers this week as it will be emotional for us all saying good bye.
We plan to return to Brazil to visit but we just don’t know when we’ll see all of these folks, whom we love and will miss as they are all so spread out in the region we have lived these past years. 

We have learned a lot, been stretched a lot, humbled a lot, challenged a lot and so much more we probably won't even know the extent, but we have cherished every year here in Brazil. Thank you Jesus for your training and sending us to these wonderful people!

All for now…
Kelsie