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

Reflections about our river trip

Getting ready for a 3 week trip with 15+ people is no small plan. The night before our departure, there looked like the army was going on the trip with us. Tons of boxes with hammocks, blankets, and boxes and boxes of food.  I thought Clyde might of been hungry when he did the shop for the 3 weeks. We headed up the river and it took us 7 days to get to the last homestead before heading back down slowly. This site of river, dusk, campfire was the routine and everyone knew their role. Some cooked, set up camp and someone was on kindling and fire building. The kids enjoyed campfires and on occasion, we had some worship and devotions after a long days haul.

In every village we visit, the best way to communicate is through soccer. Makenna jumped in and played with the guys and gals of this village. It’s natural to just show up and jump in and play no matter what. Between the hours of 5 and dark, soccer is the entertainment and a universal language that gives us entry into the lives of the people.

Catching fish, cooking on open fires on the beach and sometimes eating lunch at 3 or 4pm is common when we are traveling on the river. Remembering our road trips, stopping at rest areas with nice bathrooms, vending machines or even the quick fast food or subsandwich makes traveling very convenient and arrival prompt. But this style of travel is anything but predictable. But one thing I enjoy is the good quality of food that comes off the fire. Nothing but ORGANIC! This day we had fish soup with rice and farinha! And I think it was our last day of ice to enjoy a cup of cold juice from a packet!

Walking up river channels and creeks helped the boat get up with less weight. Hannah did an excellent job, being so little, she held her own and always told me to follow her! She always led me to the right spot and she never fell. I fell plenty and was tired by the time we got back on the boat! 

Our first morning. We all hung our hammocks under a farinha house. Privacy and space was a rare commodity. We girls stuck together and were looking out for each other. Who knows what the guys did. Nate asked for my help for most his needs. But he got more creative as time went on. 

This was one of the most challenging rapids we had to get the boat through. Upstream and lots of water and rocks! Everyone had an idea of how to get up the rapid, but learning to be patient and wait for our captains orders was a test. God was good and gave everyone the ability to work together and we got up the rapid not in world record time, but safely and calmly.

 2 Thessalonians 3:3 But  the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against  the evil one.

I love this picture of Clyde in the Word on the beach early one morning. We made sure we gathered our team together to read the word and share what He was showing us. It really gave a sweet union between us all. 

Our first stop was with Cecilia and her family. Her hubby, Bebe, was away getting supplies at the nearest town 1 day away by boat. We enjoyed 2 nights with this family and saw God softening hearts. It was a great time as we reconnected and introduce more friends from our team to this family.

Chelsea, Kelsie, Celia(owner of homestead) and Lucineia(local missionary and wife of boat driver) in a last picture moment before we said our final good byes. 

2 yrs ago, Dona Celia didn’t know us white, gringos. She was shy and reserved, but polite as we showed up unannounced at her homestead after 5 full days travel by boat from Maribel. During our stay, it rained for 3 days and forced us to stay and get to know each other. It ended up to be a wonderful time. 

This year, it happened again that we came unannounced. But this time it was like embracing an old friend. Having to tell her we were not coming back in 2015, she was very sad but as we explained our situation to her and she understood. She looks forward to the next team, whoever may come up, and the opportunity to hear the Word of God as she is illiterate. We gave her a Saber Storyteller from Global Recordings Network,GRN, which she loves listening to it each night.

Our boat captain, Floresval, on the front of a boat as we head up a very shallow spot on the river. He is a very cautious captain and takes every move very seriously. We appreciate his attentivness. His wife, Lucineia became a Christian about 9 yrs ago. She prayed for her husband every day and about 3 years ago, Flores became a Christian and was baptized. Since then he has had a rocky walk. His wife is small in size, but big in spirit and we ask you keep them in your prayers. They have both told us they want to help make this trip possible every year. 

This is a family that have been rejected by the community they lived in. They started all over again about 2 years ago. We have been getting to know them little by little and we see their desire and heart to follow Jesus. It has cost them a lot to go down this path. Today, we see the blessings of the Lord on them. We went to their village to dedicated a little church building they built from their own sweat and tears on their land. They invited many to come and celebrate and testify what God has done, but for one reason or another, nobody came. Our team was there to celebrate and it was a very sweet time with these brothers and sisters in Christ. We also celebrated the next day with baptisms. Everyone is now baptized and walking as new creations!!!

Thank you Jesus for this family of believers. Keep them in your protection and give them the love, grace and wisdom to reach their neighbors who have had a hard time accepting them because of you. ((all who are in the first row(red shirt in the left to the gal with baby on her hip on the right) make up this family)) See a video to see more moments with this familyHERE.

This is what we are just tapping into and ironically, what we are leaving behind. I see another 10 years of ministry and yet, God is calling us home. I can't question God's plan, just trust Him. I can see He is lining up others to come along side and I feel content in that. 

So many more moments and reflections, but this is just a start. 

We are heading out of internet range til November, but I try to have some more updates and thoughts and reflections to post then!

Thanks for reading…..Kelsie

PS, Chelsea Martins, thank you for most of your photos since my camera wasn't working…most of the time!!!