Priscilla during a consultation with Johanneke in the background

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone that helped out for this year’s health impact, whether through prayer, financially or by traveling all the way to the north of Brazil to give a hand.
We had a great time, the living conditions weren’t the easiest, the heat and heavy workload meant nearly everyone sweated off a couple of kilo’s (I personally lost 2) but hundreds of men and women received Gospel centered health teachings and consultations.

Esther taking her bath during the health outreach

Our first week was spent in Calçoene going over our material as a team and putting together methods to get the information across to our audience some of whom couldn’t read or write or retain a lot of information at once. We were very lucky to have Godfrey Sim come out from Grace Vineyard in Christchurch New Zealand. Godfrey has worked most of his life with drama and acting and was a huge help at putting together some powerful dramas that tied well into our teaching theme for that day. We came up with three topics that we taught over a three day period. They were the importance of clean water and hygiene, sexual health and lastly nutrition. We split up the teaching responsibilities and I was put on clean water, although we are working with water filters and I have read a lot on the subject I had never had to teach it. It was a little scary but I thought easier to teach than the the sexual health topic!

After our team training week we headed out to our first community. We were working alongside the circus from YWAM Macapa. The circus is in its fifth year and seemed to have the edge over us organizationally. We arrived to find one room available for our team of 10 with 3 couples one of which were on their honeymoon. After a quick visit with the mayor we secured a school we could stay which also had a good area to do the health teaching.

Jonathon from Holland during a time of going house to house informing families about our clinics.

Our goal was to do three days of teaching and on the forth have an open health clinic. The teaching days went well, it was a little disappointing at the number of people who showed up but the people who did defiantly had a laugh and hopefully left with some new insights. Probably the highlight was the drama titled in English “what goes in must come out”. It involved Godfrey wearing a giant breast-like apparatus which he had designed and built. He had two children who he was breastfeeding. The first child was small and weak (acted by myself), his mother had a very poor diet, drunk a lot and hardly ate fruit and vegies. The second child was strong and energetic and his mum ate a well rounded diet. The point was that what we eat when breast feeding affects the quality of the milk and the health of the baby. The local women seemed to respond well to it and we always had a question and discussion time after each drama.

Godfrey and his ….

While all of this was happening we also had a water filter workshop set up in the center of the town. We made a filter a day and talked with everyone that walked over to see what we were doing. The mayor provided all the materials we needed and was very open to the idea that they to could have a filter mold and make filters for their own people. We couldn’t give a filter to everyone but that wasn’t our goal our goal was to promote the importance of clean water and motivate local authorities to have a filter mold made for their community.

Rachel and I after installing a water filter in the house of a local politician

A large group of kids hear about the importance of having clean water.

On the forth day we had an open clinic where the health professionals on the team set up to receive people during the day. The secretary of health from the community gave us medications to use and left a local nurse to help for the day. They must have liked what they saw as they have invited Maurilo our team leader from Sao Paulo back to work full time there as a community health promoter and he has accepted the challenge. What a great way to help bring about community transformation and development.

Maurilo being interviewed by a local TV station.

The following week we traveled to another community. The local mayor had given us full use of a new health post which wasn’t being used as they had no health professionals to work in it. The circus tent for the children was set up on a field beside and the water filter workshop at the front of the health post. We followed the same format as the first week but due to overwhelming demand we ran clinics every morning after the education sessions. The community has more than 12 000 population, while we were there, there was no doctor present or health secretary. However, we were able to involve a number of health technicians who were more than glad to help.

During the health clinics more than 120 people received a free consultation, all patients received prayer, only one said no to the offer.

By the end of the 2 weeks we were all very tired and headed back to our home in Calçoene for a few days of R&R and a time of debriefing.

The remaining team members head back to base

Thank you all so much for praying for us. We constantly felt the heaviness around us and all would get tired and discouraged at times, we really can now see the power of prayer and the necessity of it to work in the way we were during the impact.

Rachel is returning to New Zealand and will arrive on the 15th of August. I will be traveling around bases in Brazil and Argentina sharing about our work and vision and will finish in Buenos Aires to catch my flight back to New Zealand on September 6th. We will be home for 2 months, God willing we will be back in the Amazon at the end of October.

Thank you for all of your support
Michael and Rachel Trengrove

HAERE RA from Brasil

Friends and family,
Here we are in June, half way through the year, it is hard to believe. FINALLY the rain is easing, and life here is much improved. We are in! The girls have the swankiest room ever seen in Calçoene, and we also have a lovely office. Thank you to all of you who contributed to this project, these rooms are a real blessing. Esther is now in her own room, and we have our lives back again. It has been really good to finally unpack all of our books and office gear.

Breakfast time is a highlight for Esther

Right now, the girls are discipling young teenage girls; one on one, with a kit from a course Mick did in Macapa. This ministry is developing quite quickly, and is extremely effective for counselling and ministering in the lives of these at risk girls. Nezilda is on the verge of getting engaged, and her boyfriend is coming up to spend June and July with us here, and they will pray together about where to be once they are married. Pray that it will be here!!

Both these girls are named Jennifer and both participate in the friendship discipleship group

The women’s’ group is going well. Sometimes there is only one woman that comes, which is both good and bad. Rachel is able to spend lots of time with her though, and we know that a community changes person by person. We organised a very successful mother’s day celebration with the church, and more than fifty women came and were touched by God.

Michael is due to start his work with boys tomorrow, and we will keep you informed as to how that goes. A group has almost already formed naturally, and love to come and swim and play soccer here on the base. The swimming hole is a real focus for the community, and as there is no drinking etc allowed, it is a safe place for children, especially girls.

What a great way to reach a community, our swimming hole is fill with people every day

We have been blessed with a mould to make affordable water filters. The ministry was set up by our good friends the Staub Family, who are sadly (for us) returning to the states. Luckily for us, and for Calçoene they are passing their ministry on to YWAM.

Greg Staub standing with the filter mold, on the right is a discription of the filter itself, bom se voce entender o portuges

We have been busy building a workshop where we will be producing the filters. Our biggest challenge will be education and helping people realise the benefits for themselves and their children of clean water. Please visit www.aguadarocha.com to learn about the filter project. The site is in Portuguese but has great pics.

Here is a team shot with the water filter work shop behind. All the building materilas were taken off our land minus a few bags of nails and a concrete slab to work on.

Our lives have been radically transformed by the employment of a couple. Ruth works in the house and cooks lunch five days a week, and her husband Smiley (!) works outside with the enormous amount of maintenance and projects we have on the go. It is such a relief to have them with us, and we really can focus on more than the physical now. They will be looking after the base during the health impact in July.

We will have an international team of ten or twelve this year for the health impact, and we are well under way with planning. A Brazilian nurse is coming up from Sao Paulo to lead it again. Please pray urgently that he will get the money he needs for his flight. This is really important, as he is the key member of the team. We have people coming from New Zealand, Canada, hopefully Holland, and of course Brazil. We are going to two towns this year, and have attached a more detailed report for those who are interested in praying and supporting the outreach.

The World Cup starts tonight! You can imagine the cup fever that is all over town, even a small town like Calçoene. The cars have flags fluttering out the windows and all of the bars and shops have re-painted their exterior yellow and green. Everyone was especially triumphant after the resounding win against NZ last weekend! It will also be a time of drinking and violence, and crime rates also rise during this time. Pray especially for women and children as the effects of alcohol enter the home.

Rachel and Esther are preparing to come back to NZ in August, for Rachel to complete the necessary hours of nursing to maintain her registration. Michael will follow six weeks later. It is hard to be apart, and we are already looking forward to being back together again. We are hoping that both girls will complete the Community Development School that is being held in Brazil for the first time this year.

We hope you enjoy the photos that are attached, and remember to read more about the health impact too. We will be writing another update soon after the outreach.
Love and blessings,
Michael, Rachel and Esther Trengrove.

Health Impact 2006, July 2 – July 23

This year we will be visiting two communities within the state of Amapa. The communities have major social and health problems with child prostitution and abuse on one side and malnutrition and parasitic infections on the other.

In both communities we will be working with the local health post with health education and consultations. We will have a std clinic running plus a worming and anaemia programme. We will have our water filter project with us and will be teaching on the value of clean water.

Please pray for our team as they prepare for the long journey to the Amazon. They are-

Cory and Beth - Canada
Godfrey Sim – New Zealand
Maurilo Bourges - Brazil
Johanneke and Jonathan – Holland (yet to confirm)

As we know it takes money to run these health impacts. Can you help with the following?
All prices are in New Zealand Dollars

Blood pressure machine - $100
Examination light - $200
Medication - $350
Diesel - $500
Chairs and tables - $970 (1 chair = $23, 1 table = $75)
Concrete mixer to make the water filters ($1000)

Donations can be made with a credit card from this website, please click on the donate symbol at the top or bottom and follow the instructions.

Donations can also be posted to:
Macapa Mobile Clinic Fund
C/O Youth With A Mission
PO Box 47
Oxford
Nth Canterbury
New Zealand

Thank you for praying for us over the month of July, if anyone would like a detailed itinerary of the impact please email trengrovetribe@gmail.com and we will get one to you. We realise the importance that we are covered with prayer as we travel to these communities.