Saved by Two Dogs

Esse post é a versão em inglês do post "Salvos por Dois Cachorros". Fiz pra um relatório de missão e resolvi postar aqui.

In march 2010 I volunteered as a translator for a Loma Linda University mission trip towards Rio Negro river in the brazilian Amazon. As a medical student, I was also interested in the medical work as well. In one of the villages, a boy had been diagnosed by our volunteer pediatrician with Tetralogy of Fallot, a heart defect present at birth that if left untreated would lead him to almost certain death in the next years. The University was helping to provide the surgery for this boy, and one of their journalists, Patricia, was filming a documentary about the boy.

Patricia filming in the village

Dr. Ricardo, one of the brazilian doctors reminded that, in 2001, a group of volunteers from the Adventist Hospital in Manaus had diagnosed the same disease in another kid during a medical mission trip to a nearby village. The girl, named Gisele, was submitted to surgery and had a normal life (she later was also baptized and became a Seventh-Day Adventist). Then Dr. Ricardo suggested Patricia to also film Gisele's story and film her. Everybody agreed. Gisele's village, Saracá, was some couples of miles down the river. Then, all the volunteers stayed at the big boat while Dr. Ricardo, Patricia, a friend of her that would be the reporter, one of the crew and I left for Saracá in on the small boat.

Small boat

It was the middle of the afternoon when the boat engine suddenly slowed down and finally stopped, in the middle of the river! River navigation here follows a rule that says that every boat that is going downstream should go in the middle, while the ones going upstream should be on the margins. That makes sense because the river is faster in the middle, which helps the person going in the same direction of the river. We were downstream, so we were far from the margins. The crew man started to work on the engine, but wasn't having any success.

Stopped engine

The volunteers stranded

There were no boats in sight for us to ask help. Dr. Ricardo also know about boats, but couldn't help either. The american volunteers seemed not much aware of how bad the situation was. We prayed and the man continued working on the engine, but it remained unable to start. Soon it was going to be dark, and we needed to at least reach the margin. I asked Dr. Ricardo if I could jump in the water and slowly pull the boat aside, with a rope, and he consented. So we slowly approached the margin and were able to disembark.

Pulling the boat to the margin

We stopped at a beach surrounded by the forest. The crew man continued working on it while Dr. Ricardo was walking aroung looking for firewood to start a bonfire, in case we needed to spend the night there. However we had nothing to start the fire. Then, Dr. Ricardo asked me to translate for the girls asking if they had in their bags anything that could make fire. When I explained why we were thinking on making a bonfire, they seemed more desperate and started to prepare and became ready to make some noise if any boat passed by.

Trying to fix the engine

The boat at the beach

The sun was almost setting down when we spot a canoe going up by far from the margin. It was a hunter and his two dogs. The man was in the back of the canoe next to the engine, and because of its noise, could not hear our cries and whistles from the margin. He didn't notice us shaking our arms and lifejackets. He was almost going away from us when somehow the dogs noticed our movement and called his attention to us. He, then, turned around and gave us a ride back to our big boat and the rest of the group.

The hunter and the volunteers back to the big boat.
He is holding a Bible I presented him with.

The hunter's dogs

It was already dark when we arrived. Dr. Ricardo payed for the ride, and I gave him a Bible. In the Holy Book, God used crows to feed Elijah, a big fish to save Jonah, and a donkey to save Balaham's life. I believe that in this trip He used those two dogs to rescue us. That we may put ourselves in God's hands and feel His guidance in our lives.

Gabriel