Pastoral visit to Nueva Samaria

The community of Nueva Samaria is a 12 hour boat ride up the Ucayali River.

M/F Junior

I boarded the M/F Junior at about 4 pm on Nov 12, having arrived just as they were preparing to depart. Due to overcrowding inside, I traveled on the roof of the boat along with many others.

Brother Gilberto Picota, leader of Nueva Samaria church.

We arrived the next morning at about 5am. Church leader, Gilberto Picota, was waiting for me and welcomed me into his house for the weekend. As soon as I was settled we set out to visit the brethren in their homes briefly. After the visits we ate breakfast and prepared for church services.

Brother Gilberto’s house and my tent

We began our worship with song service, then Sabbath School, and finished with our church service at noon. We were pleasantly surprised early that morning by a visit from some brethren from Nueva Vida de Sheshea, of the Ashaninka tribe. They were traveling down river on their raft of logs which they were headed to the city to sell. It was wonderful to listen to two different languages spoken in the church. Of course we spoke Spanish for the services, but they would talk among themselves at times in their own languages.

Brethren from Nueva Vida de Sheshea

Brethren from Nueva Ahuaypa

After lunch, Brother Gilberto, his wife, and I traveled the 25 minutes by motokar to the native village of Nueva Ahuaypa. We visited with a number of brethren in their homes before returning to Samaria for the afternoon seminars and training.

The afternoon meeting consisted of seminars on various aspects of Christian life and stewardship. They asked many questions demonstrating their existing confusion about topics such as tithing, offerings, how to keep the Sabbath and more. After vespers, we said goodbye to our brethren from Nueva Vida as they needed to get some sleep before their early morning departure down river.

Afterward, Gilberto, his wife, and I walked around the village visiting about their work in the Nueva Samaria area. (Translators note: the brethren in Nueva Samaria are opening new work in four nearby villages!) We also made it an early night because I needed to be in the port by 5am to wait for the launch that would take me back to Pucallpa.

Picota family