Lost in the Maze (2025)

[bunniefuu]

It's funny,

...because you're in the

middle of nowhere

and you have nothing.

You can scream all you

want. No one will hear you.

I remember one day we

were saying,

"What now? What are

we going to do?

We're trapped here in a dead

end, there's nowhere to go.

What are we gonna do?"

Then Miltino got philosophical.

"No, we must go down.

Let's fix this boat

and go down."

I said, "Miltino, I'm

not going down there.

Didn't you see what happened

downstream? Go down, really?"

When you get into something

like a rapid or a waterfall,

that's when you really die.

It's from here up. I'm going

up, I'm not going down.

The Indians, who were of

little support at that point,

they had stayed way up there.

It was no use screaming

or doing anything else.

No one could really hear

us. We were far below.

Bill, the

pilot, flew to the region

a few days after they

started the trip.

I don't remember which

runway it was,

but he wanted to go to the

region they were going up,

but fly over the region.

He flew over trying to

see if he could find them

or see them, and he didn't.

The

labyrinth is so big

that when you look down on

it, you look at everything.

You're looking

around everywhere.

You can't focus on just

one branch of the river,

so if you're not visible,

there's no fire or anything,

you'll not be seen.

That's what happened.

We were very frustrated.

I said, "Oh, there's a plane.

Ah."

There was nothing we could do.

We knew it

was a very difficult trip

because of the rapids.

There are almost 80 kilometers

of rapids. They don't stop.

We were going to start

with a small engine,

the 15 horsepower, which

was what we had.

The boat was very heavy

with four passengers

and everything we

needed to survive.

All the food, weapons, clothes,

bows, arrows, lots of

things, chainsaws, axes,

all the things we needed

for a trip like that.

You start to take stock

of your own life

in terms of who you really

are, your arrogance.

In our case, on that

very journey,

we knew the jungle because we

had lived there for 10 years.

Everything we knew that

had gone down the drain

and there was nothing left.

We had to sleep in the middle

of the jungle. We had nothing.

Now the problems begin.

A lot of people live like

that. You can't go up or down.

You don't have emotional and

physical strength anymore.

The situation is completely

out of the human perspective.

God works.

As life is fragile as it is,

like a mist,

like it is said in the Bible.

When you begin to think,

you're walking,

and you're bitten by a snake.

The snake injects just

a little bit of venom

in your huge body and

you're gone.

You walk down the street,

you're perfectly healthy.

You can fall and hit

your head and die.

I don't know

if it was because of the trauma

from that whole situation,

and I'm not even trying

to justify it,

because it was a

surprise for me too.

Instead of thinking about

surviving and getting out of it,

I start thinking about things,

and that gets very difficult.

I start thinking about

the family, parents.

No one will ever find

our bodies here.

How is a funeral without a body?

I've read my whole life.

I've always loved reading.

I read everything that

fell in front of me.

I read about the great

Chesterton expeditions.

I read "Tom Sawyer," "The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

When you read this book,

you will see that they

are lost on an island,

and come back to watch

their own funeral.

It is a very famous book

by Mark Twain.

Eh, it wasn't any fun.

It was no fun at all.

I kept thinking about how

my father, my brother,

Marcia, Tamoto, Tiana

would react at my funeral.

That was an unexpected

reaction for me.

I don't know

if Miltino got into a tailspin,

but he wondered a lot, he

thought a lot about death.

What is going to happen now?

I said, "Okay, Miltino, so what?

We might die and if we

die, we die. What can I do?

There's nothing we can do."

It was going to be a

funeral without a body,

but he kept thinking about it.

"What's it going to be like?"

"I don't know, Miltino.

What do I know about a

funeral without a body?

Let them worry about it."

Those years

we spent in the jungle,

I didn't worry at all

because Miltino had full

knowledge about that place.

He went out with the Indians,

fished,

piloted the outboard

motor very well.

He knew the forest. He

was very prepared.

I wholeheartedly trusted him.

Whether we needed a

lighter boat,

and he told me the whole

thing about it,

why they used that boat.

Everything was very

natural to me.

Until, if I'm not mistaken,

on Wednesday they called

me into the office

to tell me that the Indians

had arrived in Patamau.

That the boat had capsized,

bent, sunk or whatever.

I don't remember the story the

Indians told about the boat,

and that boat had

disappeared in the water,

and that they thought that

Curt and Miltino had died.

Then I asked, "Did you see

the bodies?" He said, "No."

After a while, one of them,

I don't remember which one,

came and said, "Do you

understand that they might be dead?"

I said, "I understand, but

nobody found the body, right?"

I came

here on an internship

and I liked it a lot.

On April 17th, 1980,

we came here.

I was 25. Marcia was 23.

We had already been

married for a year,

and we weren't worried about it

because it was something

that we were prepared for

through courses, internships,

we already knew what was

going to happen.

We were thrilled with

the new things.

Everything was so different.

First, a language that we

didn't understand at all.

The way people dressed,

the environment,

the sound of the forest,

the night,

everything was new for us,

like when you're in a

different country.

It all looked very

interesting. "What is that?"

I wanted to learn

whenever we heard a noise

during the conversations.

When people talked,

and they talked

and we understood absolutely

nothing, what they wanted.

And everything they said

seemed important.

"What did he say? What is this?"

Also, when it came to

what we were going to eat,

how to clean the curassow,

the wild turkey, iguana,

how to eat a paca belly,

clean a pig.

Things that logically we

had never done,

but we didn't have big

problems because it was a path.

Like I said before, I

reached my goal,

and I got to where I was able

because I had been preparing

myself for so many years.

I left so much behind to be

able to be where I was going.

I came home. This is

where I wanted to stay.

That was the beginning of

the story all these years.

There were many years

learning the language,

learning a lot about

the culture.

There were good years,

our children were born,

and we really missed those

years we spent in the jungle.

When I arrived, one of the

things that was very interesting

was that in those years,

contact with outsiders

was still very limited.

In an Indigenous society,

you have a kinship line

and that is very important.

When Marcia and I arrived,

we were adopted by a family.

I had a mother, I had brothers.

I still have brothers.

The woman said, "You

will be my son."

Yunia knew was her name.

She had several children.

They called me brother.

They treated me like a brother,

and they were always

there for me.

There was another lady

too who said,

"You are going to be my son."

I was a part of her family too.

I had two mothers, which

is typical in this culture,

because they have a family

system called extended family,

and there you can ask "How

many mothers you have?"

When you go

into an environment like this,

which is completely

different from yours,

you are the learner.

You're the one who has to

learn from them

because you don't

understand anything.

If they leave you in the

jungle, you get lost and die.

They own the truth of

the forest of everything.

They know from end-to-end

how things work in nature.

It's incredible, so you

have to go willing to learn,

never to teach.

But a

cross-cultural context like that

is very interesting.

For example, our children

grew up in that context,

so the experience they

have is sensational.

It's out of this world.

For them, wherever they

are, they are fine,

because they know how to live

in another much simpler context

in the middle of the forest

and they liked it.

Even today, when they come

here to visit us, they say,

"Dad, can I go to the jungle?"

From time to time, David comes

and performs dental work

in the village.

When Larissa comes,

she also says,

"Dad, can I go to the

jungle with you?

She already took one of

my grandsons,

and soon she will take

the other one too.

They have this

cross-cultural experience

that is very positive,

and many people don't have

that privilege.

There's people from SESAI

who provide healthcare.

In the past, only

missionaries carried out

all the treatments, vaccines,

et cetera.

Today, that's SESAI's job.

We are now focused on

the educational part.

We start to teach

them how to read

and write in their

native language.

We give them handouts,

everything in the Yanomami language.

Only later we give them

the transition booklet,

and they start to

learn Portuguese.

This is to emphasize

the appreciation of

their own language first.

They learn to read and write

in their own language as well.

The trip

was unfamiliar to us,

but as we already

knew the jungle,

I always say this, we knew

how to make camp using leaves.

We knew how to sh**t, we

knew how to fish.

Eh, we knew all that. We

were with the native people.

We could make fire. We had

taken easy-to-prepare food.

We had honey, we had a

lot of things

for if it was a week

trip or a 10-day trip,

we wouldn't have a problem.

Our logistics were good.

It was supported by two

Indigenous people

who also knew everything,

and we had several years of

experience in the jungle.

We knew all the dangers

and all that stuff.

In the adventure aspect,

there was also an

aspect of ignorance.

Courage is very relative in

a case like this.

One of the things we

did not foresee

is we had a lot of

experience with wooden boats,

and the wooden boats which we

used before are much heavier,

but they are also

much more stable.

The aluminum boat is fast,

but it is not as stable.

It's very edgy.

So we

decided, I don't know how,

but let's get an aluminum boat.

At that time, 30,

almost 40 years ago,

it was very difficult.

It was very difficult

because here in Boa Vista,

there were no aluminum

boats to buy.

Today you can find any

type, size and color,

and we, we managed to get

a boat from Mojine Marine.

It came chartered,

arrived in Boa Vista,

but it wasn't the

proper boat either.

It had to be that boat they

called

because it stays higher on

the surface of the water.

The one we got was a cargo boat.

It carried more,

but settled more on the

water and was slower.

That's the one we bought,

and we bought the wrong

one that was riveted.

It wasn't even welded.

Because the ones that are

used today are welded,

and stronger, which

is much better.

The rivet one is much weaker.

Then when this boat

arrived here in Boa Vista,

we had no choice but to say,

"Now we have to take it

to the village.

How are we gonna take it, by

airplane? It's not gonna work.

We could perhaps get into

the Air Force's Buffalo

and take it all the way

up to Awarise,

but Awarise goes far beyond

the post from where we live.

Then we would have to

bring the boat back

with a lot of waterfalls

and everything.

We decided, "Ah, let's go

up the river."

We set everything up, all

the necessary material, fuel,

tools, food, and we take two

Indigenous people with us.

We prepared everything for our

trip, which would be a feat.

Right on the first day,

or didn't even take a day,

we started to sense what

we were going to face.

On the first, right on

the first day,

or it didn't even take a day,

we started to sense what

we were going to face.

Because it was a river

with a lot of rapids,

there were times when

we had to stop.

Two or three people had to

go down on top of a rock,

and then we had to go

through the other side

because the engine didn't

have enough power to pass.

I'm talking about rapids here.

Imagine when the rapids or the

waterfalls are huge. No way.

We already started to see

this trip is going to

be challenging.

We kept going, after all,

we were young at the time

with an adventurous spirit,

and so we were saying,

"Let's go."

It is not a straight river

or one that has curves,

but it gets wide, so

it is a very different

and very bumpy river.

We knew we were going to

face some challenges ahead.

There

was no other way.

We had to choose the smaller

branches of the river,

and we had no idea

where we were.

We didn't know because we always

opted for smaller branches

with fewer rapids or

weaker rapids

so we could keep going

up the river.

We did not know where we were,

whether we were too

far to the left,

to the right of the main branch,

if there was a main branch,

because that was the option.

We were going up.

And we kept going up without

knowing where we were,

but as we went up, we realized

that we had passed the

point of no return.

There was no way to go back.

As we went up and passed

waterfalls, some of them were big.

We had to take the boat out.

We knew we couldn't go

down any further,

because when you're

going up the river,

you can still

control the engine.

You can stop, you can

look where you're going,

you can go back, you

can even go in reverse.

We knew that the only way

now was to go forward,

and we were getting more scared

because the rapids didn't end.

We would pass one, and soon

after there was another,

and another and

another and another.

And sometimes taking

the boat out,

passing through the

woods, and we were scared,

because we couldn't give

up on the trip.

We had to keep going.

I remember

that when we arrived,

we initially worked

hard to learn

the language and the culture,

so we decided not to have

children for practically two years

so we could adapt

ourselves to the place

and learn the language

in the best possible way.

We were very careful to do

things as best as possible.

There are people who learn the

language faster than others,

but it's a very

complex language,

and it has many

onomatopoeic sounds,

and sometimes the sound

they make is even funny.

They come and take the

arrow and then

so cachow means that the

arrow really penetrated.

It has all these sounds.

I always say I'm going to

die learning this language

because there's a lot to learn.

It's no use to look it

up in the dictionary.

You have to create your

own dictionary.

It is complicated. It's no

use even going to Google.

I type there, what is this?

Google won't tell you anything

because it's a language

that hasn't been described

ipsis litteris yet.

Hello?

Hello?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Oh.

It's beautiful.

They say, "Wow, Curt, you

speak Yanomami so well."

It's not that I speak well,

but the more you imitate,

the closer you get to them.

Even if you can't really

speak the language,

I try to imitate by

making little jokes.

They say, "Wow, this guy

is one of ours."

That's not true. I still

have a lot to learn.

Curt

is so generous.

Sometimes I tell him that

he doesn't suit himself.

I say, "But you don't

suit yourself"

because Curt is a very,

let me see how I can

define Curt.

Curt is a very god-fearing

man that doesn't have,

I mean he's a very,

he's a very intimate

relationship with God.

He prays a lot and I have to

learn more of that from him.

I am very much like I

pray when I'm walking,

when I'm driving, when I'm at

work, I pray a lot like that,

but he stops, prays until

early morning.

So before he goes to sleep

he puts his two pillows

on the floor and kneels.

He is this man of prayer,

this something that is a

rule in his life, understand.

I think that's what

sustains him.

So when I tell people that

he doesn't suit himself,

because he's very grumpy,

but he doesn't mean it.

He complains about everything,

and I say, stop ba.

He's a curmudgeon.

He was born a curmudgeon,

but he's very funny.

He's very happy.

That's why he doesn't

suit himself,

because he has this grumpy

side, and I think that,

I don't know why he just likes

to be against everything,

but he's very happy, he

is incredible,

and his love for the

Indigenous people too.

He is very happy. He is very

happy with his ministry.

He is very happy with his

family. He is a very happy guy.

I think that he is a little

too happy and silly sometimes,

I'm much more serious.

Curt ends up being very funny,

and it's too much for me,

because I'm much more serious,

but we get along very well.

There's a balance.

Hey.

They have

more knowledge than we do,

and we only have more knowledge

in areas like technology

and medicine which they

don't have access to,

and if you were on your own

you would die in a

place like that.

How did they survive all these

years living the way they do?

There is a similarity.

Of course we overvalue

technological knowledge,

but if you stop to think about

it, we can't even make a map.

Your personal knowledge

is based on the technology

that came through college,

companies, secrets,

but if you go back

to the basics,

you don't know how to make fire,

they do.

You;re living in a society

that has provided these things

through centuries of

trial and error.

But if that all ended and

you came back,

how would you make fire?

I had colleagues in the

village who allowed me to study

at least for a while,

and I enjoyed it a lot,

and I went out a lot,

and I liked to do that.

I did it with pleasure,

and it was like this.

Almost every Saturday,

I went out.

And by the time I went out

I regretted it bitterly,

because they go walking

through the woods all day.

Literally the whole day.

I was in excellent

physical shape,

but when you start walking,

you warm up.

You walk and walk and walk

and you don't see anything.

People think that going

into the woods,

it's like going to a

supermarket.

You pick something here,

something else there,

grab a banana, k*ll an animal,

and go back home with

the cart ready.

Many times you don't

see anything.

The people get hungry for meat.

They call it,

which means to get

hungry for meat.

They didn't find game.

I went out, sometimes

when I went out

they had found something.

Someone had heard the noise of

pigs or seen the footprints.

We would go with more certainty,

but I remember leaving early,

by 6 am I would be walking.

I would walk the whole day,

and come home at the

end of the day.

That part was interesting,

because when we stopped

we would talk,

and then I would learn

the language.

That part helped me a lot

too in my relationship

and the vocabulary for that

kind of walks, hunting.

To this day, we all know if I

find a feather on the ground,

I know from which bird it was.

I can get one or another wrong,

but I know a feather of a

toucan, a macaw,

a curassow, a jacu.

You learn these things.

What animal is singing,

what bird you're seeing.

Something very cool about

learning their language

is when you call an or locate the pigs,

they listen to the

noise the pig does.

They heard it from far

away, so they took it.

Stopped, and they always

took two types of arrows.

An arrowhead for a large

animal, which is like a knife,

so you can have an idea,

and an arrow for birds,

which is quite different.

They would leave the

arrows for birds,

and only take two or

three tipped arrows,

which is called roka.

Think of a knife, only it was

made of very strong bamboo,

and then we could go on

top of the pigs.

Then it got crazy.

There was a rush.

They would k*ll several of them.

It was far away. They

would disappear.

I would always stick

with one of them

and go after them

with a shotgun,

and usually k*ll one or

two or even more.

Then we stopped,

and they went back to

where the arrows were,

where they had left things.

I used to go crazy about it

because it's all the same.

You have no idea

how they have such a

sense of direction.

It still amazes me to this day.

These things seem so strange.

You'll see that behind all

that there's a common feeling,

and that's very interesting.

Look at it, any other

culture today,

no matter how non-Western

or how different it may be,

mm, you will see the same

human characteristics

that we all have.

Love for children,

scolding them.

When you look at it,

there is no difference,

no difference at all.

When you understand, you live

together, and you admire,

you really appreciate what

is common to all of us.

The joys, the pains,

the abundance of food,

a good hunt with a lot of pork,

a lot of joy that this brings.

The same thing if you go

to a Rodesio steakhouse,

it's just the same thing.

You understand this part,

and we already knew

this from the beginning,

but when you really process it,

for example, I

sometimes go to Cassia,

a hospital unit there,

and what does a guy feel?

He misses home. He wants

to go back, same thing.

I remember I was talking

to my brother-in-law Akobe,

and I was already speaking

the language well,

and I was looking for

word longing.

We think that longing

is something exclusive

to the Portuguese language,

or the Latin languages,

especially Portuguese.

It surely doesn't

exist in English.

You will say I miss you or

something else,

but the feeling is the same.

It's not that we feel more

because our word is better.

I was talking to Akobe,

I said I was looking for

the word longing.

"Let's see if they have it,"

I said.

Sometimes you think of

when you were little,

what your father was like.

I was saying a lot of things,

trying to find that word.

He listened and turned to

me and said the following,

"Funny white people

feel that too."

I couldn't find the word,

but he said the same

thing I was looking for.

He was astonished. And

you also think like that.

We use the word saudade,

and saudade really is a

spectacular word in our language.

Joy, sadness, feelings,

and many things common

to all peoples.

This is difficult to teach,

or for a surrounding

society to understand,

because there's

always this idea.

No, he is an Indian. He doesn't

understand or know anything.

He doesn't have anything.

He's worthless.

That is a very bad

understanding.

There are still many here in

Boa Vista who think like that.

They say, "They're just

occupying land,"

and then there's the

political line

that I won't even talk about.

There's gold digger invasions.

It's a horror what has

been happening today.

We continued for two more

days without major incidents,

but we were scared because

the rapids didn't end.

We were going up, I reckon

maybe 62 miles of just river.

What was the problem?

You passed a rapid, sailed

maybe five, 10 minutes.

Then you saw water in

front of you,

and it was a big discouragement.

You'd get there, see if

you could pass.

If not, we'd unload the boat,

pass everything by the side,

taking the boat out

and continuing.

As we

climbed operating that vine,

the boat docked and

started to return.

It came back and got a good

hold of that thick vine,

and it turned over with

the force of the water.

And it turned over, and

everything that was in the boat

went down, including us.

And Milton just said

to the Indians,

"Take the machete and jump."

One of them grabbed the machete

and they jumped onto the bank.

I saw Miltino down river going

down among the other things

that were floating,

other things had already gone

to the bottom of the river,

the boat capsized, and

then began to descend.

I also threw myself into

the water and went down.

In the middle of things,

we went deep down,

the Indians then stayed on top

and went straight to the bank.

When the boat

capsized, I entered the water

and I was pulled right

into the current,

and got out into a whirlpool.

The only thing I had

time to grab,

which is what was within

reach, were two oars.

I sank with these oars

because I got into a

whirlpool of water.

It pulled me down with

the two oars,

and they were cedar oars.

They float, they give

you a certain buoyancy.

I sank and I went very

deep. Everything went dark.

I just remember the

darkness, my ear hurting.

I don't know how deep I

was, and I was going down.

I can swim. I was in good

physical shape.

Despite being tired, but

there was nothing I could do.

Then begins the first

direct intervention of God

because I said a prayer.

In fact, it was a cry.

God saved me.

Immediately I went up

as if the whirlpool

started to do the opposite.

Instead of pulling me to

the surface of the water,

I was floating.

I saw Curt way down on

top of the boat,

and I swam toward Curt,

but everything has sunk.

We could see the boxes

floating away.

We had wooden boxes with food,

with matches, with a stove,

with everything we needed,

and it was sinking.

It's not scary drowning,

it's a very bad feeling, which

is what was happening to me.

When I said this prayer,

in fact, it was a cry,

a cry for help and I went up.

The time I went up, the

feeling was not just of relief,

it was having gone through

a trauma there.

The time that I sank,

it was more of a

physical reaction

than an emotional one of fear.

Now we are really lost.

Now our situation is

going to be very serious,

but you just keep

doing something.

We put the boat on the bank

and sat down for a while,

looked at the whole situation,

and it was very serious

because of our two traveling

companions stayed far up river,

and we put the boat there,

and we went up

to try and find them,

but we couldn't,

because there were so many

branches and so many islands

that we could not move

on to the next island,

and they couldn't get

down either.

And we stayed far away

thinking about that mile,

and that's conservative.

They tried to find us and

we tried to find them.

The boat

was really crumpled.

It looked like a U,

you couldn't even see

it was a boat anymore.

When we turned around, the

engine was still attached,

and it still had the gas tank.

The tank was still

attached to the hose,

so it was all providential

so that we wouldn't be

left with nothing.

There was no alternative

but to stay there,

there was nowhere to go

and we were very tired,

exhausted from that rapid

we went through.

We had no choice. We had

to stay there.

There was nowhere to go.

We had to fix the few

things we had.

Opened the bag I had,

opened everything.

Some things were wet.

Then I did a silly thing

and put these clothes on

top of a rock,

on the edge of the river to dry,

but during the night

the river rose so much

that in the next day there

weren't any clothes left,

everything was gone.

The little things I

had were gone.

Everything starts to come

into your mind.

What now? What's

going to happen?

Those thoughts are always, ah,

there.

Our family members, what

will they think?

How long are we

going to be here?

Will we ever get out of here?

What is God trying to

teach us with this?

Miltino thought about death.

He was very worried about

how his funeral would be

with no body.

I said, "Miltino,

forget about it.

There's a chance we might die."

It's a possibility, but I

kept thinking,

what is God's purpose in taking

our lives in that context?

What now? No food, no

material for survival.

Machete, if we had a machete

we could cut hearts

of palm to eat.

We looked for something to eat,

but the jungle was just

really scarce.

It wasn't fruit season

either. There was nothing.

We looked for some root.

There was nothing, so we

could only drink water.

Whenever we got hungry, we

filled our bellies with water,

but it didn't k*ll our hunger,

it just alleviated hunger.

We spent three days in

this routine.

We started to get really weak,

and I heard a noise

in the woods.

Chop, chop, chop. When I

looked, I saw an alligator.

It was this big.

I said to Miltino, "Miltino,

an alligator.

Let's catch this

alligator and eat it."

And then he said, "Okay."

I said, "I'll take the

front and you take the back.

You grab a stick, and

I'll take the front."

I said, "I'll take the

front and you take the back,

and you grab a stick

and I'll take the front,

and we'll mess with it

to distract it."

No sooner said than

done, bap, hit him hard.

Sure enough, that's

what happened.

I took the front, very

slowly feeling my way,

and he took the back.

The alligator stayed by

my side looking at me.

Then it raised its little head

like this and did.

When he did this,

Miltino came from

behind and hit it.

Bop, we k*lled it with a

stick. Then came the problem.

There was no fire, no knife.

How do you open a hard

skin like that?

I just remember that we

grabbed its tail

because the tail is all

full of stuff.

We break off that little piece.

Then we would have a few

pieces of meat.

We took it and ate it. We

couldn't k*ll the hunger.

We ended up not being

able to use the alligator

to satisfy our hunger.

We knew that death was

one of the possibilities,

because what were you gonna

do in the middle of the jungle

with nothing, without

fire, without a machete,

without being able to

do anything to survive.

We had nothing. It really

was a chaotic situation.

And we were facing death,

because we said,

humanly speaking,

there is no way out of here.

How are we going to get out

of here now, broken boat,

I don't know if it will be, if

it will work again, no food.

It's a matter of time,

I think, for us to die.

Our salvation is still

that we have the boat,

the broken boat.

The engine is still there.

There is some fuel

left in the tank,

and the best thing to do

is to dig into it

and try to find a way

to get it working again,

but then comes Miltino

and says, "it's no use.

There are no tools."

I've never seen

Miltino like that,

so close in these

difficult times,

because Miltino was a very

relaxed guy, nice to talk to,

but when the difficulties

came, he just got depressed.

You start

making an assessment

of your own life in relation

to who you really are,

your arrogance in Aike,

on that very trip

of 10 years of experience

living in the jungle,

everything that had gone

down the drain,

and there was nothing left.

You start thinking about many

of your own mistakes too.

It's hard to explain it, but

it's a suffering situation

and you make new resolutions.

That came from this

experience of human fragility

in relation to life, emotions,

feelings.

I've always been a person who

has a high pain threshold.

I always thought about

how I would react

in a situation like that.

I learned a lot from

that experience,

and it has been with me

since that time.

I may be in a situation right

now of great acknowledgement,

you know, some things like that

have happened occasionally,

but I say remember,

remember who you really are

that was in those days

of suffering.

A kind of depression. You

won't get out of here.

It is even in Curt's way.

The jungle,

especially the Amazon

jungle, for me is impressive.

It is exuberant. It

is fascinating.

It opens your eyes

because it is such an

immense thing, so diverse.

There are trees of all

types, size and color

with those vines and whatever.

You say, "Wow, what a

beautiful thing."

It has a big impact, but

apart from being

such a beautiful, exuberant,

and fantastic place,

it's a place that scares you.

It gives you a certain fear,

a dread,

because this very jungle

can also swallow you up,

and it's not just the

large animals like jaguars

and other animals, but

let's say mosquitoes,

ants, termites, snakes,

these smaller insects,

they can crush you.

It can make you fall

into such a depression

and you can even die

because of small insects,

and if you don't know how

to get out of that context,

the jungle will, you

know, swallow you alive.

For the Indigenous people,

it's easy.

The jungle is their home.

If you are with an

Indigenous person,

you are at home with him.

He takes a leaf, then

he weaves it,

and makes something to

carry things.

He goes there, takes the vine,

does something for this or that,

rips off some bark from

the trees and makes a net.

For him, it's the

backyard of his house,

but if you leave the trail for

a little bit, you get lost.

You look everywhere,

everything is the same.

Everything is green.

You only see the woods,

the trees,

and you get lost

without realizing,

and there's nowhere to run.

I sat down with Miltino,

we talked and I said,

"Miltino, do I think there's

a chance we might die?"

"Yes, it's one of those

possibilities,

but I believe that God has

a purpose for our lives,

and one of the purposes is

for him to work in our lives.

Let's stop here.

Let's sit down and talk

and let's clear

everything up with God.

There are many things here

that we do determinedly,

and God is completely out

of the picture."

That's it.

We're living on the

sidelines with no purpose.

We're doing things in the

name of the gospel of Jesus.

But Jesus is out of our

routine here of our day-to-day.

It is God trying to teach

us how to rely on him.

We were doing things

just for the sake of it

with God out of the way

thinking we were the ones.

Let's confess our sins.

With regard to our

colleagues at the Post

and everything that we

did, the steps we took too.

Let's ask for forgiveness.

What else can we do?

We were like, let me see,

if I can remember anything else

that I have to get

right with God

because I acknowledge

that I am living a life

relying more on myself than

on God, and there it was.

We confessed our sins. We

looked at each other's faces.

We seemed to see a little

halo, and we felt so holy.

Lord, if you want to take

me now, I'm at peace,

and you know, there it

was, we confessed our sins,

and we looked at each

other's faces.

We seemed to see a little

halo and we felt so holy,

Lord, if you want to take

me now, I'm at peace.

I've already

confessed everything.

I've already acknowledged

that I'm no good,

that I do everything

putting you aside,

so if I have a chance to

get out of here,

I'll start to straighten up more

and put you in

charge of my life.

You have to take the lead

and I will just follow.

Our strengths,

what we are are nothing.

When you face some situations,

mm, you see strengths,

weaknesses, and you realize

what I always insist on,

humanity.

Prayer is a two-way street.

You speak, you ask, and

you talk, and God listens.

And God answers as he sees fit.

If you only look at your side

and you forget about grace

and that God is listening to

you, that he is your father,

you get into this problem

because it doesn't only

depend on your faith.

That was what was happening.

Deep down I was like, I

don't deserve to be saved.

I know so much. I

practice so little.

I felt insufficient, incapable,

and that I deserved to

be in that situation of,

when you pray, you say,

oh my goodness,

I can't even ask you to

do something like that

because that's what I mean.

You look at yourself and

you forget to look at God.

It's like a son that

goes to his father

and says, "Dad, I know

you're not going to do this

because I did this, I did

that, I did the other thing.

I disobeyed, but can

you buy me a?"

Then he asks for what he wants.

That was the feeling,

but we prayed anyway.

When we were pulling

the engine cord,

the prayer was specific,

"God, let this engine start."

We would even say the

model of the engine.

It was a prayer that we showed

our total reliance on God

like all prayers,

and we believed there's

going to be an answer,

something spiritual.

No, God will do it. God will

look after me like he promised.

That part was out.

This part is very important

because we pray based

on the promises.

"Whenever you ask in my name,

knock,

and it will be open to you.

Seek and you will find

whatever you ask in my

name according to my will."

That was the imbalance in

that situation.

You look at yourself

and if you say,

"God will listen to me

because I am,"

and then you complete it

with adjectives,

you won't find many.

I am such an excellent person.

I am selfless, I pray a lot.

I evangelize. I do this,

I do that.

You won't find anything

that meets the standards.

It's even silly to say this.

I pray a lot, I evangelize.

I do this, I do that,

but the Bible says,

"Pray without ceasing."

How much do we pray?

If it says pray without

ceasing, I'm out of line.

For me,

it was like this.

Our salvation was in the

boat and the outboard motor.

Even though it was all filled

with water and et cetera.

There weren't any tools left

so we couldn't open the

engine, like we couldn't.

We couldn't even pull

the engine rope

because there was water

inside, in the carburetor,

the internal part,

the spark plugs.

Everything was

filled with water.

When we tried to pull

the rope, it didn't move.

It was stuck.

When I left the outboard all

night with it upside down

trying to get the water out,

the next day when I

pulled the rope,

I realized the rope was free.

I pulled it.

The rope came out, so just

water coming out everywhere.

When I pulled it, the

thing would go

.

I told Miltino, "The

rope is free."

He kept saying, "Yeah,

but it's no use.

It's full of water in there."

"Stay on the hammock and

I'll work there.

I'll see what I can do

with the engine."

"Nah, there's no point."

I would go back there.

Then I would come up with ideas.

I took that part of the

outboard motor

that regulates the height

and went to Miltino.

I said, "Miltino, look here.

This here could be a key

that we can use

to remove the spark plugs.

Let's try to bend it. I

don't know how.

Let's see here, let's take

the spark plug,

open it and that's it."

We've got the engine almost dry

releasing the water that's

inside the spark plugs.

He would pick it up. "Hmm.

This is not gonna work."

That made me angry.

I'm not gonna ask the guy

for his opinion anymore

because he's unbelievable.

I put the engine back in,

then I started pulling.

Vroom, vroom, vroom,

nothing happened.

I said, "Miltino, you

could you pull it?"

He said, "It's no use.

There's water inside

the spark plugs."

I said, "Okay, but let's

pull it here."

He said, "Eh, it won't work."

I said, "Miltino, stay

on the hammock, pray,

and I'll work here, okay, okay."

And so we did.

He prayed while I was

working, and I kept pulling.

And I pumped gasoline

to fill it in.

Then suddenly when I pulled

it out, it did this boom.

When Miltino saw what happened,

he jumped from the

hammock very happy.

"Man, did you see that?"

I said, "Of course I saw

it. It worked, right?

Now you'll come, right?"

We were so exhausted.

Now it worked. Okay, done.

All of a

sudden the engine goes, hmm,

and it dies again, but it

was a miracle.

It was great to see the

engine starting up again.

Then we were in a new phase,

with the possibility of

the engine working again.

The

Araguaia River

is a relatively large river,

so it wouldn't be very

difficult to find a boat

on most of the Araguaia river,

but they had the

accident in a region

where it splits into many,

many branches,

hundreds of branches,

and there's this huge amount

of islands and branches,

so that would make it extremely

difficult to find a person.

The region they stayed

after the accident

where they had the boat and the

engine and where they camped

until they managed to

get the engine working

was a place where they

would hardly be seen

by someone on a plane.

At that time of year in July,

the river's really full,

so there isn't a dry place

to stay by the river.

It's very difficult to find a

place where you can stay dry

and where you can be

seen by a plane.

The only dry place is

in the woods,

and it's difficult to see

someone there.

Pulling the boat,

we would go through the

mangroves on top of trees,

trunks, and everything.

At one point, Miltino

stepped on an alligator.

He was even almost

bitten by the alligator.

When we were close to the

larger part of the river

at the top, we heard the plane.

Then we stopped and

they stopped.

They are looking for us.

On Sunday when they went

there on the way back,

the plane was very low,

deviating from the normal route,

knowing that possibly

something had happened

because we were taking too long.

We should have already

been at the post.

The plane passed right over us.

We saw it very close to us.

"We are here, we're

here." We screamed "Ah."

Ah, the plane left. Okay,

off it went.

We felt helpless. There

was nothing we could do.

You see the plane? Ah,

look, here's the boat.

It passed right over us.

We continued the journey.

We pulled the boat out.

The stern was badly bent.

Then we used some stones

to put it into place,

and then we sort of moved it

and then bashed it into place.

We put it back the way it was.

We set up, and we spent

the night there.

The next day, we left

early in the morning.

And at night, thank you

very much, Lord.

Tomorrow morning we'll

return to our journey.

We left the next day,

very early in the morning,

put the few things we

had in the boat.

Let's go, let's go.

Hey, what in the world?

Yesterday we worked very hard

to get the engine really hot

and now nothing is happening.

We forgot to pray. Lord,

make that engine work please.

Yesterday it worked.

Why won't it work now?

Oh, there it is. All

right, now it's turning on.

Yeah, that's working.

That's how it is in our lives,

right?

We get it right, but it seems

like we just don't learn.

We

dismantled the camp.

Hmm, before taking the tarp off,

we knelt down and we

made a resolution

that whenever and wherever

we told the story,

we weren't going to go

out as heroes.

We knelt there and prayed.

In the morning, we

dismantled the camp

and started sailing again,

and we got to the crash site

and we couldn't get through.

There was no way. What do we do?

We had to take the boat out.

It took us all day to

walk about 300 meters

because now we had to

carry the boat,

and it weighs 154 pounds.

It has the engine, and

we were weak.

The boat is 19 feet long.

You start walking and it

gets stuck in the trees.

You go there, turn around a

little bit, come back here,

because we needed to get

to the other side

of the branch of the river.

There we could go sailing,

and it was again, a very

risky situation.

We had to

spend the night there again,

it was a clean place,

some big rocks.

There was a cave

inside the rocks.

I said, "Wow," I didn't

even need to ask him.

He immediately said, "Yeah,

a jaguar's home, right?"

I said, "Yeah, it looks

like a jaguar's home.

Wow, we managed to

get out there,

and now a jaguar will eat

us, eh, it's no use, right?"

God is in control. He is the

one who takes care of us.

So there's some things that,

I believe it really was a

jaguar's home,

but I think the jaguar

went for a walk that day,

so it was out.

Things

like that are spectacular.

That day when when we

were pulling the boat,

I stepped on the alligator,

a snake passed by,

a

passed by our side,

and when we arrived

at that place,

that's where the

famous cave was.

There was a place, it

was a stone cave,

and there were only

jaguar footprints.

It was indeed a jaguar's

home. What do you do?

We have to sleep here.

There's nowhere to go.

I took my stick. Can

you imagine?

Curt took out the flashlight,

which is a wisp of light,

but it does the trick.

We had to see if the

jaguar was inside.

How am I going to hit the

jaguar on the head with a stick?

Will it hurt?

Will I be able to k*ll the

animal before it kills us?

There was no jaguar, but

there were many footprints.

One after another, one

after another.

There was a terrible

rain during the night,

and we made the camp and

we spent the night there.

Again, I kept thinking,

"Oh my goodness, if this

engine doesn't work right,

we'll only have one chance.

If it stops working,

we'll go in with the

boat in this condition."

It was a huge boulder

with violent water.

You can't imagine what

will happen here.

We only had one chance.

That night I was

praying and thinking,

"Lord, don't let the

engine stop working."

The next morning we

started the engine

and we prayed out loud, "Lord,

you have brought us this far.

The engine cannot stop."

There is no time to

start the engine again,

because the water was calm here,

I was going into deep water,

the rapids going downhill,

but trying to get to

the other side

and head the boat to

continue going up.

When we tried to start the

engine, it didn't start,

we pulled it, we pulled it,

we pulled it.

I'm like, "Curt, hold on."

We prayed again.

"Lord, please, this

engine has to start."

I pulled half of the spinner

out, the engine started.

I headed out at full speed.

The water was going down,

and deep water on this side,

down to the start of the

trip with that rough boulder.

When I went in, the

engine hit a stick.

It lifted 'cause the

stick was loose.

It went back into the water

running without stopping.

I crossed that deeper part

with my heart in my mouth

and Curt with his

eyes wide open.

We crossed past that part. The

rapids were going downhill.

We turned in the other corner

on the other side of the river

and we started sailing, and

there were no more rapids.

I said, Curt, it was

the last place.

When we were 600 meters away

from finding the big

river again.

The rapids ended there.

They literally ended there,

because we started sailing.

The branch got wider. We

got into the other branch.

It was a relief, because

there were no more rapids.

The water was running,

but it was deep water.

The boat was like an

airplane. It went and crossed.

It is made for that.

And we went sailing and

then we saw the hand of God.

'Cause after one to two

hours sailing,

we heard a noise.

The plane was coming low.

It didn't

take us long to find them,

and it was a miracle of God.

The biggest miracle actually

was that they were able

to get the engine running.

They repaired the boat

and got it out.

Maybe if we had done the

search a day earlier,

we would've flown long hours

and wouldn't have found them.

The plane was

coming low and then we saw it.

That made us happy. We

jumped on the boat.

Look at

the plane. It's them.

They spotted us, and they

started to fly overhead.

The fear,

what worried us.

The radio would announce

that they had found us,

that we were alive.

The plane flew, came back,

and they started throwing

the most important

things in the world.

A lighter, a knife, some food.

They threw it so perfectly.

It came down tied in a

ribbon, and I took it.

It was chocolate, some food,

and there was a note from

Timothy, my son, he wrote,

"Dad, I don't know if

you have radio there,

but if you don't have it, know

that Brazil beat Argentina

two to nothing

in soccer today"

Rescued on the day Brazil

beat Argentina two to nothing.

Many people think there's

no way up or down.

I don't have emotional

strength anymore.

I don't have physical strength.

The situation is completely

out of human control.

God works.

God continues to be God

in any situation.

It doesn't depend on

our strength,

or on what we were ceasing to

be, but on the grace of God,

and his hand is always there.

Can you imagine the injury

if I had stepped on

the alligator,

if I had been bitten by a snake?

Or Curt had been

bitten by a snake?

It would be a different story.

If that engine cord had broken,

it would be a different story.

If the engine had stopped

in that situation,

the ending would be different.

The boat was never used

again. It made just one trip.

It got there and we put

it on the wall,

and it was never used again.

The story and teachings

continue that God is wonderful,

and God's grace is

better than life.

We keep moving.

I don't know how it ends,

but we cling to grace

until the end.

Ah.

There are no words.

It's the epitome of everything.

That's why I am happy.

I'm more than happy.

Top notch. Oh yeah.