An Uncle Byron Tale

Uncle Byron is not at home this week because he is at a conference for missionaries near his old stomping grounds in the state of Pará.  I know that you boys have met Granny Atha and know that she had been a missionary once with Granddad Atha, but you probably have never heard that much about Uncle Byron's time in Brazil as a boy.  He could tell you all about his pet sloth that was so slow that never had to worry about it running away.  They just put it in a tree in the middle of the back yard every night.  Each day it would make for the back wall of their property, but never made it very close.

  He could tell you about some of their pet monkeys and the one time he carried a little monkey in his arms on a 24 hour long bus ride from Pará back to the missionary boarding school.  

He could tell all about the neighbor who had pigs that would all roll over whenever the man walked by.  He had them all trained to roll over and get their bellies rubbed. 

 

Or you might enjoy hearing about how he learned to ride a dugout canoe in the Guama River one afternoon...
 

If I remember correctly, Uncle Byron was home in São Miguel do Guama from the missionary school for holidays.  He had seen fellows riding in the river in canoes, so he decided to try it for himself.  The Guama River is a tributary of the great Amazon.  The Amazon River actually runs backwards when the ocean tides come in and so did the Guama.  So Uncle Byron tried to time his adventure to go down the river so far and then come back with the tide so he wouldn't have to row so much.  It was a pretty good plan, but he didn't count on how much time it would take to get a good handle on rowing a dugout canoe.

First he had to find one to use.  He offered a fellow down at the dock area of the city some money to use one and tried to explain his plan.  I wonder if the person smiled!  Then he managed to get a little bit away from the main stream of traffic to practice standing up in a shallow place.  It didn't take long.  Before you know it, Uncle Byron had flipped that heavy log of the boat by standing too far towards the end.  It went straight up and straight in filling up with water as it sunk into the mud.  All by himself he had to figure out how to get the boat out of the muck and get the water out.  Apparently it took quite a while and quite a lot of muscle, but he finally got it right-side up.  

Even though that first time wasn't real successful.  Uncle Byron did learn and went on to go up and down the river with the current and the tide on various occasions.  Interestingly enough, Uncle Byron is thinking of going back to the Amazon area of Brazil on our next term of missionary service.  Pray for him as he travels around the might river system over the next three weeks.