The Pandemic in the Amazon’s Rainforests

By Natalie Sarrett

“I guess they really picked us rather than us picking them,” said a Send Relief partner about tribes in the Amazon rainforest who are benefitting from the food distributions that you helped fund.

Throughout the Amazon basin, there are over 80 people groups who have yet to hear the Good News of Christ’s love. Send Relief is working tirelessly to lower that number by filling the practical, pressing needs of the beloved people living in the jungles.

Especially with the rampant spread of COVID-19, rural families who were already struggling to keep food on the table are now on the brink of starvation, and hundreds of villagers have been displaced for the indefinite future due to new quarantine rules.

Send Relief partners in the region are giving out meals on a weekly basis to help these communities survive—but it will be difficult for them to continue without your support.

Many of these villagers arrived at city clinics only to discover that receiving the medical attention they need can take weeks, even months. While they wait, they are often left to fend for themselves without family or friends, quarantined in dirty shelters without running water.

The COVID-19 epidemic has only worsened the already difficult situation at these slums.

Send Relief is spreading the gospel in word and deed by sharing testimonies of God’s goodness and starting a fish farm for squatters and homeless families in the area. By working with local churches, partners are able to give out much-needed food boxes of noodles, rice, oil, lentils, sugar and fish to tribes and displaced communities who otherwise would never have come in contact with the outside world.

One young tribal leader said that if he had not been forced to search for food outside of his village, he would never have heard the truth about Jesus or given his life to Christ.

Another older villager burst into tears at the sight of a truck filled with buckets of food for his family. Weeping openly, he pulled the community elders around him and thanked God that His Church was taking care of each other in times of crisis.

What a powerful example of the universal love of the Body of Christ.

Will you help us reach more underserved people like this? Give to COVID-19 relief efforts at sendrelief.org/donate/covid-19 today to see the unreached people of the world changed by the power of Christ’s love!


Published May 20, 2020