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As the national Health Director in the Health & Peace Department of the Project AmaZon [PAZ] Mission, Janette Ryan has been serving as a missionary nurse since 1994, with this evangelical mission. The PAZ Mission [Missão Projeto AmaZônia] is located practically in the center of the Amazon Basin of Brazil, with its international headquarters in Santarém, in the State of Pará - BRAZIL. There is also an office in the USA, located in Morton, Illinois for easier contact to those in North America. PAZ is the Portuguese word for peace, and this nickname is derived from the P, A, Z in Project AmaZon, which later extended as a nickname to all the new churches established and planted throughout the Amazon Basin and elsewhere.
Over the years since 1976, PAZ has established what are currently 10 Regional Paz Bases within the Amazon Basin, each with their own director, responsible for specific geographical regions within the huge states of the Amazon Basin. In order from east to west in the Basin they are named after the larger cities where they are established: Castanhal, Belém, Macapá, Mt. Alegre, Santarém, Parintins, Boa Vista, Manaus, Porto Velho and Rio Branco. In addition there is a PAZ Base in Japan for more than 15 years and the newest as of 2005 in Fortaleza - just outside of the Amazon Basin on the east coast. The primary goals are to first reach the Amazon Basin, then the rest of Brazil, then the rest of Portuguese speaking countries and the world [Judea, Samaria and uttermost parts of the world]. As of 2005, there are now approximately 450 Paz Churches established in the Amazon Basin, of all sizes from small river village churches of 20 members to medium sized and larger city churches of around 5000+ members. The primary vision and method for Paz to obey Matthew 28, is to evangelize and then immediately involve each new Christian in a weekly Cell Group with weekly 1:1 personal discipleship (MDA/AMD = Apostolic Method of Discipleship), trying to reach and minister to the whole person.
The Department of Health & Peace (Departamento de Saúde & Paz in Portuguese) is a support ministry within this context that serves as a door opener and catalyst within the PAZ Mission as a whole by primarily serving in direct partnership with and helping the local church to complete this task of evangelism and holistic discipleship as established by the Lord Jesus Christ. Doing so through its various projects and ministry outreach, in a way that not only opens closed doors but greatly facilitates the ability to obey more effectively, efficiently and completely, the Great Commission in Matthew 28.18-20. The overall goal for the Health & Peace Department ministry is to be a useful instrument in the Master's hand to fulfill His purposes and establish His Kingdom here on earth as ordained, while simultaneously making healthy disciples who then become healthy disciple-making disciples (as translated from the original Greek), while considering and helping minister to each person holistically [as a whole, integrated being]. In order to do this effectively we usually have to reach the person at their Perceived Point of Need. In Brazil and the Amazon Basin, one of the greatest needs is that of access to adequate health care.
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The Department of Health & Peace - Vision and Practice: Serves to place practical hands and feet on the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in a way that gives Him all the honor and glory. This is accomplished by following the model of the Lord Jesus Christ in bringing health in all its aspects regardless of whether the level is that of the physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, social, and familial health. For most, this starts with addressing existing physical health needs as the perceived point of need for hundreds and thousands of villagers that are in desperate need, largely underserved, greatly marginalized and in large part ignored or abandoned by others most of the time. The Health & Peace ministry helps the local churches meet the eternal need of each person in a variety of ways, by helping to strengthen existing church works, opening the door in communities with no existing witness or a very limited witness to the Lord Jesus Christ in place, win souls for the Lord Jesus and plant His Kingdom here on earth in this immense Amazon Basin.
This vision and subsequent goals are fulfilled in part by various aspects and ongoing projects of this ministry, including:
- Provision of intense yet basic Health Training [two week blocks] - for our PAZ volunteer lay workers within the local Paz Church, which includes topics such as recognition & basic treatment of symptoms, prevention of illness and health promotion activities. The trained volunteer is then expected to take this knowledge back to their own community and present it there on an ongoing basis, ministering in their own village and opening the door to the Gospel simultaneously;
- Basic health, medical and dental care during scheduled, monthly, remote, evangelistic Health Clinics in our Health Boats [7], arranged with the local PAZ Church responsible for specific target villages;
- Basic community oriented Health Teaching - provided in remote communities during these monthly scheduled Health Clinics;
- Water supply and purification - through hand-drilled semi-artesian wells when funding permits and with the CWF/FBA water filters through our partnership with Samaritan's Purse-Canada and other contributing groups and organizations like Rotary;
- Partnership with Asas de Socorro (Wings of Urgent Help), the Brazilian Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) equivalent, which began in 1996, originally sending three (3) teams of Brazilian health professionals per year, now increased to eight teams (8) - to provide basic consultation and treatment, which have become part of our intense, monthly Health Clinics in remote villages;
- Partnerships with North American and now new partnerships with Brazilian churches who are willing to send and even help finance their members for short-term teams to come assist in these Health Clinics and other health ministry projects;
- Partnership with various Christian organizations who send short-term teams for special work projects such as Samaritan's Purse-Canada and the production/ installation of waters filters, to advance the Kingdom and improve health in remote villages;
- Currently under development is a multiple goal project that will include the components of basic but adequate gardening, nutrition and conservation of food over time (little to no refrigeration or electricity available), so the significant levels of chronic malnutrition change and resultant health levels improve - especially during the Dry Season when there is a marked increase in the lack of nutritious foods available.
Tax deductible contributions can be sent to:
Project AmaZon
PO BOX 913
Morton IL 61550-0913
If writing a check, write it to Project Amazon, but in a side note: Specify as personal support for Janette Ryan.
If desiring to send additional support for health ministry expenses, please identify it as for the Barnabas Health Project account.
Note: Some individuals have begun sending support by automatically debiting their credit card, so they don't forget. If you have decided to have your credit card Billed for monthly support, you need to know that PAZ now charges the individual missionary's account for processing this paperwork; and depending on the company has varied from .50 to 3.00 or more in order to do this. So please take this into account when identifying the quantity you pre-determined; or the missionary will not receive the full amount.
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Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:18-20
Other Key Verses for the PAZ Health Program include: Hosea 4:6, Acts 6:1-7, Matthew 25:31-46
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according
to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21
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