IQUITOS JOURNAL: SIMPLE, DEVOTED LIVES ON THE AMAZON

IQUITOS, Peru, April 27 Missionaries say there are many souls to be
saved along the Amazon, where the people often drink away their money
and live by superstitious beliefs that include a myth that unwanted
pregnancies are the work of the feared river dolphins.

But as the Adams and Mortimer families glided up the brown waters on
their way to this jungle city for a memorial service for one of their
best friends, there was little time for these American missionaries
from Michigan and Oklahoma to evangelize.

It was a day filled with personal reflection and prayer to understand
the meaning of the deaths of Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter,
Charity, who were killed a week ago by a single bullet fired by a
Peruvian Air Force fighter jet that was hunting what it thought was a
drug-trafficking plane.

The tragedy has been a major embarrassment for the Peruvian military
and has led to the suspension of United States-Peruvian antidrug
operations. But it does not appear to have weakened the ardor of the
five remaining American missionary families who troll the Amazon
around Iquitos on their houseboats for weeks at a time, playing gospel
music from loudspeakers like pied pipers playing for souls.

"Ronie is doing great," Connie Adams, 45, said about Veronica Bowers,
whom she knew well since the Bowers and Adams families docked their
houseboats next to each other here over the last several months.
"She's partying in heaven. We're happy for her but sad for the rest of
us. It's just not fair that people on the river are now not going to
hear about Jesus from the Bowers and go to heaven."

The conversation continued on the pilot bridge of the Adams houseboat
without tears or overt signs of grief, as members of both families
displayed a calm resignation to events that they say only God or the
Devil can cause and understand.

"I'm praying for the man who shot that bullet until he repents,"
Helena Mortimer, 61, said. "Jesus died for every one of us so we can't
afford to be angry."

Mrs. Adams agreed, and added: "If I get scared and run off, the people
on the river don't get saved. The goal is to get my ticket to heaven
and take as many people with me as possible."

Nevertheless, she said she understood why Jim Bowers, Veronica's
husband, has said it would be too painful for him and his son to
return to their missionary work here. Mr. Bowers and his son, who have
returned to the United States, were also on the plane.

These families that cruise the Amazon, belonging to various Baptist
and other denominations, are a hardy bunch who brave snakes,
mosquitoes, sunburn and the dangers that go along with sharing narrow
curlicue tributaries with heavily armed drug traffickers and navy
patrol boats. They spend their days building churches, digging wells,
teaching converts how to minister to their people and preaching that
drinking and gambling on soccer hurt family life and health.

It is a simple life, but one that has the feel of a transplanted
culture in one of the more exotic corners of Peru. The Adams and
Mortimer houseboats are outfitted with washer-dryers, VCR's and
microwave ovens. The older children waterski off a motorboat that the
Adams family ties to the houseboat, and "Winnie the Pooh" and "Toy
Story" videos are popular among the younger children.

Lunch on this trip included hamburger meat and pork chops, mashed
potatoes and gravy, canned peas, biscuits and chocolate cake. The
children are taught by their mothers from Christian home-schooling
curriculums, and everyone helps with the daily chores and joins hands
in prayer.

The families work hard at their Spanish but typically ban Spanish from
home life, so the children will have an easier time adapting to
American life when they go home for Bible college. They make their own
clothes, including red, white and blue outfits for the Fourth of July,
when missionary families gather together for a party in Iquitos.

Many of the missionaries are children of missionaries
themselves.

"It's something in your heart," said Mrs. Mortimer, the daughter of a
preacher. "As you pray, God leads you."

She and her husband, John Frederick Mortimer, 58, share a houseboat
with their son, John Edwin Mortimer, 36; his wife Cindy, 35, and their
three grandchildren. Preparing to refit the boat, they live in tight
quarters, using bunk beds and futons on missionary trips that
sometimes last three weeks or more.

As a child, John Edwin used to ride motorcycles and horses with his
father as he ministered to villages around Veracruz, Mexico, and he
said that at 13 he received God's word to follow in his parents' footsteps.

Cindy, who met John Edwin when the Mortimers used to go home to
Sanilac, Mich., for annual visits, said that her parents were sad not
to see their grandchildren regularly, but that "they are proud of us
and happy we chose Jesus over the Devil."

They have been working intermittently for 19 years in and around
Iquitos, and full time for the last 13 from the houseboat.

They receive financial support from the Shell Lake Full Gospel Church,
an interdenominational Wisconsin church affiliated with World Harvest
Outreach, which has sent 35 missionary families around the world. The
aid has gone to building 35 churches and drilling 10 water wells in
villages where children once had distended stomachs from parasites.

They have tried to spread modern techniques to create better banana
and pineapple yields, and they teach hunters to hunt just what they
need to eat.

"In the Bible, Paul says we are not saved by our works, we're saved by
faith," John Edwin Mortimer said. "But faith without works is dead.
The faith that you have brings forth works."

To drive home the point, the Mortimers try to build their wells next
to their churches.

On the trip back here, they made a quick stop to Nuevo Horizonte, a
jungle village where the Mortimers recently built a well. They heard
bad news from the local minister. The water had a metallic taste.

The Mortimers decided that the well was contaminated and needed to be
bleached. If that did not work, they would have to work an additional
three weeks to build another well.

"The first couple of years I would have gotten real upset," John Edwin
Mortimer said after hearing about the well problem. "But now I
understand there's no sense in getting bent out of shape about it. I
know God has it in his control."