Living Water in Brazil

Ed and Freda Trott were Baptist missionaries to Brazil for 32 years. During their last 5 years as missionaries they established and managed the Living Water project that taught the poorest Brazilians to feed themselves through agriculture and other marketable life skills.

 Their daughter Mary Trott Johnston was born in Brazil. Eventually Ed and Freda retired back to Mississippi. Fast forward to 2014. While Mary was in Brazil with her daughter, Cristina, visiting friends and family in her childhood city, she needed to get from one city to another. She asked for a friend to refer her to a taxi driver that could take her on this trip.  Yes, there was someone the friend knew and the man was able to help.

 During the trip Mary conversed in Portuguese and the driver asked “I thought you were American. Are you Brazilian?” Mary replied “I am American and I am also Brazilian. I was born and raised in this part of Brazil but my parents are Americans."  As the conversation progressed the driver asked “Have you been to Itaporanga? "  Mary answered “yes, that is where my parents worked for many years and started a project called The Living Water Project.". The driver said that was his hometown and began to weep. 

   He explained that because of that Project his parents were able to find jobs and be able to afford to give him and his siblings an education.  He was the first one in his family to have a college degree.  He now lives in the capital of the state and owns his own taxi business.  He said that none of this would have happened to him and many other families if the Project had not been a part of their lives.  But most of all, he said, they had learned about Jesus and had been freed from the sin that separated them from God.