Our mission field, the Amazon Basin, contains 2.3 million square miles of land and water. Most of it lies in Brazil, with the rest in the neighboring countries of Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. There are an estimated 40,000 communities, and less than a quarter of them have an evangelical church. Most of the Basin lies undeveloped and unreached. Without a paved highway network, a large majority of the transportation is done via boat on the immense river system.
The Amazon River is the greatest river in the world by the volume of water it carries to the sea (almost 20% of all the freshwater discharging into the oceans) and by the area of land that drains into (the Amazon Basin). It is the widest river in the world and, depending on who you quote, it is also the longest river in the world.
The Amazon River
The Amazon River may have as many as 1,100 tributaries (official counts vary). The word "tributary" is deceiving when you consider that some are larger than the Mississippi River and only surpassed by the Amazon River in the amount of water that they carry. Even today, many of them remain unexplored.
The challenges of transportation over the huge area of the Amazon Basin impede infrastructure and economic development, not to mention church planting. The further we reach, the more costly church planting becomes. To address this challenge, PAZ has planted bases across the Amazon: each base responsible for its region.
Live map of our bases. Hover over markers to see the base. Navigate or zoom to see even more.
Our strategy, modeled after our headquarters in Santarém, is to develop strong central churches in the base cities that in-turn plant churches in the surrounding areas. Our current regional bases are Santarém, Belém, Boa Vista, Macapá, Manaus, Monte Alegre, Parintins, Porto Velho, Rio Branco, and Fortaleza.
