Denny's Car & Travels South

When the Stout family left for America late last month, Denny left his concept car which he’d been working on for a few years.  From what I gather it was initially a VW Beetle which had then had its shell removed and its frame built upon to include a roll cage.  As he’s going to university in America he’s left the car for the other missionary kids to continue to build up.  It was driven from his house to the Asuncion HQ under the strength of the van that dragged it with its 4 flat tyres, and was left at the crest of the hill to be later put by the garage.  The 2 Dans and the Reich kids were given the tricky task of moving the car down the steep hill one night just before the Reiches also left for America.  Worried that the brakeless Beetle would pick up momentum on the hill from the initial shove and crash through the garage we decided to attach it to Dan Reich’s truck and gently back it down the hill.  This proved to be not as easy as expected because the 4 flat tyres made the car overcome the power of gravity and momentum as we pushed it over the crest.  Despite the hill being a good 35 degrees, the car just would not move.  It took a heap of shoving and straining to get the anti-vehicle into place, a place it may remain in until the dozen MKs get it fixed up and able to drive up such a steep incline.  Quite a task!

On Friday I headed to the south on another 7 hour adventure by bus.  The last bus journey I had taken was in a climate-controlled posh bus and at the height of the day the air con unit failed causing an elderly lady to make a fuss and call the police to report she was being essentially cooked inside the bus which had no openable windows.  Because of this I was thankful that this latest journey was in a regular old city bus whose air conditioning was provided through curtained windows.

I got to stay at the Floyds’ house for 6 days to start with, and I was able to see a bit of the school teaching Mrs Floyd does at a local rural school, and got to attend a screening of a Christian movie on the side of their house which 2 dozen locals attended.

They had recently picked up a new pup, a Rottweiler cross which is as yet unnamed (although its 2 most popular possible names are Samson and Genghis and is currently affectionately called Chubster due to its size -it being as wide as it is tall), and the poor pup got savaged by their collie and required stitches.

Also, I got to meet a disabled man who’d been benefitted by the Audio Bible distribution from a couple of months back.  He has club hands and feet which has left him unable to lead what we’d consider a normal life and spends his days sitting in the shade by the main road where passersby sometimes stop and give him money which he’s able to survive on.  A local carpenter had made him a special wooden cart which he was able to get around with that looked somewhat like a longboard with very large wheels.
He was given an Audio Bible in the Guarani language and he listens to it sometimes while sitting by the road.  Mr Floyd told him the account of Adam and Eve and he said he’d never heard it before.  It’s amazing really, because it’s a Catholic area yet even the most known of stories had never been taught.  But now he knows.  You can pray for him that he’d continue to listen to his Audio Bible and that God would continue to teach him and that He may lead him to a saving knowledge of His Son Jesus.

I’m now staying at the Houghes with their 5 kids although our travels for today have been scuppered due to thunderstorms leaving the roads a bit treacherous.  Last night the power went off and it left the whole town in a thick darkness like I haven’t experienced in a long time.  It was quite awesome to experience as lightning occasionally flashed far out beyond the trees of the church.

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Concert in Catholic Church

I was invited to a concert put on by the youth version of the Paraguayan Philharmonic Orchestra who were to play the music, from what I gathered to be, the first Paraguayan opera.  It took place in a Catholic church and as we all got there early there was a service still going on which was interesting to watch.  Unlike Catholic churches in Europe which are known for being extraordinarily lavish in design and filled with idols, the Paraguayan ones I've visited are generally quite ordinary structures and a lot less dark and mysterious, and their relatively few idols are set against bland backdrops.  Whenever I see places like these I wonder how many genuine believers are there, no matter how few, who believe not because of the Roman Catholic system but rather in spite of it, people who act like those God deems "noble" -the Bereans in the book of Acts who didn't just accept what they heard taught about God and how to worship and live, but actually searched the Scriptures to see if what they are being told is true.

How tragic it is to have a Bible, the guidebook God Himself has given to humanity in order that we may know Him, but to simply hear many things about it and to never even check if what we've been told is true.

After the couple of idols were bowed down to by much but not all the congregation, the musicians quickly set up and put on a marvellous performance.  Much of the lyrics of the songs were addressed to God, and it was very good to hear.  Here are some pictures:

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British and Chinese and Korean Food!!

Having made do with my poor-quality cooking for ages, there has been a recent glut of wonderful moments when I haven't had to eat my own less-than-sprakling usually oil-based creations.  First it was MK Daniel's birthday a bit over a week ago and I was invited to his B-day meal at a major Chinese Buffet place in the city.  Smokes! it was expensive, however.  G64,000!  I almost fell off my chair when I heard the cost!  It's about half of my weekly groceries cost.  It turned out that's it's about £8.70 in British pounds, so it wasn't so bad.  I'm glad I ate a lot of cake, however.

Yesterday I got a double blessing in that I was invited to two different folks' places for lunch and dinner.  Firstly the new British couple (doing English teaching short-term) invited me for the quintessential British meal, toad-in-the-hole with gravy.  Then the Lee family took me to a Korean place near Downtown for a meal!  Yay!  It has been half a year since I last had any of these kinds of things, so I'm so thankful.

On the way back from the Korean restaurant, we encountered a street performer.  The city's major intersections are alive with them.  As the traffic stops at the lights for nearly a minute, a  performer will often jump out and do a 45-second performance of juggling or balancing, and then spend the remaining 15 seconds going from car to car for coins.  Sometimes it's not so great as the performers are little kids and their parents are forcing them to do it -although some give the impression of enjoying performing.  But when it's a skilled adult then the acts can be very entertaining.

David at the Chinese buffet.

The Lees

Kimchi!!  YUM!

A talented Asuncion street performer.

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Spiritual Retreat Conference

This past week I was at the SIM Spiritual Life Conference in the wilds beyond the town of Paraguari.  It was great gathering together everybody as well as teachers from the United States.  It was 4 days in mid-winter in a collection of little huts that had no heating.  It was, in the freezing conditions in the woods, what Calvin's dad from Calvin and Hobbes would have labelled 'character building.'

We had great teaching from from the life of Saul's son Jonathan and his belief in God despite overwhelming odds whereby he and his shield-bearer scaled a hill to attack the Philistine army by themselves as Jonathan's father Saul worried and procrastinated.  It also was a good time for the missionary kids as we had games of rugby (instructed by the South Africans) and soccer, as well as airsoft shooting games for the teens and adults.

Here are some pictures of the week:

Teaching and worship time at the conference.

Hannes playing airsoft using pistols which shoot small, hard, plastic pellets.

Dr. Jeff taking aim.  He later shot me perfectly in the back of the head when I stormed his base.  It jolly well hurt!

Geoff, one of the teachers, wearing a hat as protection the day after I shot him in the side of the head.

Hannes led the MKs in a grub-hunting mission, here breaking open a rotten tree trunk for grubs.

Tyler, happy after finding some huge grubs which were later eaten at the campfire.

A fallen telegraph pole was converted into a game for the MKs.

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Paraguay's Forgotten Railway

As you drive through Asuncion you sometimes cross all railway crossings and there's an old station near downtown where old trains and carriages litter the side of the road.  Heading out of the city to the southeast you frequently pass solitary station buildings which sit in once-thriving villages but what now seem like little ghost towns.  Paraguay used to have a great railway system with the kinds of early 1900's steam trains people these days love to see due to their rarity, however the railway was shut down several years ago.
In the typical lack of foresight, most of the train tracks were pulled up, and engines left to corrode where they last stopped.  Although it was all working just 7 years ago (including a tourist train until a bridge on its small route recently collapsed), it looks now like it stopped in 1910 such is the scale of the decay.

This past week I got to head out of the city along the route of the old track towards Paraguari, a town southeast of Asuncion where SIM Paraguay had it's yearly Spiritual Retreat.  The retreat centre was out in the wilds, but not far off was one of the lonely old stations which also had a museum to Paraguay's forgotten trains.  Here are some pictures:

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Children's Centre

Last week I was able to join some of the Stout family as they helped out at an Asuncion children's centre for kids from a low-income area where parent(s) work most the day and can't provide enough time at home to look after their little ones.  It was really awesome!  The band of children were so sweet.  They sang, listened to stories, did crafts, ran around like mad things, and had a good day.  There's just so many ways to get involved in community projects here, and it was such a delight to see this one.

Here's a couple of pictures from the day:

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River Audio Bible Distribution (prayer request)

For a few months I have mentioned the 14-day Audio Bible distribution to be done up a major river to the North to reach some of the remote communities (inaccessible by car).  I was very excited at the prospect of being able to film the American Bible college team and others doing this amazing work of bringing the Good News of Jesus to the ears of people who maybe had no access prior to God's Word (and certainly nothing in the native Guarani language to listen to for those who can't read).
It was set to happen this month, but for several reasons including crew overlap, and boat rental problems, it has had to have been postponed for several months at least, though hopefully not forever.

The closest I got to the river was driving over one of its bridges.

When we try to do things for God, sometimes He closes the door through circumstance.  God also raises up others to do the task.  So could you pray that if it's not God's will for SIM to do the river audio Bible distribution, that He in His might may raise up another group to do something similar, that native Paraguayans may hear God's call to evangelise their countrymen and women, that they may know that the time is short and desire to invest everything they have in reaching their brothers and sisters in this beautiful country.

It is only the work done for Jesus that lasts, for everything else in life that people spend their lives toiling over will be burned up come the end of the age.  Please pray that Paraguayan Christians would understand this truth, gain an eternity perspective, understand the time is short, and set about their work for Him joyfully and with much eagerness.

To know the time is short, consider Jesus' warnings about the coming of the end of the age (Matthew chapter 24) and the signs that will signal it: the increase of wickedness, natural disasters, and wars and rumours of wars.  The world is being gradually set for that one-world economy and currency Daniel saw as we see nations fail under their own around Europe and America.  We see prophecy about Egypt and Syria from Isaiah 17 and 19 coming to pass these very months, and the joining of Iran and Russia against Israel just as Ezekiel records in chapter 38 and 39.  Don't be asleep, but be alert and look into these things.

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