First Sunday in Paraguay

Today I attended my first Spanish-language church service.  It was attended 5 minutes late as a localised power outage made my ride get stuck a while a few blocks away behind an electricity-run gate. But getting there I found that I understood about 32% of the songs, 7% of the sermon, and 100% of the reason why they have 2 major air conditioning units blasting the congregation from North and South.  Even with the air conditioning there was no true climate control, it was only climate wrestling and we were on the valiant but losing side.  The service was attended by Hannes, a Swiss SIM worker who uses his mechanical skills to help...

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Mosquitos!

Twilight: this is the time that mosquitos come out so doors are closed, windows shut, and small warps in the frames are fret over and stuffed with available objects.  Somehow this doesn’t stop the tiny blood-sucking insects getting in.  Every day I have awoken with a new bite.  15 seems to be the total by day 5, which is 3 a night.  As each bite lasts about 5 days and itches like undiluted mad, the doers of this have become the enemy.  2 nights ago I was awoken by the itch at around 3am and I started scratching myself like a cartoon character: fingers splayed and clawed, with pure fury and determination etched on my face;...

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Tereré

As a typically comfortable Westerner with an Apple Mac, courier bag, and interesting multi-colour scarf, I often find myself going to the fashionable coffee house Starbucks the way a person dressed like a cowboy would find himself attracted to a 1850's saloon and John Wayne's fist.  So attached to the franchise I have become that I took my Starbucks reward card to Paraguay in the hope of loitering with clear intent to sup (I even brought my branded thermos for discounted top-ups), only to discover Starbucks doesn't exist in this country.  :O !!!!!! And for a few hours I was secretly depressed. But the same person who killed the mermaid...

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Arrived in Paraguay!

After spending approximately forever on various modes of transport over the course of 2 days (2 cars, 2 buses, 3 trains, 3 planes), I arrived in Paraguay a few minutes after midnight.  Despite being night it was very warm, a sort of 1pm mid-summer in Scotland heat (those rare days).  Driving to the SIM HQ I couldn't help but compare Paraguay to the Philippines, just with less signs of extreme poverty. I'm not sure why I found the journey a toil, especially when now I consider how 100 years ago it would have taken half a year rather than 36 hours.  I have read accounts of missionaries who got very ill en-route to their destinations...

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Training Week

Training week is almost done.  It has had a strong African flavour to it as most of the missionaries training here are going there.  I am the only one going in the westerly direction.  We are made up of British, German, and Nigerian.  As one of the singles I get the riotous experience of sharing the Hobbit-like, low-slung converted attic room of the SIM manor house with 2 Brits.  Here is a picture of the much-loved room...

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Tripod Babel

SIM training week.  I learned I was a plant, amongst other things.  Dandelion huh?  Plant as in a character type in a team.  A plant is the imaginative one with ideas but head in the clouds.  We each had to answer loads of questions and compile our results which would then reveal what team character we naturally are.  Our results were tested with various team-work activities.  One group activity was to take 75 thin, 1ft long wooden sticks, 3 large paperclips, some string, thread, and selotape and with these raw materials construct a tower in 30 minutes which could not only sustain the weight of a big bag of Minstrels, but also winch the bag to the top of the tower.  The team who achieved the greatest winched height became the winners of everybody else's...

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The Other Side of the World

So today I learned something new.  Over the past year I was looking for some way to serve God and the Japanese people in the country I was saved in back in 2008, and God makes Paraguay available instead.  Turns out Paraguay is an antipode country to Japan: that is if you stood in Paraguay and dug straight down you’d come out in Okinawa, the islands furthest south in Japan.  So the place I’m going couldn’t physically be further away in the world from where I originally asked God to take me!  Shows how much I know about determining God's will! ^-^ The main land is lower South America, and the names are Asia.  The orange...

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