Fairgrounds, Fern Wells, and Lagoons

Here are some pictures from as far afield as San Francisco, Yuty, Villarrica, and Asuncion of interesting sights I've seen recently starting with the fairground that appeared one day in San Francisco in time for the Houghs arriving there.  As I was only dropping by on the way further south I didn't see it lit up at night, which is a regret, but seeing a cow strolling through the rides was good enough.  I hope you like the pictures. ^_^ ...

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Audio Bible Distribution

Dan Reich was up in Asuncion for a couple of days and invited me to join the group handing out Audio Bibles in one of the rural villages outside of Yuty after church on Sunday.  I jumped at the chance as I have heard so much about SIM Paraguay’s Audio Bible work. The idea was conceived a couple of years ago to make Bibles Paraguayans could listen to rather than read.  Whilst literacy levels aren’t really low, Paraguay is not a nation, generally, drawn to reading, instead people prefer to share information through speaking.  You could hand out written Bibles but they could, conceivably remain on a shelf unread. Whilst audio Bibles...

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Please Pray Urgently For Marta

Please pray for this young Paraguayan woman called Marta.  She's from a very poor family who live near Yuty.  A few weeks ago I got to visit her in hospital with the Reiches and take the above picture, where she was on a drip and having tests.  In the two weeks since then she has taken a turn for the worse and has been to three different hospitals all over the country as they try to deal with her growing lung problems and cancer diagnosis. She is currently in a hospital in Asuncion on life support, getting treatment her poor family can't afford.  The hospital doesn't allow visitors under the age of twelve and she has 2 young...

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Superhero Shopping and Hunted Guinea Pigs

I’ve been in Asuncion for a week to catch up on editing (and I’m staying at least one further week).  I wasn’t looking forward to coming because I enjoyed staying with the Stirlings so much, enjoying especially Renee’s cooking, the lack of mosquitos there, and the pets.  The Asuncion base, in comparison, can be quite quiet.  However, the Houghs moved in for 6 days before taking their final big load of stuff down to their new house on Route 8.  They have 5 kids, 4 of them in that age group that makes them fun to be around (that is: not toddlers, not teenagers).  The two eldest are cool.  One of them was on a 4-day...

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Epicenter: Why The Current Rumblings in The Middle East Will Change Your Future

I was loaned a book this past week dealing with End Times events foretold in the Bible, it’s called Epicenter: Why The Current Rumblings in The Middle East Will Change Your Future by Joel C. Rosenberg.  There seems to be a prevailing lie in the church these days that End Times events are either obscure, or they shouldn’t be looked into because they could mean anything, or that if you do look into them then you’ll adopt a weird view of things.  This shouldn’t be the case, because Jesus, when asked by his disciples “When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) Jesus laid out...

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Mexico vs Denmark in Paraguay

The Stirling family have 3 dogs, an unsocial, pullet-murdering German Shepherd which lays upside down most the day on the porch and seems to be the dog equivalent of a hermit dreaming of chickens; a puny 1 year-old Chihuahua called Teddy, and an absolutely huge, jet black Great Dane called Trooper.  Trooper is completely solid, her muscles rippling.  She has a shiny, pronged, silver collar which jabs into her flesh to control her when tied up.  She is loose most of the day to patrol the garden and is only shackled when there are visitors.  As I have become friends with her she isn’t tied up when I’m about. As Trooper and...

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Christian School

I've been at a Christian school filming their work for the past week.  It's impressive as it has only been here a bit over a decade yet is considered to be far and away the best school in the city of Villarrica.  It's not hard to see why as it has teachers who are actually interested in their students' education (which is not common!).  Paraguay has quite a poor education system where it's usual form for teachers to just write a lot on the blackboard, then leave the class for the rest of the period whilst the students just copy down what has been written into their own jotters, and that is it.  This system of copying information...

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Cotton-Picking and Other Things (pictures)

Here are some pictures from the last week of kids picking cotton, 2 hideous spiders and ants in the 'jungle', a couple of capybara in a Villarrica park, a dragonfly, a tiny dog, another dog giving birth to puppies, and a huge toad. ...

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Swords and Missing Teeth!

After rather reluctantly leaving Yuty and the Reichs, I spent a couple of great days with the Floyds in a village outside Yuty.  Like Hannes, Tony Floyd uses his God-given gift of fixing stuff to great effect so I got to go on a couple of adventures with him to the nearby farms.  The first was brilliant: it was around 10am and the farmer was in high-spirits on the porch with a small bottle of something probably verging on the stiff.  When he found out I was Scottish, he said he liked the name as it reminded him of scotch.  He spoke Guarani so I couldn’t understand anything he said, but whatever it was he was saying he was...

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