Iglesia Centro Familiar de Adoracion

Where I come from in Scotland a congregation of 40 is a good number for a church.  Anything over 90 is a ‘big’ church in my estimations, and Morningside Baptist Church in Edinburgh would be the local megachurch with close to 1000 members.  The church I attended this past Sunday in Asuncion had 40 people.  Those 40 people handed out the communion trays to the several thousand people in the 3-level stadium.  It was Paraguay’s biggest church, Iglesia Centro Familiar de Adoracion.

The service started at 10am and I arrived at 9:15 as I didn’t expect the empty roads going through the city or a fast bus journey.  By 10am when the music started there were only a couple of hundred people (see picture), but then this is Latin America where the concept of time isn’t held so tightly.  By 10:30am the floodgates had opened and people streamed in through the various doors and filled 2 of the 3 levels of the stadium.

One of the great things about these kinds of churches is hearing all the voices singing songs to Christ, booming them out, shaking the whole building.  It makes me wonder what heaven will be like with perhaps billions of people singing praise to our glorious King!

Besides this one day, the week has been slower than all preceding it in Paraguay as I’m stuck editing films for 2 weeks.  The good part has been that for a week the McKissicks were here after their family holiday to the beaches of Brazil which meant playing tennis, hockey and basketball most days in the courtyard.  Also the Dreilings were here holding a large garage sale so there was much activity (I bought a hammock that has the colours of the national flag).

The crew from Brazil.

Tyler, 7, in a dangerous place.

These past 2 weeks have brought about some changes for the stiflingly hot summer weather has passed and now it’s really nice mid to high 20’s most days, and one day was actually cold so that I got to wear a sweatshirt and jeans for the first time.  James, one of the missionary kids, told me I was an chump when he saw me dressed for winter because he thought I was meant to be Scottish and able to deal with the cold.  I never thought it would happen, but now I can handle the heat and can’t handle the cold.  So far one night has required a thick blanket to stay warm rather than the usual thin cotton sheet.  It alarms me that if this is autumn, what will winter be like!