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.