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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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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Audio Bibles for Paraguay (San Francisco) [Part 1]

On Friday afternoon I was asked if I wanted to “go tomorrow”.  I took this to mean church as Tom has invited me to go with him to church on Sunday.  “Sure!” I said.  

“OK, we’ll be leaving at 1:30 tomorrow morning.”  

Something didn’t quite sound right about that.  I didn’t realise I was a day early for church.  What I had immediately said “Sure!” to was a 1-day mission trip.  Various church members from a couple of local churches had signed up to go by bus to San Francisco to hand out Audio Bibles, and now I was going, at 1:30am.

They had hired a bus to do the journey in.  It needed to be a tough bus as it’s only tough ones that make it down the dirt road segment of the journey south of Cazaapa.  At 12:30am it arrived, and I was taken aback as it was a regular Asuncion city bus, all brightly painted similar to Jeepneys in the Philippines, only 3 times the size.  From what I gathered this was the bus of a church member, one which would for the rest of the week be used circling some route in the city.

The buses here are great.  You stop them by pointing a gun-like finger up across the road.  You pay the very reasonable sum of 3,000G (something like 20 pence).  When you want to get off you need to get to the back of the bus and pull a string attached to the ceiling that runs forward to a bell near the driver.  Once I was heading to church and I squeezed past the people standing in the middle of its wide aisle, and went to pull the string only to find there was none.  I couldn’t signal the driver, and I couldn’t shout to stop without using the kind of vocabulary that would cause a mass panic as I’d be announcing an emergency.  I had to wait for the bus to slow down, then I jumped and hit the ground running.  In hindsight this was rather foolish as there could have been a telegraph pole right there for me to crash into.  Paraguayan buses: Adventure.

On early Saturday morning, about 20 people were on this bus and we set off into the night.  And my goodness, I regret wearing just shorts for the journey.  This was the coldest night not only of my stay in Paraguay, but also the coldest in my life I think!  As soon as we were out of the city a thick mist fell, and it was freezing.  In fact it probably wasn’t freezing, or any worse than in Scotland, only I was in shorts, which wasn’t wise.  At times the visibility on the road was reduced to about 30ft, and I imagined little reports in next weeks Asuncion newspapers mentioning a bus crash of Christians.  To fill us all, or perhaps just me, with dread, we passed a car fully engulfed in flames on the lay-by!

Someone must have checked weather reports and it turned out there was a big collection of blankets available which were passed out.  I wrapped myself into a sort of breathless cocoon inside my felt blanket as I perched on my chair, hoping it really wouldn’t take 6 hours to get there.

I don’t sleep on bus journeys, no matter how comfortable or warm.  Yet somehow, by God’s grace, I managed to sleep about 3 hours!  With me, I tell you, this was impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

We arrived in San Francisco with the thick mists still hanging in the air.  It made such a peculiar, otherworldly sight.  This was a town I’d only ever seen in the blazing sun, but now it seemed about as miserable as a dreich Scottish morning.

We were met at the Forest Door church (the one that has walls and roof made of swaying trees, and a carpet made of grass) by local believers, some who had been on the Audio Bible distribution over a month ago beyond Yuty.  This was a much bigger group than then.  Back then it was about 25.  This time there was about 50.  It was amazing to see!

For some the journey had been made to participate in their first form of evangelism, for others they had done this kind of thing for years.  Some were young (even a couple of pre-teens), some were old, yet everybody was part of the same family.  They were all out to put into the hands of every resident of San Francisco, a full Genesis to Revelation Audio Bible in Guarani that they could fully understand, which would mark the day when everybody in town could for the first time have access to the Truth of God directly, no longer relying on superstitious understandings of the Bible, or what had been twisted and handed down, or by the few incorrect things the locals priests would have offered in their own blindness.

I’ll write some more about the day of delivering them next, but first here are some pictures of the day up until that point.

To learn more about the Audio Bibles for Paraguay project, visit the website: http://audiobiblesforparaguay.org, and to support the work from a distance, donate via the project page on SIM.org: http://sim.org/index.php/project/91039

The city bus that safely got us there.

The unloaded precious cargo it carried: hundreds of Audio Bibles.

The volunteers start gathering at Forest Door Church.

It really was that cold!

Sorting out the boxed Audio Bibles.

During a lesson on how to work the Bibles.  The instructions would have to be explained to each person who received one.

What always surprises me is the number of Christian youths who turn out to assist these events!

One of the youngest volunteers gets help with his deliverer's bib.

Another youngster helping organise the pens on the chair for everybody.  "Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless." (1 Corinthians 15:58)  

The courier bags the volunteers will carry, each loaded with about 20 Audio Bibles.

A group photo before heading out.

A prayer by a Forest Door Church elder before leaving.

Dr. McKissick and David looking over the maps the latter had prepared so everybody could be reached.

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Sin Prisa y Sin Pausa

There hasn’t been much to write about these past 2 weeks as I’ve been in Asuncion the whole time editing.  I can’t make editing sound interesting, so I won’t try.  There also haven’t been many interesting things happening around here except another night-time thrill-ride to Asuncion airport to pick up a bunch of students from a Texan Bible college (on the road at 2:30am I had the great sensation of pressing the brake when approaching an intersection and nothing happening, then almost driving into one of them 50ft trees they have growing out of the centre of the slow lanes in dual-carriageways in Asuncion).  

The Bible college group are doing summer work similar to what I got to do at the Faith Mission Bible College, only they got to travel further than I did (Ireland isn’t far from Scotland).  It took them something like 3 days to travel here, which is more than it took for me from the UK.  The group of 5 are spending 2+ months here with SIM and New Tribes Mission.

I’ll be filming the activity they are involved in, that being the audio Bible distribution up the river from Concepcion in June, and they’ll be at the SIM Paraguay winter retreat in July the week before I head back to the UK.

Besides this I have dropped around to the New Tribes Mission 2-week seminar with Mike to film some of it and the work they are all doing.  For these past 2 weeks, until last night, a bunch of New Tribes Mission people were staying here at SIM HQ, including the lady I remember seeing in a NTM video from Papua New Guinea (you can see it here: http://usa.ntm.org/content/mission-videos-and-mission-photos/148/footsteps).  She gave a presentation at the church last last Sunday too, and it was very heart-breaking.  She spoke of how the tribe she worked with were taken through the Bible in something like 40 lessons over several weeks, and the day came when they reached the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the whole village fell silent, none had anything to say, no questions to ask, just silence.  

Days later she asked one village lady what she thought, and she said through tear-filled eyes that she understood that Jesus had died for her.  Much of the village said words to that effect over the next few days, and they were all dealing with the weight of that knowledge, a weight which actually lifted the burdens of their sin.

At the NTM event I was about to speak to SIMer Greg Stirling (right) and ask him why he was there, until I realised it wasn't him, just his NTM doppelgänger!

The event brought out one of the families from the East I got to film.

At the church there was a celebration of mothers for Paraguayan Mothers' Day.  All the kids got up and spoke a bit of why they appreciated their moms.  Romy, one of the MKs said she appreciated her mom's patience with her.  I'll say!  Minutes later Romy beat me up in church again!

The New Tribes Mission presentation about Papua New Guinea.

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Angoninguíteguesáque or Pangoninguíteparitigáde

With New Tribes Mission I got to go to the Gran Chaco last week whilst it was in full bloom, its arid flatlands brought to life and various shades of green thanks to God's giving them an abundance of rain recently.  For some it was a blessing as it watered the crops, whilst for others they were flooded.  When seeing such a difference in the results I remember Elihu's words to Job (Elihu was the only friend of Job's whom wasn't rebuked by God for speaking falsehood about Him) when he said, He brings clouds to punish men, or to water his earth and show His love. (Job 37:13).  This shows me how God uses things usually used as a blessing to often speak to people by causing it to not be a blessing.  Elihu also said earlier, 'He says to the snow, "Fall on the earth," and to the rain shower, "Be a mighty downpour." So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor.' (37:6-7)  God communicates to people through many ways, although they don't hear it.  Earlier still Elihu said as much, 'For God does speak -now one way, now another- though man may not perceive it.  In a dream, in a vision in the night... He may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep from pride... or a man may be chastened on a bed of pain... God does all these things to a man -twice, even three times- to turn back his soul from the grave. (33:14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 29, 30).


God speaks to us through difficult events, through illness, through creation, though we don't often understand it, and we remain in our rebellion and even get angry at God for brining calamity when He is actually bringing it to get their attention, 'For when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, no one listened.  They did evil in My sight and chose what displeases Me.' (Isaiah 66:4)


While in the Chaco we visited the Ayoré tribe who are having the complete Holy Bible translated into their language, and as I looked over a book of their Bible, I saw a very long word which caught my eye, Angoninguíteguesáque, and I asked what it meant so I could learn a Ayoré word.  The Bible translator said it meant open-eardness, and its antonym is Pangoninguíteparitigáde which is closed-eardness.  Who has their ears open to God's voice I wonder in the Ayoré tribe, in the Gran Chaco amidst its recent difficulties, and around the rest of the world I wonder?


Here are some other pictures from the tribe and other places I saw last week.

Tribal pastor

Pastor teaching.

Bible translators.

Ayore dolls.

Tribe guy with an awesome face.

This man was kind enough to do an interview for us.

People from a different tribe to the West.

Kids from 2nd tribe.

Smiles.

Heading out of a tribal community.

Anthony found this outhouse interesting as its throne was sideways...

...so he demonstrated the angle a person should sit!

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Good Friday

It’s Good Friday and the day has been marked with a 90% decrease in traffic and pedestrians in the city.  Everybody is off work (except security guards) and all the shops are shut for the religious holiday.  

To remember Jesus’ crucifixion I read the account in Matthew and then I returned to the huge church in Asuncion, the Iglesia Centro Familiar de Adoracion, as they were holding a special event to remember this central moment in human history.  Only a few buses were running the major routes but I was able to get one there on time after the owner of the ride I was meant to be going with dropped out late.

Maybe a few hundred people less than I saw on Sunday came to the event.  What the event was was a large-scale musical-drama about a modern Paraguayan girl being shown hell and then heaven by Jesus.  And oh…..my….goodness, it was totally EPIC!  It had a cast and crew of something like 220 people, musicians, actors, singers, and dancers.  The huge platform had a hell constructed on the left, and a heaven on the right, built right onto the 30ft, multi-tiered choir stands.  Between the two were 2 sets of 3 huge projection screens (one collection set high up, the other 3 from the ground up) placed end to end which showed moving backgrounds and Bible verses at appropriate times.

The story was that the girl is having some difficulties at home, and after turning to the Bible, Jesus turns up and the adventure begins.  And this was the Paraguayan-style Jesus (no beard, just stubble, and totally mighty, like Steve Reeves) which was more accurate to the Jewish carpenter truth than the milky-skinned North Western version where Jesus doesn’t look much Jewish.

The girl is shown hell, and I was actually scared and longing for hell to go away.  Hell had 6 huge screens of fire, and assorted demons jumping around torturing people the girl had known, people who had good points from a human perspective, and sometimes great achievements, such as the famous pop singer, and then others like a drunkard, a youth who disobeyed his mom and beat her, a drunkard, a sexually immoral youth, and others checking off the people in Revelation 22 whom Jesus says "outside [of heaven] are the dogs, those who practice the magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."

The girl asks Jesus why each person is there, and Jesus explains the simple truth that they rejected Him, and we see their lives through flashback, and although each now calls out to Jesus for help now that they see Him and as they are being tortured by demons, but He tells them it is too late.

Now, for those who know their Bibles, Hell isn’t a place where demons are in control and torturing people, rather Hell is a place of torture to Satan and the demons, a lake of fire that humans who reject Jesus are also flung into leaving no hierarchy or people in control there, just all “weeping and gnashing teeth” as Jesus puts it, but the torture of just humans was the liberty taken in making it a narrative for the play, and it was very effective.  It was a really terrifying image, and the screams of the actors and actresses sounded so hideous.

After much heartbreak in seeing the eternally lost, the people she knew and admired, she saw the crucifixion where scenes from ‘The Passion of the Christ’ flashed over the big screens of Jesus being scourged and beaten for us, carrying His cross and then being nailed to it in excruciating pain.  The teen girl is then shown heaven and the music and the dancing really kicked into a high gear with about 40 dancers and kids waving huge flags, and the angels singing out shaking the whole stadium out, giving a glimpse of the joy of heaven.   The final song was ‘Days of Elijah’ with the words changed to fit the story, and it had everybody on their feet clapping.  It was such a fabulous performance, the best Christian production I have ever seen!  God is great!  Thank You Jesus for taking my punishment on the Cross.  Thank You Father for sending Your Son to take it.

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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!

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San Francisco and Yuty Pictures

Here's a few pictures from the past week in San Francisco and Yuty.  I was in San Francisco to be at the kids' club and for a couple of other things, then took the bus (last post) to Yuty where I got to attend my third different church in Paraguay, and went on a fishing trip with the men from the church in the flood plains...

5 on a motorbike!  A common sight outside of the main cities.  Brilliant.

The kids' club is held at the church -the church with no roof but rather a canopy of leaves.

Baseball game at the kids' club.

The church 'cinema'.  It works really well.

Ryan McK playing a local at checkers with beer lids.

The kid on the right has turned up at a few events, and he likes using my camera.  When his friend arrived they filmed a Street Fighter 2 style fight complete with actual hits and sound effects.

There was a grand river to fish in, but the locals preferred the drying-out flood waters nearby as it keeps the fish trapped and close together.

Hannes was on the trip so when a guy walked past wheeling his broken bike, Hannes fixed it for him on the spot for free!  The guy was so happy as he was about 10-12 miles from town.

There are a lot of rickety wooden bridges, and these big nails hold the planks in place, but as there is a lot of movement in the planks a lot of the nails are loose.

A truck crossing the large river bridge.

Sunset over Yuty.

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