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.
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| The city bus that safely got us there. |
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| The unloaded precious cargo it carried: hundreds of Audio Bibles. |
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| The volunteers start gathering at Forest Door Church. |
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| It really was that cold! |
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| Sorting out the boxed Audio Bibles. |
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| During a lesson on how to work the Bibles. The instructions would have to be explained to each person who received one. |
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| What always surprises me is the number of Christian youths who turn out to assist these events! |
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| One of the youngest volunteers gets help with his deliverer's bib. |
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| 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) |
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| The courier bags the volunteers will carry, each loaded with about 20 Audio Bibles. |
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| A group photo before heading out. |
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| A prayer by a Forest Door Church elder before leaving. |
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| Dr. McKissick and David looking over the maps the latter had prepared so everybody could be reached. |
