Paraguay's Forgotten Railway

As you drive through Asuncion you sometimes cross all railway crossings and there's an old station near downtown where old trains and carriages litter the side of the road.  Heading out of the city to the southeast you frequently pass solitary station buildings which sit in once-thriving villages but what now seem like little ghost towns.  Paraguay used to have a great railway system with the kinds of early 1900's steam trains people these days love to see due to their rarity, however the railway was shut down several years ago.
In the typical lack of foresight, most of the train tracks were pulled up, and engines left to corrode where they last stopped.  Although it was all working just 7 years ago (including a tourist train until a bridge on its small route recently collapsed), it looks now like it stopped in 1910 such is the scale of the decay.

This past week I got to head out of the city along the route of the old track towards Paraguari, a town southeast of Asuncion where SIM Paraguay had it's yearly Spiritual Retreat.  The retreat centre was out in the wilds, but not far off was one of the lonely old stations which also had a museum to Paraguay's forgotten trains.  Here are some pictures:

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Children's Centre

Last week I was able to join some of the Stout family as they helped out at an Asuncion children's centre for kids from a low-income area where parent(s) work most the day and can't provide enough time at home to look after their little ones.  It was really awesome!  The band of children were so sweet.  They sang, listened to stories, did crafts, ran around like mad things, and had a good day.  There's just so many ways to get involved in community projects here, and it was such a delight to see this one.

Here's a couple of pictures from the day:

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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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A Day of Manual Labour

Today Cherlynn was moving house from Villarrica to Asuncion as she readies to return to America for a year or so, so a bunch of us were on site to help with the moving.  The truck arrived, filled to the gunnels with the heaviest wooden furniture I’ve ever encountered.  It was one of the great-looking ancient trucks you’d see in a 1970’s movie and a scrapyard outside of Latin America, the kind that fill the roads here and seem forever fixable, without the salt deterioration so prevalent in the British Isles.  

 It had to back down a very steep road to the site and as it began to go, Denny noticed its drive shaft was rather clunky and once it got on the gradient and gravity was taking over, it wasn’t able to move forward.  A wing mirror hit a tree and the driver tried to gun it forward and manoeuvre slightly, but as he engaged 1st gear the truck just went further back.  The wing mirror lost its battle, and the truck hit the greater slope, all its weight suited to the load in the back and the cab was raised in the air like the head of a stretching dog.  It looked like it would be a calamity, but everything was tranquilo for this is Paraguay and what I’d deem an unsafe load in the UK is normal here.  I like it, it makes everything interesting and stops me being a traffic cop all the time.


Here's a not quite typical, but a quite common sight on the roads:

Some strings holding on heavy steel as the truck continued for miles like this at 60mph. 

Today, helping unload the truck’s burden (which included a boxer dog in a cage) and carry big cabinets holus-bolus up 2 sets of stairs, made me long for IKEA furniture which can be disassembled.  However it was a good few hours of exercise and math, trying to figure if the bulkier bunkers could be fitted through the upstairs door by the time we all ran out of strength at the top.

The truck after some unloading.

Almost done!

It was a really good time, and Danny, Perdo, Denny, James and I had a enjoyable day of heavy manual labour.  Cherlynn treated us afterwards to empenadas and icy Coca-Cola.  Whilst waiting for the empenada delivery man, Denny found Cherlynn’s fire-extinguisher, and realising its contents were out of date (they have all these laws here regarding having them topped-up or replaced every year), he took the liberty of not losing its contents to a shop’s bin and chased me with it.  Danny had to go back to work and jokingly told Denny not to get any on his car.  So seconds later his car was covered with extinguisher dust!

Danger man.

Danny's car.

The yard after being extinguished.

To sum it up: Not much achieved for the Kingdom of God today, but a group of God's children are happy!

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SIM MK Adventure 2012!

Last weekend I got to go along with the sometimes annual Missionary Kid Adventure SIM puts on for its collection of boys.  The last one they did was a river-rafting adventure and there were swarms of mosquitos which covered them and turned them black.  Fortunately this time they weren’t doing something so unpleasant as venturing into mozzie territory, instead it was a mountain hike/camping trip in the wilds somewhere close to Villarrica.  I’ve pointed out before how there aren’t mountains as such in Paraguay, but occasionally there’s hills which on the otherwise flat expanse do look like mountains.

Despite being 30 minutes from a city there were scarcely any people on the hike route, and the path up through the hills wasn’t quite well-worn.  It’s surprising how few locals seem to explore their own country, but at the same time it was nice to be close to isolated for me having spent the last few weeks mainly in the busy city.

We climbed the major hill on the first day and were blessed with hot weather instead of the forecast clouds with the possibility of rain, for with rain the track would have been unclimbable -in fact parts already almost were due to some steeper parts of the path turning into little streams.  From the top of the hill was a quite amazing view of Paraguay.  As it had rained the night before there was little in the way of mist in the air so we could see for miles.

From there we hiked down the other side of the hill in a long valley which was dotted with little farms, and reached our campsite.  It was a field by a stream with a lot of brightly coloured chickens running around, and at night it was very cold in the tents -at least for me.  I’m not sure why I’m struggling so much in Paraguayan winter, because it’s around 16C most days (I should add that this cold snap is meant to just last a couple of weeks, then it's back to mid-twenties again), and I’m used to running around Edinburgh’s 5C in a t-shirt.  I think I just became too acclimatised to the strong heat of Paraguay’s summer.

Next morning we did cliff diving into a deep river pool whose depths haven’t been plumbed.  As I can’t swim and don’t seem to float very well, and since I had the good excuse that it was my job to film the adventure, I didn’t jump the cliff myself!  But it was great to watch.

From there it was up another lesser hill towards a large yet largely unknown waterfall.  At the top of it we could stand on the huge rocky outcrop next to it, not quite realising how dangerous it was.  Part of the river at the top of the waterfall had a small levee thing which held back a vast quantity of water which the local would release once we reached the base of it.

We all had to shout and give the thumbs up to the guy at the top of the waterfall.  The amount of water that spilled over the edge was quite amazing and we were hit by a fast-moving wall of spray.

Waterfall prior to spilling.

Waterfall spray

In the dense 'jungle' next to the waterfall.

We had one more night in the wilds, well, almost wilds, for next to our 2nd similarly deserted campsite was a small place for parties and a birthday party was getting underway when we arrived around 5pm and the music boomed out until around midnight when the forecast heavy rain that was meant to hit us all that day finally came with a long lightning storm.  Epic.  It was a very blessed 3 days, good Bible studies, and everybody had great fun, except poor old Hannes who couldn’t come at he had teaching duties on the Friday.

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Audio Bibles for Paraguay (San Francisco) [Part 2]...

Continuing from where I left off in an earlier post…

The fog that had enveloped us on the road down from Asuncion lifted and the sun came out as we all got suited up with logo-ed aprons to reach every isolated corner of the spread-out community of San Francisco.  It seemed very fitting that the mist that was heavy upon the town and reduced visibility was lifting to be replaced by blue skies as the Holy Bible was being taken to every home.  The group of 50 or so Christians made up of believers from otherwise unconnected churches as far apart as Asuncion and Yuty, were split into various smaller groups and given several town blocks to hand out Audio Bibles in the native Guarani language to after being given some training in first how to use the custom-made Chinese devices so they could then explain to those who they were giving them to how to work them.  It seemed to be a case of men going with men, and women with other women, with each group having a leader.

Last time I filmed an Audio Bible distribution I spent most of the time with a group of two (Dan Hough and a Paraguayan believer), so this time I tried to get some shots of the others.  So first I joined a group of Paraguayan girls that was led by Jean Floyd (an SIM worker who’d previously lived in San Francisco whose planted trees a decade ago now are the canopy that is the church’s roof).  The younger girls started off a bit shy, them being 15 or so, and from the city now in a totally different world, but soon they were filled with courage.

Jean's team of Paraguayan girls.

The girls at a farm shack.

Around the block from the church was a former neighbour of Jean’s and she happily invited a group of us into her little house where her granddaughter was running about.  I’ve noticed how much more inviting the small shack of a relatively poor person is about 10 times more inviting than the house of a well-to-do Briton.  Much of this is because Latin culture is to be around neighbours, friends and family a lot, and to have an open house, whilst in the UK we keep everybody away and only have people in occasionally.

After this I took a lift with Dan Hough’s 2 teams out into the sticks of San Francisco, out along the dirt road to almost Yataity.  Dan’s teammate was the same Paraguayan as the former Bible distribution, but his 2nd team who’d do the other side of the road (the even numbers, so to speak) was the youngest team headed by a Paraguayan teen who led 3 missionary kids, Daniel, Luke and Camden, aged between 8 and 12 roughly).  

Demonstrating how the Audio Bible works.

Seeing SIM Paraguay’s missionary kids makes me wish I became a Christian at a much younger age.  Granted God had many reasons why I’d be saved in Japan at 26/27, but I do have such regret at a wasted life which could have been doing mission trips for 15 years.  But I also remember that nothing in God’s economy is wasted, and He turns what seems like wasted times of life into beneficial things that can help others due to our knowing a number of snares of the Devil that held us back so long.

Because of the enthusiasm of all involved in the day, the whole town of San Francisco was reached, as well as the next village up the road, and also Yataity where the McKissicks have their medical clinic.  Quite what effect the Audio Bibles will have on the community is unknown and will require a lot of prayer as I’m convinced the enemy will wish to distract the community and the people with other things, so please pray that the people will listen to the Word of God and no longer be led astray by falsehood, and that the various items outside of homes which ward off various spirits will be taken down as signs of new belief and hope coming to the hearts and minds of families.

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Sales, Food, Leaving, & Babies (pictures)

It's the 14th of May marking the 201 year anniversary of Paraguay's independence from Spain (also the anniversary of Israel's rebirth -that is the day the first world leader, Harry Truman, recognised the reborn nation).

Here are some pictures from the last week or so in Asuncion...

Asuncion Christian Academy has a once-a-year sale that has become a big event.

People set up stalls of second-hand stuff in the basketball court.

The McKissick stall.

The Stout stall.

The Reich stall.

Since coming to Paraguay I haven't had a decent self-made meal save for egg fried rice I made a fortnight ago, and this home-made pizza yesterday.  Two bites and I took a picture because it was so good.  Ready-made pizzas here are astonishingly expensive (like £5 quid!)

The Camerons building their car reminded us of pioneers using stagecoaches in Western movies.

Tyler McKissick smiling at the food needed for a family of 8 to last a couple of days. 

New Arrival, Anna Reich, at the dinner table.

The two Reich kids are now 3.

Ginny and Anna.

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Paraguay's "Mountains"

I've written a few times about how flat Paraguay is.  For a time the biggest 'hill' I experienced was hiking the 5 meter rise from the local supermarket back to SIM HQ.  By God's grace I've been able to see a large amount of Paraguay (North, West, South and East!) and I have finally seen some hills.  Interestingly the missionaries refer to them as 'mountains' despite them being nowhere near mountain height, but travelling 200km over flat terrain, a rare hill does seem a lot like a mountain!

This first picture is from the summit of a man-made hill (the bridge West of Concepcion that heads into the flat Gran Chaco region).  Very few places offer views of the landscape like this.

These couple of hills were the first major hills I saw in Paraguay somewhere between Villarica and Caazapa, although there were a few smaller ones on the way, notably beside Paraguari further West (if memory serves me well

The same hills as Dan drives by.

Driving up a hill with a hill on the horizon!  Rare!

Small hills compared to the others, but so far the most scenic place I have seen in the whole of Paraguay.  My image was complimented by a fly hitting the bottom-right of the lens.

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A Farewell to a Faithful Family

The Dreiling family from the United States of America have served God in Paraguay for 20 years.  Their 3 kids grew up here as MKs before returning to the US for university.  Paul and Becky Dreiling are now returning to America to take up positions in the SIM office there.

Only about a month ago one of their US-based kids thought it would be good to fly out to Paraguay to spend their last week there with their folks and importantly leave with them.  Within days all the kids were wanting to come out alongside their spouses and the Dreiling's first grandchild.  As you need a visa to enter Paraguay from the US it was a race against time to get everybody there in time, but God is faithful and with about 2 days to go before they flew down here all the visas came in.


They all spent a week in Caazapa where they had lived and then for the final 2 days they stayed at HQ in Asuncion.  Their departure from this field brought out everybody (except Hannes as he was teaching the next morning) to Asuncion to bid them farewell.  The night before they left we all went to a traditional Paraguayan eatery where the Christian family who ran it -all musicians- played Paraguayan harps and guitars, danced and sang as we ate.  The Reich kids, similarly gifted in music, were allowed to use their equipment and play for us all too.


The next evening, hours before the flights, there was a party at HQ with a great comedy written by Dan Hough telling the 20 year story of the Dreilings in Paraguay which included an encounter with the local Fuzz who pulled over their car to check their fire extinguisher (all cars here must carry one), and having found fault with it, Paul proved that it worked by spraying the Plod with it!  There was also a time of praise and then prayer.


From there we all headed out to the airport with them near midnight and had some fun.  To see the Dreilings leave all together, all by God's grace on the very same flight, we thanked God for ending this chapter of their life in such a remarkable way.  I'll miss them.

Traditional music.

These guys could play several different instruments flawlessly.

The Reich boys.

The youngest Reich looks like a Beckham kid.

The first Dreiling grandchild.

Heather's family.

The youngest Dreiling.

There were many pictures on the walls of former students at the harp place, and one looked just like my good friend Lulu.

Baby Dreiling turned one year old during his stay at HQ, and also took his first steps the same day!

The MKs gathered with party poppers...

...for when the Dreilings appeared.

Ben putting fake dog ears on Shadow the guard dog.

Dan in the comedy dousing the Fuzz (Denny).

Paul and Becky looking over a gift made by Vonni.

Jeff wore a hat that had him mistaken as Waldo from Where's Waldo.  I told him he's a Wally to me as a Brit.

Tony finds Wally.

The Dreiling kids singing. 

Jean sharing some thoughts about the Dreilings.

Arriving at the airport with a trailer filled with luggage.

David is straitjacketed at the airport.

MKs.

There was one of those large sponsor boards sports-people and the like stand in front of for photographs at the airport so we made use of it.  Luke's interesting socks made the image disturbing.

Daniel messes up Denny's moment.

David striking a footballer pose.

Background: SIM people.  Foreground: Luke getting hit in the face by a hurled backpack.

Drinking mate (the hot version of terere) before departure.

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