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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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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More Photos from Yuty

There was a kids club at the Yuty church which was very well attended, not only by kids, but also by their parents or grandparents who came along to hang out in the shade of the church playing field to drink terere and socialise whilst the kids ran around, played sports, drew, sang, and watched a film projected onto a large church wall in its makeshift cinema.

 

At sunset the kids left with big smiles after a really good day of fun and activity.

Afterwards we helped the Camerons empty their trailer ready for another load, and 4 of us had the fun ride of sitting in the famously failing SIM trailer a few blocks around Yuty.

Another day the Reichs, Camerons, Hannes and I headed out to a nearby river which had a now disused railway bridge crossing it.  Although most the track around the country has been removed, the rails still remain over the bridge.  This turned out to be fortuitous as not all the sleepers were still there leaving large gaps for the adventurous trio of Hannes, Greg and I as we took a stroll over it.  It was rather dangerous as there were no barriers to grab if you stumbled, there was just the rails, the wooden sleepers the rails rested on, and the narrow metal bridge structure the sleepers rested on.  Most of the beams were rotten, and it was a dried-out rotten so they looked firm to stand on but creaked and crumbled underfoot.  Greg and Hannes marched over happily, but I was not only trying to balance myself but the balancing aid for the camera, and I was certain I wasn’t going to make it all the way over the river, but thanks be to God, I did.

Hannes came by motorbike so paid to cross the river by barge.  The locals in the nearby isolated village can do the same, but often they walk over the bridge (something I wouldn’t do a second time).  There are stories of drunks who would stumble up to the bridge in the night, and as their first foot touched the first sleeper of the bridge they would instantly become sober!

The Reich boys had their instruments so they played several songs on guitar and traditional Paraguayan harp for us all.  They are amazing to listen to!

Hannes offered me the chance to ride on the back of his motorbike back to Yuty.  After 5 minutes of travel I remembered I promised my mom when I was little that I would never ride a motorbike ever.  However, as I remembered afterwards then it wasn’t deliberate disobedience to an ages old and firmly kept promise.  After I got off the bike in Yuty with about 10 bugs in my eyes, and a ton of fear quivering through me from the speedy journey of clinging onto the back of the bike, I realised it wouldn’t be hard to remake and keep the promise!

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