And we made it!

We made it to Asuncion, Paraguay!

Chike was not able to make this trip, but we know God has a purpose for him not going, and for who is here right now. We have a little bit of down time in our host families houses before tonight, when we meet at the church for a meeting and planning.

Heres what has happened so far.
Everything went very smoothly at the Detroit airport. We ended up having plenty of time before our flight took off, maybe 2 hours, so Pastor Matt gave us an assignment to take our tracks and share the gospel with people around the airport. This is a good place to start - talking to people who actually speak our language. It was slightly nerve racking at first, as we wanted to portray the Gospel as best we could in limited time, but when reunited, all of us had very interesting stories to tell of who we encountered - both believers and non believers. Although it was a simple task, it definitely gave us a feel for what we would be doing in Paraguay, and in Spanish. A language 1 out of the 9 of us speak.

The flights went well, and we even got to share tracks with people on the plane rides. On the plane to Buenas Aires was when the language barrier first hit me for real. Not being able to understand most the conversations around me was something surreal, and a reminder of what the next 2 weeks will be like in this Spanish and Guarani speaking country. Besides this, the overnight flight to Argentina, and the flight then to Paraguay was pretty smooth and hastle free. A little sleep depriving, but good none the less.

We were met at the airport in Asuncion by Pastor Alcides, one of our translators, Alex, and other members of the church who we have not yet had the opportunity to get to know. All of us are generally seperated or with another team member at a host familys house. We all piled in a bus from the airport to be dropped off at our new houses with our new families for the next 12 days. During this time, we got to see a lot of the city. It is a colorful, dusty, busy with traffic, laid back, city with all sorts of different things going on. We saw everything from people taking siestas in random parts of town, to chickens roaming the streets, to unattended fires burning in fields, to a carnival happening in the middle of the city. There are a lot of private businesses selling thier products from small stands all around town. Some roads are paved, but outside of the main road (called the black highway) there are stone and red dirt road all around. Driving is an interesting adventure in and of itself. I have yet to detect any kind of road laws that are applied besides stopping at a stoplight, if there is one, or a stop sign.

I am alone at my host familys house, and they are wonderful! Betty, my host family mother, is actually from Grand Rapids, Michigan! Despite how large this world is, it still is rather small. They are great and I cannot wait to get to know them all during the next couple of weeks. I do not have any contact with the others, but I am sure they are settling in just fine as well.

Our luggage got lost along the way somehow, so hopefully we can get all of that before our meeting tonight at the church. We will see when it actually gets here...

We are still developing our agenda for while we are down here, but right now what I know is we will be doing sports ministry, sharing the Jesus film, puppet shows etc. for kids, VBS for kids, door to door evangelism, and who knows what else.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone out there know that we are here in Paraguay, tired, but resting up and doing well, and we are so excited to see what Jesus is going to do while we are here.

This is just the beginning of a long journey, and I do not believe any of us will be the same when we leave. Please pray that as this time goes by, we may positively influence the lives of many people down here too, and give them hope of a life with Jesus :)

Other prayer requests:
1. our luggage would arrive!
2. continued team unity despite exhaustion from flight
3. adjustment to potential culture shock
4. that we would be the most effective we can for Jesus!
5. we would be able to learn and remember at least a little bit of Spanish :)

PRAISE
1. we arrived safely!
2. I will have internet connection so the blog is a go :)


In Christ,

Victoria