Week 2 so far... Days 5 & 6

Sorry its been a few days since the last post. We have been extremely busy and consequently extremely tired...

I will just begin to say thank you AGAIN to all of you who are praying for us, God has proved His faithfulness, grace, love, and steadfastness over and over again to us during these past few days of being here.

DAY 5:

Sunday. We went to church, which is held at Heavens Kingdom school in the main gathering area. It was very cold, probably the equivalent to a late October day in Michigan. The service was great, Pastor Matt preached with a translator on the parable of the soil and the seeds. He did an excellent job, as did the translator. The Americans were invited up to speak to the congregation on how the past week had impacted us personally and what it means to be here. Janna and Patrick also got to share their personal testimonies. Although I am not sure they knew this in advance, Pastor Alcidez said that a Christian, at any given time, should be ready to share their personal testimony. Which is pretty true. They both did an excellent job though, and I think both testimonies fit in very well with the sermon.

Monday is a National Holiday in Paraguay, called "Day of the Child." Sunday, the church decided to take advantage of the holiday and have activities, a show, and snacks for kids all accross San Lorenzo. The "North Americans" were responsible for games out in the field area. We had soccer, volleyball, the parachute etc.. all the seame games we had for the school kids during the past week. There was also a special performance put on for all the kids, by older church and school kids, in the main gathering area as well. Although it was all in Spanish and we had no idea what the plot was, it was very very well done. Next was hot chocolate and cookies outside for the kids, and time to go home. I think in all we had 400 kids pass through the school.

Just for a quick background on Day of the Child: It comes from the War of the Triple Alliance. This war was fought by Paraguay against Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. This was was the cause of the most deaths South America has ever seen. Paraguay was especially devastated, and most of its male population was completely destroyed. This still resonates in Paraguay today, despite this war taking place in the 1800s. Once the men had mostly been killed, Paraguay got desperate and children were made to fight. They were given weapons and fought their countrys war. Most of these kids died. This day is to recognize the deaths of the youngest members of Paraguay when they died so young for their country.


DAY 6:

Monday is the actual day of the child. We got to the school bright and early prepared to be taken to our new neighborhood. There was another kids program that we stayed to watch before leaving though. My host sister, Barbie, was part of a dancing line in the play, so it was really cool to see here acting out something they had practiced for weeks upon weeks. Afrter this program, we got on the school bus once again, and headed over to the neighborhood my host family lives in.
The reason why we were switching locations is because there are neighborhoods around the main church that has little church plants in it. Kind of like Church daughters off the mother church. We are working in these neighborhoods that have these small annex churches with the hope of bringing people to Jesus, but also to come and learn more about Jesus in a church setting.
Although all of us were so tired, we set out with new energy to go door to door tellign people about Jesus. This morning, I had the opportunity to lead 2 people to Christ with the help of my translator Rebecca. She is just awesome. Once I present the gospel, she usually takes over so they can talk in Spanish back and forth normally instead of stopping to translate. She is only 14, but on fire for Jesus, and she knows her stuff. Its awesome, and I love working with her.
The rest of the team loves their translators too. All of us are SO grateful for them.

We also got to do soemthing very very exciting during the afternoon. We got permission from the local public school to come in and present the Gospel to all the kids and play games with them! It was just so cool to us that we were able to do that because it is a public school, and they do not teach anything about Jesus there at all. They welcomed us with open arms, even though they knew that we were evangelical missionaries. So, we excitedly got to the school and were each assigned a class to go into. Rebecca and I had 2nd grade again. The class was so receptive and loved hearing the story of Jesus. After sharing the Gospel, I got to share my own personal testimony with them. Since I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 7 and in 2nd grade, I thought it was perfect that I could talk to kids that age. We all had a good experience in our classes, each sharing in our own way. Pastor Matt taught on the board, and Janna used our evange-ball (soccer ball :) ) to teach.
After we were all done in our classes, we were assigned to our games. Every 5 minutes Maximo would blow the whistle and the kids would RUN to the next activity.
It was just so awesome to be able to share Jesus in a public school system, we were all so very grateful for that experience.

That night, The Alcidez family (the pastor and his family) decided they wanted to take us (our team of 9) to go to dinner. So, once again, 17 of us piled up on the school bus and drove to Asuncion for dinner. We went to what would be the equivalent of a nice food bar and grill type place. We could get as much salad bar food as we wanted for a set price... but the coolest thing was the meat. Waitors would come around with these huge sticks with certain kinds of meat on it, and go around and ask everyone if we wanted them to cut us a piece. Paraguayans like their meat. There were so many different kinds... and they were all really really good. Its something none of us Americans had ever experienced before, so it was definitely meorable. Other than that it was just a great time of fellowship. We had time to get to know the Alcidez family a bit better through broken english and spanish.

And we also saw a football (soccer) player for one of the National Paraguay teams, which for some people was extremely exciting :)

So, that was Sunday and Monday. Sorry for the delay in writing... its now Wednesday, and I am about to go with my host family to Doctor Miguels house - Janna and Tracys host familys house. They are hosting a dinner for all the host families, US team members, and translators.

We are eating Piranha.

More updates tonight!

-Victoria