After finishing the well at Y’Apy, we started a well at a new-to-us Indian reservation.  The tribe is called Guarayo, and their reservation is named Palomita (little dove).  They are physically different than the Guarani Indians.  Their faces are longer and they are taller.  The tribe came from northern Paraguay, but settled in this current area 46 years ago.  There are 27 families living on 3,360 acres.  Oddly enough most of families have a last name of Mariotti – they said it was Italian!  Their well is 181’ deep, and will serve about 17 of the families.  In August, we plan to run water lines to each of the 17 houses and provide spigots for each.

Palomita church – built by the members themselves

Drill site with the church on the left and the school on the right.

Without running water on the reservation, the women wash their clothes in the local creek.  Fortunately, this creek is fairly clean.

The end of the month we had our home church, Cannon UMC from Snellville, GA come for a mission trip.  We kept the team busy.  We worked at the Susannah Wesley School, clearing the future soccer field, helping clean out some of the storage rooms, and hauling dirt.  We also had VBS at 4 of our churches.  We were able to share the story of Jonah with over 735 children.  We had planned to visit our former Paraguayan home church of Tacuapi for VBS, but we had a rain storm that prevented us from going to that church.

One of our cute little VBS attendees

The whole team just before leaving Paraguay

 

We also had our annual “Pig Roast”.  This year we bought pork “off-the-hoof” – making it much easier to catch!  We cooked 110 lbs of pork.  Again, we invited all our Paraguayan pastors & wives, plus all the workers and their wives.  It is always fun to fellowship with our North American & Paraguayan families.   More in August…