May 6, 2002

We try to add as much as we can to our Newsletter, Agua de Vida, but there are so many stories to tell, and so many pictures so show! We hope you all enjoy reading our web site updates as much as we enjoy writing them. They have become our way of keeping a diary of our lives.

Although we plan to eventually live in the "interior" (what the locals here refer to the areas outside of Asuncion), for now we are living in the city. We rented a nice, 2 bedroom house from a missionary couple who moved back to Brazil (Norival and Cristina Trindade). It is located in the Nazareth Barrio of Asuncion, and is near the Central Church. It certainly was nice to be able to unpack all of our trunks and to set up house again. We are used to being transient, but we find that if we unpack and set up, we can make any place we are living "home".

Front door of our new house -

There are lots of bars - as usual in Latin America!

View of the barbecue pit in the back yard -

quite an improvement over Costa Rica

Both the months of March and April saw us working in the local Methodist camp grounds with work teams. Working on this side of a work team is a whole new experience. All work teams need to have with them a driver, interpreter, and cook. We have filled all these shoes! Work teams in Paraguay usually come for 10 days or more, and range from 14-25 people. Travel into/out of Paraguay takes 4 days, so coming for less than 10 days is not worth the money or time. In March, the Paraguayan team hosted 4 work teams - AT THE SAME TIME! This means we all roll up our sleeves and work where we can. We worked with 2 teams from North Carolina, one headed by Austin Boggins and George Phillips, and one headed by Bob Harris and Horace Marlowe. They built a dormitory that will be able to sleep up to 33 people.

April we worked with a group from Illinois, headed by Bob Souders. They started the addition of a much needed kitchen to the multi-use building. With both these groups, Linda cooked/translated/helped the team members shop; and Ed drove/worked/translated/bought supplies. We were busy with long days, short nights, lots of music, many prayers.

Rev. Bob Souders with his good friends Francisco & Carlos in the background

Working in the Multi-Use building

Linda, Rhonda and Diane shopping in Carapeguá for handmade blankets

Linda preparing mandioca - a local staple that is kind of like potatoes

In March, we had the opportunity to work with the International Leadership Institute who sponsored a conference here in Asuncion. ILI is located in Carrolton, Georgia and they will be sponsoring an International Conference in October, 2002. We urge all churches to support individuals to attend this conference. The contact is Wes Griffin, 770-832-1244. Subjects presented included looking at the Vision for your church, how to Pray for the Harvest in your church, how to Disciple others, and many more. Al Vom Steeg is a part of this ministry and was a presenter. What a blessing it was to hear from him and share with him. Linda’s role with the conference was Conference Coordinator. Which translates – make sure handouts are ready, overheads are ready, prepare PowerPoint presentations, etc. Ed’s role was Transportation Coordinator and Sound System Coordinator. Which translates – run back & forth from the bus terminal and make sure the 110 volt things are plugged into a transformer and doing miscellaneous repairs! What a busy, joyful 8 days!

We have also been assigned to a specific church, Iglesia Metodista de Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is very small with only about 12-15 attending worship service. The church in Santa Rosa has had a very difficult time. They have not been assigned a full time pastor for the past 3 years. This is partly due to the shortage of pastors in Paraguay, but also due to the difficult nature of this church. If you have ever doubted the presence of evil in this world - don't! Satan is alive and active in Santa Rosa!

We have started an adult Sunday school class. We have averaged about 4 in attendance for the past 4 Sundays (okay, that does include Ed & Linda). Pray for the success of this program and for our success in teaching in Spanish. We will report progress in our next update. Their schedule is typical Paraguayan, which came from the Brazilian Methodist conference: Sunday 9:00 AM prayer, 10:00 AM Sunday School, 6:30 PM Church. This has been a challenge, but we just plan on a quiet, late Monday morning! They also have a very meaningful Wednesday night prayer service. We spend 1 hour in prayer for the local church, local neighborhood, government, country, pastors, missionaries, and many other meaningful issues. What a blessing it is to attend this service.

The major blessing in April has been – Ed is preaching! We have a real need for preachers here in Paraguay. During the International Leadership Institute conference, God touched Ed’s heart with the call to preach. So, about twice a month Ed will be in the pulpit at Santa Rosa. It’s a great place to start a career in preaching in Spanish. The congregation is small, accepting, understanding, and very welcoming. During one sermon, he had given a personal illustration, with a short personal story. He didn’t include the end of the story and after the sermon a member came up to him and asked “what happened?” They ARE awake and listening!

The church at Santa Rosa also houses a kindergarten which has been quite a blessing for the area. Children can attend for G20,000/month, which is about $4.00. This is for all day, 7:00-5:00, and includes 2 meals and 2 snacks. Most of the people in the area don’t have jobs, but try to send their children to the school because of the Christian format. Some of the children have partial sponsorships.

We have completed all our paper work to live here. We’ve been fingerprinted several times, once by Interpol (and we only thought they were in James Bond movies!). We have 10 year visas, cédulas (national ID cards), missionary identification cards, driver’s license, very official looking stamps in our passports, and letters to be able to reenter the country for the next 3 years! Pastor Pablo says we have to stay 10 years now that everything is processed!

Since we are in the Southern hemisphere, our seasons are opposite to what we are accustomed to. We are now going into fall, and have left our 100+° weather to a more pleasant high 70's°. Also, instead of "leap forward" for the time change to day light saving's time, we "fell back" 1 hour. We are now in the same time zone as US EST. So, that means we are either exactly the same time as EST, or 2 hours out, depending upon the season. It seems easy, but we can never remember! Our daughter, Kara, gave us 2 clocks for Christmas 2 years ago. One is left on Atlanta time, and one is set to our local time. It has been a great way to help us know what time it is in the US, and offers much discussion from visitors.

We had an interesting question from one of the work team members from the US - "what do you miss"? It is actually a hard question to answer. We have so many things, not the same as the US, but we enjoy equally. What we do miss are: clams, sage to cook with, shrimp, breakfast type sausage, and Dr. Pepper. However, these are offset by the superior grade of beef, pork, and lamb. We bought fantastic lamb chops for our dinner for $2.00 - it was enough to actually say we were "stuffed with lamb"!

In April, we were invited to a 15^th birthday party for a young girl who is a member of the Central Church. What an honor! This is a VERY big event in a Latin culture and is called the “Qunice Años”. It’s much like a wedding without the groom. The girl enters the church, in a long white dress & gloves, and walks directly to face the preacher. There is a time of song, sharing, and a sermon. The person enters adulthood with the help of Jesus Christ, family, and friends. What a testimony! We put a whole set of pictures for this in the Photo Gallery so check it out (Ester's Quince Años).

It’s been surprising how much computer skills are needed here in Paraguay. Linda has been busy installing databases and helping train in the program’s use. A Methodist school in Lambaré needs a database in Spanish to help keep track of the students and teachers. The product is not available in Spanish, but Linda designed a database in Spanish and is in the process of training the school’s staff – in Spanish! A LOT of new vocabulary. Preaching and teaching – what a way to force you to learn Spanish!

One last note - what can 20¢ buy? Lots if you live in Paraguay. Three times a week we have a man come to our door to sell bags of limes, about 16-20 per bag, for G1,000, or about 20¢. We have plenty of limes all the time and never really need more, but the man is trying to support his family honestly, and if our 20¢ can help, then "we're in the limes"! The same man also sells avocados. For 20¢ we can buy 3 very large avocados. Both the limes and the avocados grow in his yard. Also, twice a week we have delivered to our door bottles of agua con gas (soda water with gas) for about 20¢ a bottle. The bottles are the pressurized Seltzer type with little levers on top. We feel like we're in a Erol Flynn movie every time we get a drink! Next, at our "drive by shopping" (that's buying from a street vendor while you're stopped at a red light) we can buy bananas for 20¢ a bunch. That's about 10 bananas. So, for 20¢ we can drink lime flavored soda water while eating bananas and avocados.

However, if you are sending anything larger than an envelope, please address it to only Ed. These packages we have to pick up with our passport at the central post office. If both names appear on the package, then we both have to be there with our passports. Also - anything bigger than a shoe box has to go through a separate customs agent, so please let us know that it is comong.

1. We ask that you pray for our adult Sunday school class in Santa Rosa. We also ask that you especially keep Ed in your prayers as he prepares and delivers sermons in a foreign language.

2. We ask for your prayers in making the decision as to where to live in Paraguay.

3. We ask for your prayers that we will BOLDLY proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ at all opportunities.

4. Pray for the health and safety of all the missionaries here in Paraguay and abroad - especially those witnessing to Muslims.

5. Pray for the peace of Jesus Christ to be poured out upon Paraguay and the United States and all of her allies around the world.