Recently...

Another busy couple of weeks it has been. I’ll begin with a few of the highlights, of which I also have many pictures. First was our movie day with the orphans. Since the directors of the orphanage know us pretty well, and since it’s only about a 3 block walk from the church, they were nice enough to let us come get the children and walk to the church for movie day. I have never seen such excited children. You can tell that going to the movies is something they have probably never gotten to do. We also made popcorn (the old fashioned way because that’s all they have here), and had drinks for them.
This is Leticia and I making popcorn on the stove. It was crazy.


Here’s a few of the youth group boys about to serve the drinks to the kids.
The "Movie Theater"

This is Milagro (it means miracle in English), and she is absolutely precious. Every time we go to the orphanage, I get to play with her. Her smile brings joy to my heart. ☺ Mom, if you hadn’t made me promise not to bring a kid back, I might be adopting her.

Most of the kids will started school Monday (their summer is from Dec-Feb), and every year the church gives the orphans new school supplies at the beginning of the school year, so they all left really excited with new markers, crayons, notebooks, glue, etc.

Here's some action shots:

Another great thing about our movie day was that not only did our youth come to help out, but also parents and children from church came to help also. It was great to see everyone working together. We had about 70 people total- 40 orphans and about 30 people from the church.

Now for my second highlight. We are with the youth or university students doing activities the majority of our nights, but one night we had all the younger girls from church (the ones not old enough to be in the youth group- like 9-14ish) over to our apartment to spend the night. It was tons of fun, and it was definitely 100% energy the entire time! When they got there in the afternoon, we went swimming, then later we played games, ate pizza, watched the Chronicals of Narnia, painted nails (of course), and sang devo songs with them for about an hour. ☺ It was a great night, and the girls had a lot of fun. Here's some pictures:

Valeria and Leticia swimming

Group shot! ¡Qué lindas! :)

Don't let them fool you...they are not asleep...nor are they anywhere near tired

And here's a video of us all singing...I hope it works!



Now for the 3rd part of my update... 2 weeks ago we got to be a part of the team retreat the missionaries take every year to plan the upcoming year. The first part of the retreat we worked at the church building then the last part of it we went to a place about an hour outside the city that was absolutely beautiful (especially the stars Britni)! It was really good getting to know the families on the mission team better. I also got stung by 2 red wasps one day and cried like a baby. ☺ It was a great retreat though.

This last couple of weeks we have been busy getting prepared for our new upcoming 7 week English program that starts next week. Last week, we visited one of the main universities to meet students and invite them. So far there are about 100 people that have called and are signed up! This program is similar to the one they have taught before- it's basically just using the book of John to teach English. There will be a class every week for beginning speakers (taught by one of the missionaries), and the intermediate English speakers will be divided between us for one-on-one instruction. So I will have about 15 or 20 students total, and I will meet with each one twice a week, whenever their schedule permits. Our main purpose with these English studies is just reaching out to those in the community and getting them involved in and interested in the Bible. We still have other Bible studies with people throughout the week, but they are different than the English studies (and they are mostly in Spanish).

In addition to our current English studies, and preparation for the new English course, I have been busy organizing, planning, and helping teach the children’s Bible classes on Sundays. One of my main goals with this ministry is to teach the Paraguayan ladies how to teach Bible Class, and it’s a lot of fun getting to work with them in this way.

Thank you so much keeping all the work here in your prayers! The people here are such a blessing, and I will have even more things to share with you all when I return! Have a blessed week!

Everyday Life

This past week since we have been back in Paraguay, we have been busy getting our ministries up and going. In the afternoons we teach English using the “Let’s Start Talking” material (It’s an English Bible study that goes through various books of the Bible), and also in the afternoons and evenings we go visit different members of the church or visitors. A couple of evenings ago Rocio and I went with the missionary that we live with, Brittnea, to go visit a church member named Arminda, who had been wanting us to have us into her home for a meal. We had a Bible study with her too, and just got to spend some time talking with her. Something that is amazing about Arminda is that she lives about 30 minutes away by car, but she doesn’t have a car, so it takes her an hour or more to walk to catch a bus to get to church. But that’s how dedicated she is, and it’s really amazing to see Christians like that because I know that’s how the people of the 1st century church were.

As for our work with the youth, we are really trying to teach them about service, and one of our main projects this summer (it’s summer here), is taking them and working with the orphans at the orphanage. It is only a few blocks away from the church, and one afternoon last week, we took a group to go play with the orphans. They were some of the most precious children I have ever seen! I know that you AFC Kenya girls know exactly what I’m talking about. They just want to hug you, hold your hand, touch your hair, be spun around like a helicopter by their arms, etc… but mostly they just want to be loved. So I’m really excited about our times with them. We will be doing activities with the orphans once a week. Tomorrow we have planned a movie day (at the church) with snacks for them. The director of the orphanage is letting us come get them and take them to the church. It’s going to be lots of fun!

Our devos and activities for the youth group and university students are on Thursday and Saturday nights. We always have the devo and then some sort of activity together. This past Thursday we played soccer (people here are crazy about soccer) after the devo, and about 20 people came!

Another ministry I’m in charge of is the children’s ministry, so I have been talking a lot with one of the missionary’s wives this week and getting the curriculum organized and planning classes. Sunday was my first class with the kids and it went great!

A few other things that we have going on include: our ladies Bible class on Wednesday nights, our mission team meetings on Thursday mornings, our intern meetings on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and every Tuesday night we meet with Vickie, one of the missionary’s wives who is our mentor. I also am continuing to take 3 hours of Spanish lessons every morning. So we stay very busy, but we have Saturday during the day off and Sunday afternoons off to rest and relax.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Also, my internet time is very limited since I usually only have access to the internet when we are at the church building, but I will try my best to respond back to your emails as best as I can. I love you all so much and continue to thank you for your prayers and encouragement!! God Bless!!

The following are pictures from when we had all the women from the church over for tea:

Group Picture!

These are two of the girls from our university group, Alba (left) and Helena (right). Alba is my Spanish teacher, and she’s wonderful! And I get to spend a lot of time with Helena’s family because her mother has kind of adopted us while we are here, and loves to have us over.


This is Chaco. He’s the cutest thing you will ever see. Oh and he thinks he’s spiderman.

This is the sunset from my balcony window!

Summer Camp Argentina Style!

Wow, it has been a busy last couple of weeks! We took about 15 of our youth to church camp in Argentina for a week, and a wonderful week it was! There were 45 teenagers from three churches in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and about 10 from another city in Argentina. There was about 70 campers total, along with many staff members and helpers. This is a picture of our group before we left for camp.

This is me and my dear friend Gina with our excited about camp faces! She is basically the Paraguayan version of me (except with a fanny pack).

Camp in Argentina reminded me a lot of Blue Haven because it was in the mountains, and it was so beautiful. Also, we went on an all day hike one day to a waterfall, and we played games and did typical camp type activities in the evenings. We also sang a lot, had a camp fire one night, and we even played an Argentine version of capture the flag (except there was flour involved and it was kind of messy…but it’s a great game…maybe we can play it CTW…Tammy you would love it). Our speaker all week was a man named Carlos from Columbia, and his lessons were incredible. The theme of the week was “Submerge me”, and we talked about being submerged in God’s word, His love, His forgiveness, and much more. This is everyone listening to a lesson.

And this is a picture from our hike:

Here’s Brittnea and I with one of our favorite campers, Pato.

We also led small groups for the campers, and these were a real blessing. We had a lot of good conversation, discussion, and study. And on the last night of camp 6 people (all from Argentina) were baptized. The neatest thing about the teenagers at this camp was that they weren’t your typical church camp campers…most all of them that came from Argentina had no church background and had tattoos, piercings, spike collars, etc. It kind of reminded me a little of 6th session at CBH, but perhaps the greatest lesson I learned was that God works in such powerful ways that He can reach those that we have labeled “unreachable”. At the beginning of the week, I was thinking oh my…look at that kid’s spike collar or that girl has a lot of tattoos, and then by the end I came to realize that those were the kids that needed to be there the most and praise God that he made a way for them to get there! 6 people are new creations now, and so many more are going back to their homes different than when they got there. It was an amazing week!