THE WAY TO GO!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Wow, I cannot think of a better way to end our first missionary term. Our last morning in San Francisco, we spent worshiping with our Paraguayan brothers and sisters…people that, over the last 2 years, we have lived with in the rural area, we have grown to love and respect, care and pray for, mentor and call friends. As I looked around the church circle, I was again blown away by how much God has given to us. People who I saw watched being baptized are now baptizing others. People who sat under others’ teaching in Bible studies are now leading them. And people who were too embarrassed to come to church are now taking a leadership position. During the prayer time together, many of our friends thanked God for us and prayed that we would have a blessed reunion with friends and family during the coming year.

Church Sunday morning


Sunday after lunch we pulled out of town. We drove two hours to Escobar where we spent 5 days with our SIM family at our annual Spiritual Life Retreat. A wonderful group came from Virginia to minister to us – uplifting worship, challenging messages, and a fantastic VBS. The camp site was great for the kids to explore, rope swing, zip line and ride horses. And the last evening – yesterday – we had a camp fire complete with s’mores.

our SIM family


Yesterday we went into Sapukai (shout in Guarani) to join the town as they celebrated their 99th birthday. We climbed on an old wood burning, steam train and then toured the factory dating from the late 1800’s (lots of old, rusty - yet still in use – machinery). We listened to Paraguayan music (blasted very loudly), ate bolos (friend bread), and watched a torrin (bull riding show).

Missionary kids on the train


Bull show


We, as missionaries, live a life full of moves and changes and good-byes….three things that never get easy. Our SIM family gave us a despedida (farewell) where they lavished encouraging words on us, prayed over us, and shed a few (some more than others) tears. We will miss our SIM family very much and am so thankful for being able to spend our last days in the country with them.

Ryan riding


Ginny really wants to get a horse when we get back to Paraguay. She loves them and has really proven to be a good and careful.