June 29- July 5
The interns’ last week….
Bible study
last days with host families
One intern noted that T.I.M.E (the
name of our program - Training in Medical Evangelism) should stand for Training
in Meat Eating. There is no doubt that
Paraguayan LOVE their asados (grilling meat) and we have participated in
several this month. One of the intern’s
family gave a good-bye party for the interns and invited their host
families. We again ate a lot of meat.
Monday Jeff saw his last patients
(until we get back from home assignment in July 2015) and then promptly took
down his sign.
Wednesday we left Jataity at 6:00
and headed for Argentina in our crowded vehicle….did I ever mention that all
these trips with the T.I.M.E students we squeeze the 6 of them plus the 9 of us
into our Excusion? That’s 15 people and
that’s crowded! We were glad to pile out
and stretch a bit at lunch before taking the ferry across to Argentina. We were so thankful that we didn’t come last
week because the border crossing was buried under water! There has been so much rain that the dams
were in endanger of breaking. Once the dams
were opened major flooding occurred in Argentina and in Paraguay. In Ciudad del Este (where we cross over into
Argentina 7,000 people were displaced. I
don’t know how many were displaced in Paraguay but we saw complete towns
submerged as we drove back to Asuncion.
This is a picture of what the
crossing looked like last week.
Crazy!
on the ferry headed to Argentina
Thursday we went to Iguazu falls
and marveled at God’s beautiful creation.
All the flood waters causes the park to be closed last week, so we were
thankful the park was even open. As you
can imagine, the Falls were full and beautiful.
However, several ramps leading to various views of the falls had been washed
away and we saw its evidence crashed on the rocks below.
Early Friday we headed back across
the border into Paraguay. We got just a
few blocks from the docks (on the Paraguay side) and our car broke down….it
began to shake and make odd sounds and lost all power. It was 7:00.
And thus began a VERY long day.
We waited while Jeff talked to the gas station attendants and was
finally convinced that they hadn’t put bad gas in our tank. We waited on the side of the road for a
mechanic who never came. And then we waited
for a second mechanic who, thankfully, came but after trying a couple things
decided that he could do nothing for us.
At noon the car limped its way to a mechanic shop and we waited 2 hours
outside a grocery store. At 2:00 the
mechanics at the shop decided they could do nothing for the car and so we
waited for a tow truck.
We boarded a bus at 3:00 and
finally arrived in Asuncion after 10:00.
We got to the guest house close to 11: 00 and after eating pizza went
right to bed.
The following day – Saturday – we
were up early and downtown souvenir shopping.
A quick stop for lunch and it was off to the airport. The time with the interns was sweet and fun
and full of adventures. As we walked
back to our car after a sad good-bye Micah said, “I miss the interns
already.”
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