Christmas update

Christmas is over and the goose is... well it was fat and now it's digested. And it's never really been a goose anyhow, it's always been a turkey. So much for tradition.

We enjoyed the holiday in our new culture. It was different from anything we have experienced before, although we made sure to continue some of our own family traditions (sticky-buns, breakfast before and cookies).

Here in Paraguay the night before Christmas is ephasized more so than the day of Christmas. Literally, for an hour prior to mid-night and well into the wee hours of the morning we heard and saw fireworks going off. It really sounded like a war taking place just outside our wall. Later we found out that many of the bangs were probably coming from pistols and rifles (so, stay indoors under a roof because what goes up must come down). Presents are not a big part of the celebrations here. Three Kings Day (January 6) is the day that typically is more gift-focused. However, here in Paraguay gift giving is not as common with the majority of people. This is probably due in part to the economy. A tradition that seems quite common is the exodus from the city to the interior of the country. Many people travel back to their roots to spend the holiday with their family. Outside the homes there were some Christmas lights hung, but it is not as prevelant as is experienced in the States. The weather... aye, yie, yie... This would be the biggest adjustment for us. January and February are the hottest months of the year here (Paraguayan Summer). But, December is preparing the way for these first two months. We experienced many days hovering around the 40-42 degrees celcius mark (105-108 degrees farenheit). Thankfully Christmas Eve and Christmas day brought rain and cooler temperatures 29 degrees celcius (85 farenheit).

During the season at church we continued with our Navidad in Narnia series. It went over very well, and already we are thinking about next year and what direction we will go. Each week the pastor preached on different themes (Joy, Faith, Love, New Life and Hope). We borrowed a big screen and we used my projector to show clips of the movie (Narnia) and utilized powerpoint for worship and the messages. January 6th we will be showing the movie in it's entirety to the community. The church also put on a Christmas program for the community the Wednesday prior to Christmas. We had several families from the community who don't regularly attend come out. I was really impressed with the level of participation from the members of the church. It's always an encouragement for the leaders when the people are actively involved in ministry.

You can be praying for me, as in January I will be preaching two times (in Spanish!). For those of you at Hope Church in Springhill, one of those messages will be "Piggy Toes and Belly-buttons" (smile). Pray that the messages come across as natural and easy to understand as is possible.

The pregnancy is still progressing well. We had a little concern about gestational diabetes, but Karen has been able to manage her sugar levels with an adjustment to her diet. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to sample all the wonderful Christmas cookies like she would have liked. Not to worry though, I picked up the slack.

Love and holiday greetings to you all. May the Lord bless you and yours.

Navidad en Narnia

Wow! It's been a long time since I last made an entry. We've experienced one of the biggest transitions up to this point in our lives. Well... maybe it's the second biggest transition for Karen seeing she made a similar tranisition to the States in '96 before we met. Then again, our marriage was a huge transition too... and then there was Jeffrey (I guess we'll have another transition fairly soon). Seriously though, it has been a big transition and we appreciate all your prayers and e-mails which have been a great encouragement.

What's going on now?

A piece of good news that I really appreciate is having internet in the house now (yeah!). We are now able to talk with family in the states for free (with video chat) and we can contact Karen's family again for a fraction of what it cost us before. How did the likes of William Carey and Adoniram Judson ever survive without internet?

Karen is progressing along with the pregnancy. The doctor continues to give us good reports. We are almost down to one month before baby Jasmine arrives. She is moving more every day (last night she kicked me out of bed onto the floor... or at least that is Karen's story). Please continue to keep Karen and baby in your prayers.

I'm finally beginning to feel focused in the ministry at the church. It has been difficult as I am a do-er (not just a listen-to-er... thanks for the quote Kate Carpenter). There were many necessities to take care of prior to making a set schedule at the church. Things like: finding a house, buying a car, furnishing the house, installing ceiling fans, purchasing tools to take care of a house, processing visa paperwork, processing car paperwork, and I'm sure much more (and most of these things take a whole lot longer to do here than they do in the states. Thankfully the Lord blessed us with a field director and wife who has helped us tremendously in these processes (I don't know how one could manage without similar help). But through the process I've been torn as I've wanted to (all along) begin more focused efforts within the church we are serving. Even though I'm still working on the particulars of the "set schedule," this week has marked a point in which momentum in ministry is beginning to kick in.

While working with the pastor to discover his heart we hammered out the following mission statement (taken from todays pre-service powerpoint):


We are currently working on our vision and values.

This morning was a great encouragement to everyone at the church (I believe). In the states during Christmas I would choose a Christmas movie and use clips prior to every sermon as an introduction (thanks Fred Coleman for the idea several years back). Realizing that this might be "too" North American I tentatively suggested to the pastor I'm working with (Daniel Paredes) that we might try that here. He didn't dislike the idea, so we decided to give it the rookie try. The movie we chose is Narnia (based on the book written by C.S. Lewis, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"). I made some suggestions to "Danny" concerning some of the things we could do in addition to the clips and the special sermons, but afterwards I didn't give those suggestions too much thought because they required a lot of work. It was blessing to see how Danny took those suggestions and made them happen. Prior to this morning we passed out invitations to the people who are in our circles of influence. We gave out special decorations with a Bible verse concerning Faith hand printed on them to hand out to people, we had Pecan Snow Ball cookies (O.K. I did that), one of the youth acted out a mime about Faith, a special testimony was given about faith, the worship was centered around faith, we sang Christmas hymns, we had powerpoint for the first time (with an incredibly big screen loaned to us by another local ministry). We are going to continue to do similar things every Sunday in December with the following foci: Joy, Love, New Life, and Hope. In the new year we are going to present the movie in full for the church and all the people we have invited throughout the season. Please be in prayer that the Lord would bless the efforts of the faithful people here in the Alliance Church of Asuncion. Pray that come January we will have brand new believers lifting up the praises of our Savior. (By the way, one of our neighbors accepted Christ this morning in the service!)