Passion for Paraguay

Our church has a children's outreach in the village of Cerro Cora. These are some of the beautiful little ones there.     We took Blue Cruiser (yes, we still have our truck, while we hope it sells, it continues to be God's vehicle!) and completely filled it with clothes to distribute to the families in this area. It was so hot that day, but tons and tons of people came out to receive the blessings.       We gave out tracts and prayed with folks and reminded them about the fall kick off to the children's ministry tomorrow.  We are excited that we have new tables and benches for the children to sit at (some sat on the ground), thanks to the help from our friends at Covenant Community and New Heights churches!

Yesterday was Norberto's sister's wedding!  It was a huge celebration for our entire family.   The radiant bride!    We had guests from all over Paraguay, Argentina and the United States celebrate with us.  We thank God for such a wonderful day and for the formation of this committed couple.  Norberto had the honor of preaching the message, "Contagious Commitment."  He shared how Priscila and Enrique are a unique example of purity and seeking God early on in their lives. We are so proud of them and we wish God's blessings upon them as they begin their lives together. We love you both very much!

This morning we were sitting under our hut drinking tea, which we do every morning. While we usually drink mate, (a hot green tea), because it is so very, very warm here right now we drank the cold version today, terere .  On Sundays we have an extended devotional time together (since we go to church on Saturday night) and while we were talking and dreaming, Timmy asked if he could have the camera to take a few pictures.  After a quick lesson he was off on his first photo shoot. I just downloaded 329 pictures from my budding photographer!  I thought they were amusing, so I'm going to share the world through a four year old boy's eyes (all photo credits by Timmy!). About 200 pictures were of his dad.  It chokes me up how much our son loves and admires his father.  The next 100 pictures or so were of our dog, then a few of the ground, the roof, the trash can?... see for yourself what interests a little boy:   "Why are you waking me up from my nap?"-Sandy ...

Just a few random things going on in our household this very warm week: Construction: We are working on two more rooms of our home, so there is dust everywhere!  That is the price we pay for moving into an unfinished home.  However, we've saved 9 months of rent already, which goes into our construction fund!  We've been building since 2007, so we are learning patience and how to diy (do-it-yourself), but it is so great to be making progress, little by little! This is our geothermal system that Norberto is installing. The children's park: Eight of us worked on the children's playground again this weekend.  It is really coming along!  The Explorers will help finish the project next month. The early bird: This red-crested finch wakes us up every morning around 5:30.  Either He wants to come in or he just wants to greet us, but he doesn't miss a beat (not even on Saturdays).  He's a rare rain forest bird and if you're jealous of our unique ala...