Skip to main content

Our Visit with the Aché

On our way to visit the Aché Indians (pronounced Ah·CHAY) this week we passed by this beautiful scene... 
We also passed by this scene.....He submerged his back tires in thick mud and abandoned his vehicle until the mud dries up. That's a bad day.
When we arrived at the village, we were immediately welcomed by our warm friends.  The Aché are hunters and gathers.  They still use bow and arrow to hunt and they have become adept in agriculture as well.  Last year they purchased their first tractor and after this year's soy harvest, they were able to pay off their tractor debt!

The 1500 Aché that are living in Paraguay do not yet have the Bible in their own tongue.  For that very reason,  a team of translators is fervently working on the 10 year project.  Right now they are translating the Pauline letters, as they have already finished the Gospels.   The goal is to finish by 2015.  If you would like to help sponsor a verse of the Bible, the cost is $20.00 and you can donate here.  

 
The children immediately ran off to climb trees with Timmy.  Their joy for life is contagious.

Missiologist/Anthropologist and respected colleague, Bjarne Fostervold, made first contact with the Aché with his missionary father in the early 1970s.  He and his family continue to walk alongside and battle for the rights of the community today.  Our intern, David, has expressed interest in Bible translation and is currently spending two weeks with the community. (Bjarne is pictured on the left, David is in the middle)


Please pray for the Fostervolds, the Bible translation project and the Aché people and the many challenges they face as they fight to maintain their culture, yet integrate in a changing, modern society.

Comments

  1. AWESOME! Thank you for sharing that with us. How wonderful that the Bible is being translated for the Aché people!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This post immediately took us back to November of 2008 when you took our CMA team to spend some time with the Ache' during our week in Paraguay. It is good to see Bjarne and some of the children again. This was very heart warming to see!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas in Paraguay!

If you're wondering what Paraguayans do at Christmastime, they have some great traditions , including the " noche buena " meal on Christmas Eve at midnight.  They eat lots chipa guasu (a type of corn casserole, stay tuned for a recipe), asado or grilled meat (some eat it cold), salads, especially fruit salad, watermelon and drink mucho terere . Families travel from all over the country, many even return from working in other countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Spain, to celebrate with loved ones. This is us at last year's Kurrle celebration in Asuncion. Festivities are anything but a silent night with fireworks, loud music and drinking cidra (hard cider).  Most Paraguayans do not decorate Christmas trees (we decorate ours in shorts!) or emphasize Santa Claus.  Instead, they put beautiful nativities " pesebres " in their yards and in store fronts.  Kind of novel to focus on Christ at Christmas, isn't it! To beat the heat, many Paraguayans g

Paraguayan Weddings

On Valentine’s Day, we had the joy of attending the wedding of Sandra and Anastacio, young leaders in the church. Sandra is my assistant with Children of Promise and Anastacio, apart from his carpentry job, has a popular youth-focused radio program every night at 8:00 on our station. We’ve been to quite a few weddings, and these are some of the uniquenesses of southern Paraguayan wedding celebrations from our North American culture: 1. Nothing is fancy. Emphasis is placed on the act of marriage and not on the decorations or food. 2. It is not an expectation that parents help pay for expenses. Most families just make it each month with regular expenses and cannot afford to pay for eleborate feasts. Most couples have to spend months saving for their own wedding. 3. Borrow as much as possible. Many times wedding dresses are borrowed 5-10 times, because few women can afford their own. Flowers, decorations, shoes and ties (Norb loans out his ties often...since he never wears them!

Fighting Discouragement in the Busyness of Life

Hubby and I have made an agreement not to talk about sensitive issues after 10:00 p.m. It’s a rule in our household because when we were first married our late night talks would turn into fights and we would say hurtful things, because we were tired and our reasoning senses were shot. We eliminated almost all arguments with that simple rule. Exhaustion takes the best out of a person. Another new book on the market,talks about the high burnout rate among pastors. In reading reviews of the book, the author says that lack of sleep is one of the main causes of burnout. I’m reading this book that also deals with the correlation of sleep deprivation and discouragement. It’s a book for overactive people who are seeking to strengthen a love relationship with the Lord. Being in the ministry, I feel the demands of people’s needs constantly. Daily, we hear claps at the door to pray, to chauffeur people around, to do weddings, funerals, to lead Bible studies, to counsel just about any pro