Getting to know the Neighborhood

These are our new neighbors.  They weren't here last week, but now they're building their home 500 meters to the west of us.  Their home is the ultimate in recycling:

In Paraguay, when people move, many take their houses with them!  This is a home that is being re-constructed on a new lot!  Paraguayans reuse any scrap wood, old roof tiles and flooring to create a humble abode. 

This is the soy field that separates us:

We had our very first neighborhood organizational meeting last night.  It was great, forty people of different ages, nationalities and backgrounds came together on logs, drank terere and were unified in our desire to better our growing neighborhood.  We are still considered "outside of town" so our district has not gotten too much attention.  We met primarily because we are increasingly concerned about the toxins that the farmers are spraying on the soy/wheat fields, so close to our homes.  We invited the mayor to come to hear out our concerns and we formed a committee to work toward bettering our neighborhood.  We were asked to serve on the environmental/beautification team. Since we've already planted trees on the sidewalk of the equivalent of 6 city blocks, we'll be able to continue 6 more blocks to have flowering trees on our entire street.   "Pilcomayo" will be the prettiest road in town!

The mayor also promised us that he would put cobblestone on our dirt road, because it's almost impassable after the rain.  This year is an election year, so it's typical for the mayor to do a lot of visible work in the last few months of his tenure to get re-elected, so we'll see what happens!  We're not holding our breath, because we're heard MUCHAS campaign promises!

This is leaving our driveway after the rain:

We recognize with such busy lives, we don't have time to talk to those closest to us.  We have another new neighbor that moved in on the east side last month and we want to stop over and give her a welcome plant.  She's a hard-working single mom with two daughters. It's so true what our former president said:

"As man draws nearer to the stars, why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor?"  -Lyndon B Johnson

Working for the Wee Ones and a Typical Paraguayan Dish

Saturday was a special work day at church. Believe it or not, I was in charge of the food (along with some great helpers).    

You may be wondering what in the world I'm cooking in.  It is a specially created cooking dish, made from an old disk from a tractor disk harrow (see picture).

 

Paraguayans are amazingly resourceful.  We use our special pan to make all kinds of wonderful dishes.  Here I am making a typical Paraguayan dish called Guiso.  It's like a vegetable stew with rice or noodles.  It is a family favorite.  Traditionally, it is accompanied with mandioca (yucca plant) pictured below or bread.

The purpose of the work day was to build a children's playground.  In our entire city, there is not one playground with safe toys!  Most parks have broken swings and rusted slides that can cut children.  Norberto is spear-heading the project (he has an engineer's mind) and has been visiting several carpenters to ask for donated wood and materials. 

Here the men are hard at work implementing the design, which will include swings, a slide, monkey bars, a play house and a climbing tower (forever an adventurer).

While some were constructing, others were welding and painting old, donated swingsets

Here's how the guys did after the first day in 100 degree heat! Not too shabby! The project will continue again this Saturday, so stay tuned for pictures!

Giving Helpful Aid during the Haitian Crisis

Most of us have had our minds and hearts on Haiti ever since the quake.  We have loved ones there.  God has loved ones there- about 10,000,000.   Those of us who are not on ground zero may feel helpless seeing the horrific images.  While our instant response is to help, we have to know HOW to help in a way that is effective, not just to appease our consciences.

It is important to note that Haiti is the most corrupt country in the western hemisphere and ranks 177 out of 179 for transparency according to the Heritage Foundation.  There will be billions of dollars in aid given and well-meaning individuals will do more damage than good by donating blindly to organizations that they do not know and trust. While I believe that large scale humanitarian organizations are generally trustworthy, it has been challenging historically (911 and the tsunami in 2004) to distribute millions of dollars ethically. This is why helping the small scale workers (especially those who love Jesus and go in His name) is important.

What we CAN do: 

1.  Give to organizations/people you know personally, that you can trust.  Find out if your church supports missionaries serving in Haiti and how to best channel your support. Sending money to missionaries and relief organizations on site will help trustworthy folks buy and distribute food, water, medicine, construction materials and fuel.

2.  Pray.  Only God knows the needs of each of the over three million people affected.  Please pray for the victims, the relief efforts, and missionaries, for protection, safety, discernment, and wisdom. We are earnestly praying for our friend and colleague, Isaac Adrien, director of Children of Promise in Haiti.  He has not been heard from since the quake.  **UPDATE-  Isaac has been located and is uninjured!  

There is such large scale devastation and suffering, only with God’s help will this country be able to rebuild amidst the tragedy.

What not to do (this comes from people in Haiti):

1.  Send a team down to help that does not speak the native language (Creole) is not helpful at this time (maybe in a few weeks, but not now). 

2.  Send a container that will take 2 weeks to arrive, will either get vandalized at the port or will require huge bribes from officials.  This is not an effective way to give right now.

If you don't any connections with trustworthy people on the scene, we work with transparent Christians who live in the middle of the disaster and will channel the money with integrity:

Ed Locket and Candy Reiger are our colleagues with Missionary Ventures serving in Haiti.  They are there to help those most in trouble.

You can donate securely here:

John and Jodie Ackerman serve serve in medical and children's ministries with the Church of God in Port-au-Prince.  


You can find out more what they need most here: 

Luke Renner is our college (and radio colleague of Norberto) friend now serving in Haiti. He is actively working as a correspondent with MSNBC, CNN and ABC to help communicate the extent of the damage with the world. Follow him here on twitter.

You can channel support for his ministry here:

Children of Promise is the child sponsorship program that I work with.  They have 26 children in Haiti, some of whose parents were killed.  Their immediate needs are blankets, medicine and construction materials.



You can donate to the emergency fund here: 

It's important that we give generously, yet equally important that we give wisely.  May God's healing touch and His people rebuild and renew Haitian hope.

What trustworthy people/organizations in Haiti are you supporting?

Cluck Cluck

"The key to everything is patience.  You get the chicken by hatching the egg-not smashing it."

-Arnold Glasgow

The first batch of chicken will be ready for slaughter in two weeks!  Let's just say this project has been a lesson in sociology as well as agriculture. We have families that have only lost 1 chick and families that have lost 8.  Of the six families participating only 1 wants to stop (the one that lost 8 chicks).  David, our intern, has been meeting with the families regularly to trouble shoot, give advice and give feed and medicine.  We will be using various methods to market our "pollo":  by word of mouth, by radio, by internet and through a restaurant.  We're pretty confident we'll be able to sell all the chicken and get increase our next batch to 30 chicken (or more) per family. The families will then pay us back the food out of their earnings and will have money left over!  We'll let you know how we did in a few weeks.

We already have 2 new families that are ready to jump in and join the fun in February!  We're considering marketing our project under the name "Delicious Chicken" or in Guarani "Ry guazu Je."  As the project continues to grow, we will need to centralize our production, but for right now we're happy to be teaching our friends how they can succeed in a self-sustaining project. Stay tuned for "What We've Learned from our Chicken" coming soon.

The Paraná River, a Gift from God

While most of you are freezing right now, we are doing our very best really struggling to stay cool and hydrated.  We take 3 showers a day, sip tereré and move our 2 fans all over the house and nothing seems to help us beat the heat.  When we just can't stand it anymore, we go living in our van down by the river.  

It's true, we only live 15 miles from the Paraná, the second largest river on the continent (after the Amazon). It's name means "like the sea" in the Tupi language.  It begins in southern Brazil and flows into the Atlantic Ocean beyond Buenos Aires.  It creates Paraguay's eastern border with Argentina and has two hydroelectric powerplants (Itaipu and Yacyretá).

The passenger ferry takes about 30 min. to cross thefast-flowing current of the Paraná. There is also a car ferry in Bella Vista that takes up to four vehicles at one time and arrives in Corpus, Argentina.  The cost is 25 pesos per car.

"Refreshing water, here I come!" The water is actually quite warm in the summer months, but the current is fast and the water can drop off very quickly, so caution is advised when swimming. There are no lifeguards, but there aren't any piranhas either!

Our campsite (tent, complete with poles) by the river. There are very few "official" campgrounds along the river, but several great spots to pitch a tent.

   Along the Argentine side, there are some great trails and look outs.  Hiking along the river's edge one can see far down the river and spot islands, unique birds and lots of wildlife. From above the river it's fascinating to watch the enormous barges navigate down the hairpin turns of the river with their full loads of soybeans and other grains for export. Even though we don't have a swimming pool, we are thankful to have this amazing natural resource to help us beat the heat and enjoy the wonders of God right in our back yard.