Skip to main content

A month in Paraguay. I invite you to hang out with me

Day one Sept 1st:  A typical day in our lives

This idea of sharing with you this short daily entry came to me on my jog today. So I start right now, committing to write a daily paragraph about my life here in Paraguay for the next month.  Please pardon my grammatical errors or expressions that might not sound so English. This is a very spontaneous way of sharing for me. I hope you enjoy and it helps us to connect in spite of the distance.

It’s almost 6:30 pm. I got up at 4:45 am this morning. I don’t usually get up this early.  I had to leave town for a commitment. I was back at 7:30 am. Nancy and I had tea (the Paraguayan kinds with the metal straw) then breakfast.

I went on my jog, then I run some errands for Nancy, and then we all had an early lunch as a family of six now. Mark, Nicole and Anahi, went back to their afternoon school activities at 1:30 pm while Dominick (three months now) and Nancy took a nap.  I got on a bus and rode for 30 min to a place I use as office since we moved to Encarnacion in February of this year.

I have been in my office all afternoon. I have been connecting with various pastors organizing a leadership meeting at the end of the month. This meeting will have implications in funding, connecting and handling church growth in their respective congregations


I am also studying for my test on Saturday. I have been attending the Paraguayan national university for the past 15 months. I am working on a master in higher education and research. The class is challenging in that is stretching me in my teaching paradigms. 
Nancy and I usually try to end our day with another cup of tea and we share our day with each other. Mark will be watching Paraguay play Chile in preparation for the upcoming soccer World Cup in Russia in 2018. I might join Mark to see the game

Ok, thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. 


Comments

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