Passion for Paraguay

In Part 1, I shared how my first move to Paraguay was at age 5. At that time I was a minor, following my parents around. But my second move to Paraguay was at age 25 when after college, I—or better said, we—decided to move back to Paraguay. This time, the Genesis was a letter inviting us to help pioneer a new radio station there. At the time I had just gotten married to my college sweetheart Julie. We were both enrolled in seminary, enjoying just being married and going to school. Among our hobbies at the time was traveling the U.S. and to any country that we had the funds to go to. During those days, we began running seriously and trained for our first marathons and adventure race. Our first marathon was the Flying Pig marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio. Julie and I finished together in what I thought was a pretty good time of 4 hours, 12 minutes. One day, a letter in our mailbox got us thinking about plans beyond graduation. The letter was from Walter Franz, inviting...

Encouraged by today's daily devotional We are all on a journey that leads us to live beyond this world. We have all faced or will face affliction as we live out the life God has entrusted us. Rejoicing is definitely my favorite part of the journey. Weeping is usually the hard side, the one we would like to avoid. This morning I read these thoughts in, Streams in the Desert, daily devotional. There is a limit to our affliction. God sends it and then removes it. . . After a long ordeal, the threshing tool is on its hook, and the wheat has been gathered into the barn. Before much time has passed, we may be just as happy as we are sorrowful now (Feb 16th, page 77). This is very promising and should be an encouragement  but not always easy to practice. When live gets tough, it seems that it will always be that way, and thinking beyond the momentary pain is definitely an act of surrender and commitment to a larger p...