Passion for Paraguay

This morning I read this article entitled, "Why You Should Not Buy Your Child an IPad" and the author mentioned that it's more productive to have a child go outside and play basketball or build a fort.  Although the author of the articple mentioned that the IPad has e-book and read-aloud capabiltities, he's never seen a child reading an e-book while using it.  The cool apps just "suck a child in" and affect a child's desire to go out and make friends and be active.  Why am I mentioning this, as I'm a missionary writing about events in Paraguay? Because it affects me.  Yesterday, while eating with some dear friends at their home in the capital, we were introduced to their new daughter-in-law.  She's smart, beautiful, in her mid-twenties and she couldn't look us in the eyes because they were glued to her smartphone.  I couldn't believe how addicted she was to hearing the "beep" of a new text message.  She couldn't even c...

Timmy's first day of school.  Our big guy started first grade on Thursday.   We are doing something completely different this year.  We are homeschooling him in the morning (primarily Bible, English and Reading) and in the afternoon he attends 8 de Diciembre Elementary School.  It is three blocks from our home and it is a national school.   This is their formation where they salute the flag before the children head to their classrooms. There are 14 first graders, which is an unusually small class.  It is shocking how few resources government schools have.  After two days of school from 1:00-5:00 p.m. the only thing they have done is read two stories and color two pictures.  The books have not yet arrived for the teachers and won't be expected for another month.  The state of education in Paraguay leaves so much to be desired.  Nonetheless, we feel like it is good socialization for Timmy to be in school, and he will get a b...

I thought it was time to get a few new pics up of the kids.... They are bonding so well and really love each other.  Timmy was just pushing Anahi in the swing Norb rigged up in the living room.  Getting ready to go on a home visit...  Trying to beat the heat, it's SOOOO hot right now.  Our princess eating a little snack. Our geothermal continues to slowly progress.  Norberto is working with some young boys from the area to do the hard digging that's required.  Hopefully our home (currently 85 degrees inside) will cool down soon!!

Someone from the U.S. told me this week we should steal some time away before Christmas.  However, this is truly our most activity-intensive month of the year.  It is not only Christmastime but it is also the end of the school year, so it's like packing December and May into one month. This week we had several year-end activities: This is Tio Enrique's graduation.  He is now a licensed pharmacist!!!  We are so proud of our Tio (Priscila's husband) and we wish him the best with his new pharmacy. Timmy also graduated from kindergarten.  Here he is on his last day of school at Sonnenschein, Bi-lingual (German and Spanish) School. He is sitting by his teacher and she is inviting the graduating students to come back and visit next year.  Can you tell Timmy loved his teacher?  She is a wonderful person and we will miss her so much!  Graduation was on Friday.  Timmy's getting fitted for his cap and gown. During the program the kids did a skit ...

Timmy came out of our room with his "papi's" commander shirt on.  He asked if he could put on his hat and belt too.  We started to laugh at him giving orders like Norberto does every Saturday in the Explorer's Club.  Then Timmy said, "I want to be a Commander when I grow up, just like Papi."   Timmy loves his dad and he copies everything he does. He walks like him. Talks like him. He eats the same foods (especially too much dulce de leche on his bread) He wants to help him with every project. He even pees outside on the trees, just like dad. (I'm not saying I like it though). and he told us just yesterday that he was Papi's best son and he showed me his little thumb that matches His Papi's unique thumb.  Yes, Timmy.  You are your Papi's best son.    So, Timmy made me think.... "I wonder how I'm doing at copying everything my heavenly "Papi" does?"  Do I walk like He does? Do I talk like He does? ...

Here in Paraguay we celebrate Mother's Day (May 15), Father's Day (second Sunday in June) and Children's Day (August 16)!  However, the entire month is full of children's events. This past week some local churches and businesses sponsored a special concert with Biper , a Christian children's group from Argentina.  The stadium that was rented was packed with 4,000 children/adults!!   Timmy still can't stop talking about the concert.  He was especially happy to have a dream come true and eat cotton candy!   On Saturday, Aug 20 our church is sponsoring a big party with a moonwalk inflatable, and an afternoon of fun and games in a poor neighborhood about 10 minutes outside of town.  We are looking forward to serving the children and telling them about God's love.  We continue to pray that August will be the month that we bring home our sweet daughter as well.  We still don't have any news from the judge.  Our attorney says that she hasn't s...

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads and especially to the best "Papi" ever!   Timmy was so excited to put on the same traditional Ao Po ' i Paraguayan dress shirt as his hero. Can you tell he wants to be just like his dad? What did you do to celebrate the special father-figure in your life?

This Sunday (May 15) is Mother's Day in Paraguay!  Since it is also the bicentennial celebration, we've been in constant activites.  Last Saturday at church I was able to speak about honoring our mothers (Exodus 20:12).  T  On Monday our small group had a Mother's Day celebration.  The men made us steak BBQ!! On Tuesday Timmy's kindergarten sang Mother's Day songs for the local "Club de Abuelas" (Grandmother's Club). In school Timmy drew a picture of his mama.  He knows me well; my favorite color is blue and this tropical climate does weird things with my hair! Today was Timmy's fiesta at school.  They sang beautiful songs in German and Spanish for the moms.  They served us appetizers and made us a book of their art.  What a special week. I am so blessed to be  a mother! 

Here are a few random things from this week... We can't stop watching the videos from Japan.  Timmy was watching and said, "Mom, why is there a house floating down the street?"  We're praying for all affected and we loved this miracle rescue story from the rubble. A-MAZING!!! We loved hosting a myriad of different folks this week for meals and counseling in our new living room.  After four years of building, we never thought we'd finish, but we are so grateful that we are wrapping up the details and are now able to show hospitality to more people, something we love to do. A big thanks to special people who helped us finish. We cleaned the classroom and office for ICCI this week, pictures to come.  It was a disaster. We took out four piques (sand fleas) from timmy’s pinky toe.  Um, no pics of that.  He’s getting so good at this, he is the surgeon’s assistant!     Here is a great post on the harms short term missions teams can do if...

We can hardly believe the day arrived... Our little guy is growing up and yesterday was his first day of kindergarten!  He's been asking us for WEEKS when school would start and yesterday was the BIG day. School here starts at 7:00 a.m.!  We got him to bed earlier and told him he'd have to get up extra early for school.  He informed us there were three ways we could wake him up: 1.  By gently saying, "Wake up" in his ear 2.  Pulling his big toe 3.  Doing a combination of yelling "Wake up!" and pulling his toes.  What a comic.  Thankfully, he jumped right up after we did number 1.  Here's the family rallying around our champion to give him hugs (and licks) and send him off! He's not excited or anything.  Hopefully he still has that same smile at the end of the week!

We were sitting around our beloved wood burning stove last Friday and Timmy slipped on a rug and fell right against the wood corner of the couch and sliced open his chin.  We went to the doctor and Timmy got his first battle wound, two stitches. The Ministry of Education declared it was too cold for kids to go back to school this next week (temps are around freezing in our area), so they are extending winter vacation a third week.  Not to mention that the teachers just lifted a hunger strike, so classes were suspended two weeks before vacation started.  In response to this sad state of national education, we start setting out in two weeks to visit churches to recruit students for our Leadership Training Institute, that will launch in March 2011!  More on that later. Lastly, we had family here for a few days and loved the warm fellowship!  Here are mom and dad Kurrle playing hymns on the accordion.  Everyone in the family had an instrument, even the lit...

Taking a break from the usual to show you a video of Timmy at preschool. He attends a German/Spanish bi-lingual school, because there are many Germans and Europeans that live in this part of Paraguay.  Since Timmy's paternal grandparents speak German and his "Papi" speaks German, and Mom only knows 5 German words, this school would help him learn this important language. This is a Father's Day program and they are each singing a short verse.  Here are the words translated:  "Hello good morning, hello good afternoon, my name is ________, hello good afternoon." Wish I could have grown up bi-lingual. Timmy taught me how to say "Guten Morgen"

Timmy's corn is starting to come up (photo credit:  Timmy) We fixed up our chicken house (thank you David!) and just got a new batch of chicks!  Timmy is the best caretaker and even asked us if he could sleep in there to keep the chicks safe. Norberto's sister, Nila, is teaching us how to make our own organic peanut butter using a meat grinder!  We hope to incorporate peanuts in one of our micro enterprise products. We continue to work on our geo-thermal heating/cooling system.  This will allow us to dramatically reduce our heating bill this fast-approaching winter and conserve the environment as well!  We are having a huge problem with pests these days.  If it's not rats, it's ants.  Then there's the fleas and the piques (sand fleas) which are our mortal enemy!  We've been fumigating and trying every remedy possible against these ugly nuisances.  Every night we have to check our feet for the little critters.  They burrow their...

It's been a while since we've checked in.  Here's a sneak peak at what we've been up to.  Now that fall is coming and the school year has started we are getting into the groove with some fun activities... Explorers have started up and Norberto is a commander again this year.  You can see the kiddos here in front of the new playground, which they have been testing out!  Timmy started preschool and loves it!  Here he is with his teacher, the assistant and a few of his classmates. "The Happy Hour" Saturday School is back in session.  I (Julie) am in charge once a month! And now for our exciting news ... WE GOT A CALL FROM THE ADOPTION CENTER.  They are coming on Wednesday to do our interviews and home study!  We are moving one step closer to bringing our child home and are thrilled!  We will keep you posted on how that goes and what new information we will receive after this week.  Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!  We'r...

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 ...