Alive and Well!

In case you were wondering, our team arrived safely in Asuncion, Paraguay late Friday evening. Our trip did not come without some 'exciting' moments, however...like being stuck in Buenos Aires for five extra hours without anyone (including the airline attendants!) knowing where our plane was...or Mel's luggage not arriving with our flight! Despite some of those unforeseen circumstances, we are having a GREAT trip! Due to our layover in Buenos Aires, we were able to spend an entire afternoon touring the city, which was really neat. Saturday morning, in Asuncion, we spent some time in the local markets bartering with the Paraguayan venders. Then in the afternoon we traveled three hours to Villarica (our van only broke down once! :-) to spend some time on Alyssa's turf down here. We met her students at the school Saturday night, and they performed various dances and songs for us in English. Then, we spent the night in various Paraguayan host homes. I stayed with a young man named Lucas and his family. His mother said to me, "Our home is small, but our hearts are big." It was a blessing to stay with them.

Sunday we went to Alyssa's church. Danielle, Alyssa, and I helped lead worship for the service, and our team performed 'The Redeemer' drama. Dave and Linda also shared their testimony during the service. It was great to see another unique and diverse part of the body of Christ in the Paraguayan church. After church, we all shared a meal together, and then we spent several hours playing games with the kids. We continued our hectic pace Sunday night, as we traveled to Kapi'i (a small rural community near Villarica) to take part in a service with the believers and those searching for God there. Again, we led a worship service in both Spanish and English there, and we performed our drama. It was quite a unique experience, to say the least, to worship God in a barn in a rural community with like-minded believers (our worship service was interrupted a time or two by mooing cows and chickens fighting!). We felt very blessed to spend that time with the national church here. The Christian community in Kapi'i is still very young, and many believers fae great persecution (they often wait until night time to worship for fear that they might be seen and persecuted). Still, the Church is growing! God is definitely moving in Paraguay!

Sunday night, we traveled to our destination for the rest of the week, San Bernardino. This is where we will spend the rest of the week serving the SIM missionaries by leading their kids in VBS and leading the missionaries in worship. Already we are feeling blessed by our time here. Please continue to pray for us for the strength to serve with all that we have! Dios le bendiga! (God bless!)

(written by Adam Cramer)