First Steps!

Just tonight...




There is so much excitement in our house!  Yes, we have a toddler :)

What a Week!

Usually we are so busy translating or driving or making logistical decisions, we don't have time to take some shots during a team trip.  I am adding some great pics that the group gave us...so you can see things from their perspective.

 The group with the Ache

 blessing a motorcycle in Naranjal

blessing a tricycle in Jesus

blessing a motorcycle in Triunfo 43

blessing a motorcycle in Hohenau

CMA Paraguay with the team

 visiting the Jesuit Ruins in Trinidad

visiting a school in Cerro Cora

a monkey in the town of Jesus

 animal life at the falls

We were blessed in 2011 by the CMA group.  We can't thank you enough for all you did here and we pray that God will continue to use you to spread the vision for evangelism worldwide!

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!!

OVERFLOWING with thankfulness for all that God has done for us this year!  Our hope is that you too are giving thanks to our Father for His many blessings on your lives today.

Welcome CMA!

This week we have some of the greatest folks on earth visiting us.  They have two things in common...they love Jesus and they love to ride.  Yes, our long-awaited CMA team has arrived. 

They arrived 9 hours late due to their flight being cancelled and having to take a 6 hour bus ride instead.  However, they still got to dedicate the motorcycle that is destined to the Bible translation project for the Ache people.

Then they headed down south to help us with painting the radio station.

As you can see, the radio desperately needed some paint.  The "after" results are amazing!

   We had a really nice time of food and fellowship with the CMA Paraguay chapter, which invited several interested people to attend.

  They showed pictures of their bikes and made jokes about each other's motorcycle model, all in good fun of course.

 

They even fixed a motorcycle owned by the radio that was broken!  I guess we shouldn't be surprised by the many talents this awesome group holds in their hands.  We will be heading to bless another bike tomorrow, visit a school and children's ministry and doing a special service before to going to the Falls this weekend...so look for another update sometime next week!

Shelled Peanuts Coming Right Up!

This week the dynamic duo, Michael, (the expert bee guy) and Alfredo, (the Bible student) put the UNS nut sheller together!! Here they are reading the bi-lingual manual.  For more pictures of the machine and its results, look here. 

This machine will help us shell our 1000 + lb peanut inventory in no time at all (It shells 50 kilos an hour)!!  

Thanks again to our friends who helped us purchase the machine and our buddies from Butler, PA that brought it here!!  We are so incredibly thankful for everyone's help.

Reflecting on that Day Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago today we pulled into Paraguay.  This is what we (and our poor truck) looked like the day before arriving to the Paraguayan border.  After being on the Pan American highway for over 70 days (we left Anderson, Indiana on Sept. 6) we were so elated (and exhausted) when we finally arrived that we both wept when we saw the "Bienvenidos a Paraguay" sign.

As we reflect back on these past nine years in South America, they've been some of the best and yet toughest years of our lives.  I look at myself then and I see myself as a kid, a whipper snapper of sixteen years or so (I was much older than that!).  I feel like I've matured decades since arriving here; the Paraguayans are so gracious and have taught me so much.  Yet, I still feel in a way like a kid cross-culturally.  I'm still making language blunders and I'm still missing social cues and I definitely still (and perhaps always will) feel like an outsider. 

I can't imagine what I would be like if I hadn't said, "Yes" to this call.  I'm not gonna lie, this is hard work and I have finally gotten to the point of admitting that I'm simply too weak to go at it alone.  I have been humbled and broken so many times and my need for the Lord is much greater than when I arrived. Without a doubt I can say that one life has been changed in Paraguay and it would be mine.

I could pull out a laundry list of really tough things I've been through here, and I'd like to tell you that I can accept the hard stuff as graciously as I accept the easy and fun times.  I believe I've grown up since that day nine years ago...I hope and pray that nine years from now I will tell you how much I've matured since 2011.  I'm pray that I won't ever get too comfy in this wonderful host culture that we are privileged to live life in.  I hope I will still count the cost and be willing to do whatever it takes to love; whatever He asks me to do.I'd like to share something I read that was especially meaningful to me this week.  It's a post by a missionary family in Haiti, called The Cost and I just have to warn you, it's tough to read and even tougher to live. 

I'd like to end by thanking God for his complete faithfulness during these precious nine years!  He has become so much more to me than I can ever come close to explaining.  He has been the only one to understand me some days.  He's been my provider, healer, protector, my comfort, my rock, and he's sheltered me under his wings more times than I can count.  I also can't say thank you enough to our friends and family that have supported God's call in our lives.  This is a shared journey and we hope you're on the road trip as long as we are.  My personal prayer is that with each passing year my love for Christ grows and I would count it ALL joy as I take up my cross.

Orphan No More (Orphan Sunday)

Since today is Orphan Sunday, we thought we'd post a new picture of our little princess.  She is such a happy, delightful baby and we thank God every day for her!  It's hard to believe she's only been home a little over two months.  She is fitting in so well...sleeping and eating well and she just loves people. 

Two and a half years ago Norberto joined me in the call to adopt at the Expolit radio conference in Miami when he saw a session called, "The Miracle of Adoption" with Rebeca and Brian Knowles. The speakers at that session dispelled the myths that many people have regarding the adoption process.  Norberto broke down at that conference and knew that God was telling Him he needed to take a step of faith.  When we returned home from our furlough we immediately started the adoption process.  Now, two weeks ago at the COICOM conference in Asuncion, the same speakers were present and he was able to share as a testimony how God used them to touch Norb's heart towards adoption!  He showed them pictures of our beautiful Esther Anahi and thanked them for their ministry...now there is one orphan less in this world.

Two nights ago Rebeca was on the radio and shared our story on air all around Latin America!!  Different people heard the story and called us to tell us to tune in.