Poptarts

Forest brought a few things back with him from the States that we can not get here in Paraguay. One of those things being, Poptarts. This morning our 4 year old son Caleb, had his very first poptart! I made only one to make them last. As soon as he saw it his eyes lit up. Then he asked if I had made this for his birthday. His birthday is in May. He said “It even has sprinkles, wow!” We have 11 more poptarts left, let’s see how long we can spread them out.

Sound Equipment!

We finally bought sound equipment for the church plant! For some time Marcos (my national co-pastor) and I have been checking prices for equipment here in Asuncion. Trying to stretch the money as much as we could, we set off on a 5 hour trip to Ciudad del Este, a city that borders with Brazil. There, you can find better deals on almost anything. Marcos and I took with another guy that knows a lot about sound systems and sound quality. We left Thursday afternoon and had planned on stopping and getting ice cream at a German dairy market, but we just missed getting in before closing time. (I think it is the best ice cream in the country) We spent the night in Ciudad del Este, at the house of a Chilean missionary that also works with the C&MA.
The next morning we got up early and started shopping, after a few hours we found one shop that had just about everything we needed. It took longer than we expected to get everything to the car; the little store where we bought the equipment had to go get it from their warehouse. We had hoped again to stop and get ice cream at the market that is outside of Ciudad del Este, but we did not make it again. We finally made it back Friday night at 10pm.
In all we purchased two speakers, a monitor, amplifier, mixer, keyboard and stand, and some mic wires. We returned content with what we bought, feeling that it we had purchased as much as we could. We are happy to have a sound system that we can do more public events in the neighborhood. Please pray that with the sound equipment we are able to reach many people.

Fun times in the DMV

PROBLEM: 8 missionaries need driver’s licenses. One DMV would not give them to us because we do not have our permanent residence.


SOLUCION: Go to a different DMV with a contact person to help us out.


WHAT HAPPENED?
9:45 All eight missionaries met at our house for prayer and to travel together.
10:00 Meet our contact person Guido.
10:05 Found out that this DMV would give us our licenses but needed to take a blood test, vision test, hearing test, driving test and a written test.
10: 15 We were all getting blood tests done to see what time of blood we have.
11:00 Went and got our vision test. We couldn’t figure out where to go for the hearing test. We had paid for it but weren’t sure where to go. Later found out that the hearing test is included in the vision test. We had to be able to hear the instructor for the directions. We all passed!
11:30 Driving test began. But soon found out that three of us could not take the test because we were wearing sandals. Forest ran back to the house to get a pair of tennis shoes. We just passed the shoes from person to person. It is illegal to drive in Paraguay with sandals. If we get in an accident, and we are wearing sandals, insurance will not pay for the damages. We all passed the driving test!
12:15 Written test begins. We all have been driving for at least 15 years. We know the road rules. But in Spanish? Different story. It was a pretty difficult test. Every 2 minutes one of us would ask the proctor for help.
1:15 Got the news that 7 out of 8 missionaries FAILED the test! The only one to pass was Bruce Harmon, a missionary who spent 25 years in the Philippines!

THE FOLLOWING DAY we all returned to retake the test. However, this time we came in prepared and all studied up. WE ALL PASSED! At the end of the day, we all had our Paraguayan licenses in hand and ready to hit the road (in toe covered shoes that is)