Paraguay Project 2004
Click here for photographs: Page 2
We
were so pleased to see our team back from Paraguay. Below is a report from Len &
Lynne Trew. God has obviously used this visit in a mighty way. Speak to the
team. We're sure they would love to share their experiences.
‘Did you enjoy Paraguay?’ This is a question we dread being asked. You see it
wasn’t that we didn’t enjoy it, we had lots of fun and many laughs, but to
answer ‘yes’ to that particular question would be to completely underestimate
the impact the whole experience had on us.
We discovered that
‘culture shock’ is physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual and
a very real condition.
We discovered real ‘joy’;
in the sense that we all felt we were in the right place and that, we had been
obedient to God’s calling. We felt humbled so many times as God poured out
blessings.
 |
One of them was
the service we had in the farmyard of the family who looked after us in
San Juan. There among the fruit trees, with animals around our feet we
had a simple service, worshipping God in the open air with faithful
Christians whose lives are so different to our own. We witnessed the
work among the children and young people, and watched in amazement as
children ran, shouting and smiling when Bishop Andreas called them to
come and hear about Jesus. These children have nothing, no toys, hardly
any education, rags to wear, no shoes. Their childhood is over by the
age of eight, when they begin to work to help keep the family. God
showed us poor people, then He showed us poorer people and then He
showed us the poorest of the poor. It was heartbreaking.
We had a job to do in San Juan, a
tiny hamlet, about an hour and half away from Conception. There are no
roads; only tracks and if it rains then you have to stay where you are
until the tracks dry out. Our job was to build a dormitory with four
rooms and accommodation for 20 people. When completed this site will
provide a Christian holiday/retreat centre, something that is completely
unknown in Paraguay.
|
The Irish team before us
had already completed another dormitory and shower/toilet block so the race was
on to ensure we completed the task given to us. The Christian family who owned
the land prayed for ten years that God would provide a place where they could
meet together to worship and to build up a Christian community there. Amazingly,
He is using us as part of the answers to their faithful prayers.
Thank you for the money
that made the building possible, most of all thank you for your prayers, we had
such a wonderful sense of peace throughout the time we were there. So you see to
say ‘Yes, I enjoyed it’ would be to miss how deep, how wide, how high God’s love
is, His joy, His peace and His grace.
Lynne and Len Trew
Paraguay Project 2004
Click here for Page 2
`
