What's It All About?

What is it all about? What am I here for, and what are you here for? Of course you answer this question differently depending on where 'here' is. Is here being alive, being present in society today. Is here this blog? Many people have tried to answer the first question and it seems that everyone has to find some sort of explanation for the first question. However I want to pose it in the second sense. Why is my blog here? why do I write down these thoughts and why in the world do you find that you should come and read them? I started this blog because I wanted to get my ideas out, i love ideas and I like to express them and share them with others. However, ideas are only good if they change and grow people. Everyone today wants some new challenge, some new inspiration to motivate them to do something. I will admit that I wanted to be that inspiration and that motivation, and maybe I have for some people that read this. However, I have seen so often in my own life where I get that inspired, chills in the spine, motivated feeling to do absolutely nothing with it. The reality of it is that this feeling really doesn't compel us to do anything but search for that feeling again. I would argue that the most influential feeling that compels people to action today is discontent or discomfort. It actually is quite disturbing when you think about it, that the only thing that compels us is really what directly affects our attitude and feeling in a negative way. Good inspiration fades quickly, discomfort lasts. It is not really something that I fully understand, in fact I would think that I don't really understand it at all. Negative emotion moves us to action, positive emotion moves us to... well... um... ok... yea I am still waiting to see what positive emotion moves us to. We hear about the good things that are happening and we say "that's nice, good job", however we hear about the negative things and we say "something should be done!". Now I want to be very honest and very open here, and so it is going to be very generalized and I don't believe this about everyone, but it is about society as a whole. However, do not take this disclaimer to excuse yourself from what I am about to say. I am speaking to you, and you can discern with the help of God if it's something you need to change. I AM TIRED OF LAZINESS! Why do we think that we can check out after our day in the office, and leave every other sort of injustice for others to sort out? Why is it that we leave all sorts of injustice that we see and simply state that 'something needs to be done' when in fact you are standing right there with the means to do something!!! This does not always even mean going out of your way to do something, and it is not that hard. Yet, we convince ourselves that we are not the right person for the job. That for some reason we are not worthy to do it. AND YOU ARE RIGHT! We are not worthy to do it. We CAN'T do it. That' the point. Our society has made us yo depend on our own skills and resources and what we can do and reject everything we think we can't do. Yet, God tells us that he will be there for us in those times. Woe to us of little faith. (and don't get me wrong I include myself in this just as much as anyone else). When do we stop asking who is going to take the baton and act and start actually acting? When do we stop asking if we are ready, are we ready? are we ready? Am I ready after bible school? Am I ready after seminary? Am I ready after I'm 20? After I'm 30? The answer is yes, these things are not bad to do, but what are you doing while at these places? Where are you working and coming alongside God's plan? Where are you acting NOW? No more excuses, God has either equipped you now or will equip you to fulfill his works. and even if you fail, you will learn? We need to stop being afraid of the gospel, and stop being afraid of acting and just start doing it out of faith. This is my rant... there is probably a lot more I could say but out of a fear of being redundant I am going to stop there. I hope this does not inspire you. I hope that instead this gives you a nasty little knot in your brain that doesn't leave you alone the next time you say to yourself, "someone should do something"... Grace and Peace to you

I think I'll try defying Gravity

One of the things you learn about fairly early on in life is the scientific law of gravity. Gravity is not something that is really understood very well. We understand what it does, but not really why it's there. We learn what it is from the very instance we come into this world, even if we don't understand it. Then, we get into junior high and learn a little more about it. We learn at least what it is called and what it does, even if that still means we don't really understand it. We learn to live with it, to adapt to work within it's boundaries and in a sense to defy it. Not ultimately or for infinite amounts of time, but for some instances there are times where gravity cannot fully hold us down. We learn to walk, jump, climb, fly (at least for a little while, and with machines that help). All of these actions in a sense are defying gravity to some extent. yet, that does not mean the force leaves, we do not attribute jumping to the fact that gravity for that instance in that specific area "stopped working" or "wasn't present". No these actions occur in spite of the fact that gravity is still there trying to bring us back down to earth, so to speak. Ok Nick, thanks for the science lesson that I already knew, but what does it have to do with me other than the fact that it is kind of a cool idea. Well there is also a sinful nature that is part of every man. The famous verse of Paul that has him saying that he does not do what he wants to do and what he wants to do he does not do? Yea that verse is talking about how his sinful nature tends to get the best of him. There is also, surprise surprise, an adversary that is trying to bring us down. It seems like the odds are against us to rise and become like Christ. It seems like there is some force, something that is not really fully understood, although we can see the effects and know what it does, we do not really understand why, or where it comes from. this force seems to be trying to bring us down, take us out, bog us down. The Christian walk is the same as that baby coming out of the womb, already feeling and understanding the force of gravity even if they don't fully recognize it by it's term or understanding it's there. However just as that baby has to learn to 'defy' gravity and walk, jump, run, climb. Christians also need to learn to do these same things to defy our sinful nature, defy the forces that are trying to bring us down. Reality check, IT DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN. It is something that is learned. I think too often Christians think that as soon as you believe in Jesus all of the sudden life gets easy. Let me ask you a question. As soon as you understand that there is gravity trying to bring you down does that mean that you are able to walk? NO!!! It takes practice, and work, and frustration and joy and falling and getting back up. I do not know of one baby that has never fallen. In fact, i still don't know of one person that still doesn't fall. You see the thing about gravity is that it never gives up. Although many people don't give up either once they fall. It would sound pretty ridiculous if someone all of the sudden said "I'm giving up on walking, gravity just keep dragging me down, I keep falling, I think I am just going to stop trying to work against gravity." Many people would think it's absurd. We learn to stand more often than we fall. We learn to stay on our feet longer than we fall. Falling is still inevitable, but we understand and have grace for falling. Obviously falling does not impact others as much as sin does I understand that, that is not the point of this post. I think it is important to start teaching people how to defy the spiritual gravity that wants to see us fall. Being patient with people when they do, when not if. And starting to disciple people and try and grow ourselves so that we can learn to take our first steps, run, jump and maybe fly. And then when we fall, picking ourselves back up again and letting our father clean us up, and running back to him and running the race marked out for us. I think I'll try defying gravity

The Center of it All

Why did Peter look down? He was walking on water, he was doing something that no one other than Jesus had done in the history of the world and he chose to look down? What does it mean? Is that a pointer to human pride?
Many times Jesus calls humanity and those that follow him to simply keep their eyes on him and keep him as the central point of their focus. He promises that if we do this that our lives will be enriched. This is present in this story as Peter keeps walking on water as long as Jesus is his central focus. Yet, as soon as Peter looks away and chooses not to have Jesus as the central focus that is when the drowning starts.
So if this is the case why would Peter look away? Surely, he knew that as long as Jesus was his central focus that things would go well for him. Or did he? Did Peter know that Jesus was the cause of his walking on water? Did the thought come into his mind that he may just be doing this by himself, or maybe even that Jesus was doing it but he didn't really need to have him as his main focus. Whatever the case, he chose to look away.
This seems to be a sign of pride on the part of Peter and a symbol of the troubles that humanity faces in keeping Christ at the centre of their focus. Peter starts walking on water and everything is going super well for him as long as his eyes are on Christ. But at one point Peter had to actually realize what he was doing, he had to have at some point clued in to the fact that he was walking on water. That HE was walking on water. The only other person to do that was Jesus. So what other reaction should be expected from him but to see what HE was doing. At some point he got it in his head that he was doing it by himself. That what he was doing was of his own ability and did not directly relate to the fact that Jesus was at the centre of his focus. Or even that he didn't really need Jesus to be the centre of his focus.

If his eyes had stayed on Christ there is no doubt that he would have been able to stay on the water, but he would not have been able to explain the feeling other than what his vision of Christ was. Others could have given account, but Peter himself would not have been able to describe what happened, his description would have been Christ centered. Unfortunately as soon as he takes his eyes off of Christ to look at the water (either out of horror or out of pride, or both) things fall apart, and all of the sudden there is not reason why he would want to boast about what he was able to do.
The reality is that he was not doing it at all. This is the same with our everyday lives, we start doing things that are amazing when our focus is on God, and then we want to bask in our own accomplishments so we look away and focus on ourselves. This is where the spiritual low comes in. IF we were to keep our focus on God, we might not even be able to explain everything that happened other than explaining the fact that our focus was God. Our explanation of the amazing things that happen would be nothing other than "I have no idea exactly, but God was working". Others would have to give testament, and what tends to happen when others give testament is they do not sugarcoat it as much as we might do if we were talking our own situations up. The situation might actually be told as it happened instead of building ourselves up in the story. So there would actually be real genuine stories about what was happening. Real eyewitness accounts into what took place and amazing things that God did through different individuals, and then when the individual is asked all they can do is point to God as their focus.

It really is too bad that so often we fail when it comes to this and take credit where credit is not due. I pray that anyone that reads this and even those that don't can keep God as the center of their focus, and have no other explanation as to why things are happening other than pointing to God.

The Matrix of your mind!

One of my favorite movie series of all-time is the matrix series... Now there are some very obvious parallels with Christianity but sometimes we can forget about those parallels. One of the things that struck me the most while watching it this last time comes right at the beginning of the first movie. The matrix is being explained to Neo and what it is and what it does.

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

Ok so let's start with this quote... Have you ever wondered if there was more than just this physical world? Cause there is, Jesus says that "he who has eyes should see", now this does not necessarily refer to the spiritual realm that is around us, but it definitely has potential to. I think that one of the greatest tools of the enemy is to say that what you sense is all that there is. He wants us to be oblivious to the spiritual world around us. The enemy wants to keep you in the "prison for your mind". To keep you "blind to the truth" and keep you "a slave" to him. I think many times we too easily accept this as true. It is so much easier to simply accept what is in front of us as reality and ignore the fact that there is a spiritual realm around us, that has just as much effect (if not more) than what we can see, taste, touch, smell, hear. As soon as we can learn (through the help of God) to start to see, to open our eyes, we can escape the prison and learn about the world behind our world. This is a very uneasy thought and feeling. The world of our senses is so comfortable but it is a mistake to simply stay content with just this. There are battles going on around us everyday. So now to the next quote:

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so injured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it"

I think this is so true of a lot of unbelievers. this is why bible-thumping is such a flawed way of trying to evangelize to people. We can see people just like us around us everyday. A lot of them are not ready to accept Jesus christ as their lord and saviour. We cannot fault people because they are not ready, but we need to be ready when they are ready. This means befriending people, accepting them as they are understanding that God is working within their systems and beliefs and is trying to get them to a place where they understand that something is wrong with those systems and beliefs. That there is something more than the "matrix" they have created for themselves. That there is a world that is full of life that only God can give people! One of the most clever lines in the matrix movies comes when neo has just been freed from the matrix and asks why his eyes are sore. Morpheus responds with "because you've never used them before". This is true of new believers, hopefully the church can open their eyes to a new world that they have never seen before. something that causes them to ask why they never noticed it before, and the church can say "because you have never truly seen, never truly lived, and now you can"!

There is a lot more christian truth in the matrix movies even if it was not meant to be there. I think this is just touching the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully this will enrich your matrix movie watching and will help you in your walk. I pray that we could learn to open our eyes and truly see the truth and life that God has for us.

Love Languages of God

I went to a Switchfoot concert this evening. One of my passions in life is music, both live and recorded. See music has always had a place in my heart that I have never fully been able to describe. There are those songs that stir me to the core, or that just have something about them that is drawing. Because of this lack of explanation that I had for it, I simply did not really try to describe it to people. I simply said that music was a passion and let them believe that it was just something I liked.

However I was reminded of something at this Switchfoot concert. Switchfoot has a song called Your Love is a Song and they came to this song in their set, and then as they progressed through the chorus it hit me,

"O Your Love is a symphony, all around me, running through me,
O your Love is a melody, underneath me, run into me,
O Your Love is a song"

These are the words of the chorus. I simple could not describe the full extent of what I felt with certain songs or certain melodies, because it was God's love language with me. it was his way of expressing his love to me, of showing me a cool rift, or something that stirs my core. It is the same as the love between a husband and a wife. There is that "it" factor that can't really fully be describe (while I don't know this from first hand experience, it is something that I understand to be true. There is that love in an intimate relationship that you can try and describe in the best sense that the english language will allow, and yet it still falls short.

This realization was huge for me, and while it helps me to explain that feeling (although I am sure that the first time I say "it's god's love language to me" I will get some funny looks) it is not the same for everyone.

I encourage you to look for the love languages that God has put into your life. If your not really into music or it does not hold that place in your life, what does? Sports (the rush of competition, I am in this boat too because God speaks his love in more than one way), art?, servanthood?, teaching?, learning? what are your passions? start there, whatever gets your blood rushing to the point that it is hard for you to describe to others, that is probably the thing that God is speaking his love to you through...

next time you get that feeling thank him and remember he loves you.

Fighting!

When did you last get in an argument or fight? Like a real fight, a real argument, you were actually upset... Do you remember what it was about? If Yes keep reading, if no... keep reading. I think that a lot of our arguments and fights are because we feel a sense of entitlement. In some cases we are right, but I think a lot of the time it is simply the sense that we think we deserve better or should get things OUR way or that THEY are wrong. Pride seems to be at the centre of a lot of our arguments. I think a lot of this has to do with the culture that we live in but can not be fully attributed to it. A lot of the time these arguments could be resolved if we stepped back looked at the situation and stopped thinking about ourselves. If we lay down our pride and looked to lifting somebody else up rather than "winning" the argument. A lot of the petty arguments and anger that infilitrates our lives comes from this sense of entitlement. We have this sense in our culture that "we deserve the best" therefore if we get anything less than what we deserve we get mad, get angry, DESERVE BETTER.

It is not an easy thing to just remove yourself from a situation and tell yourself that well maybe it is just my ego in the way. Trust me, I have struggled with anger issues for the better part of 16 years and by the grace of God have been described as "always happy" nowadays. This is not true, obviously, I am not always happy but I like to think that I am able to remove myself from situations better, something that came with practice and God's help in self-control. Yet, a lot of the times I got angry it was not even justified, but it was because I felt that I deserved better, that I should have gotten better, or that something went wrong so something must be wrong with someone/something else. I pointed the finger instead of looking at my own expectations and what I thought I deserved.

Many times Jesus demonstrates and talks about being a servant. Often times we take this to mean actually physically serving others. I think we can miss the full extent of this meaning, and instead serve others through humbling ourselves before them. In everyday life, whether the person at the drive-thru window got your order wrong, whether someone makes a small mistake that costs you, in a bunch of situations. humbling ourselves before others is a huge thing that we seem to be missing today.

Now there are times where anger is okay. Many times we point to the fact that Jesus got angry when turning over the temples too far. But we need to continually ask ourselves, am I angry for the right reasons? Is this something that could be avoided by me simply laying down my expectations for myself and serving others? Or is it something that needs to be dealt with and anger is an appropriate response. I think we will find that most of the time the first option is completely acceptable.

So next time your angry take a step back and try humbling yourself, ask God to give you the self-control to do this and try lowering your expectations for yourself and for others towards you. Humble yourselves.

God Bless

Heaven or God?

Have you ever noticed bow many people seem to have problems with God? There seem to be a lot, and a lot of the time it seems that the response to why they have problems with God is either evil, or lack of gifts bestowed on people (meaning 'he has not done anything for me lately', this belief of course being despite the fact that he allowed them to breathe for another day) but anyway.
Have you also noticed that many of these people (mostly non-christians) seem to still have a belief in some sort of heaven? Never mind that as a Christian this means the consequent hell belief must go with it, however this is not the point. I find it super interesting that while people can have huge issues with God that cause them to either reject him or choose not to believe in him (which has issues on its own, because even though God does not do things for you in your own mind does not mean you can choose to make him not exist)they seem to have no problems with heaven. While as a christian community our beliefs tend to lie in the fact that these two are inseperable, could it be that we have given the wrong idea of what heaven is?

Now it is hard to get into it without offering up a view of heaven that could seem suspect, because it is also hard to say "I know what heaven will look like" it seems to be a touchy subject, however i will try and offer up a view that can be expected by most, if not all.

The secular belief about heaven seems to be that it is this nice place that you get everything that you want. There is a warm fuzzy feeling that goes along with the idea of heaven that it is the ideal place to be. While I have no problems with this why is their concept of God so much different. You see the reason is that Christians have portrayed heaven like this for so long. As long as you are "in" it is going to be this amazing place that basically is everything that we want. I don't know that this is necessarily the right way to look at heaven the "everything you want" attitude. While I don't think this is necessarily wrong either.

I think that we must believe that heaven is in sync with the character of God. Heaven cannot be something that is out of God's character or contrary to his character that would defeat the purpose of a lot of other theology behind the Christian belief. However, it seems to have been portrayed that heaven can somehow be separate from God and/or his character, or the secular community is just picking up on things about the christian faith that they find appealing, and it could easily be either one or a combination of these options. Yet, I think that it must constantly be spoken and implied that you can't have heaven without God, heaven is an outpouring of God's character. It is the in essence the incarnation of his character fully realized by humanity, his character showed in the way that humanity can enjoy. It is relationship with God in it's fullest extent, a relationship with God that is fully realized.

So while it may be easy to separate God and heaven for the secular world, I think it is important to realize that this portrayal is not necessarily truth, and to keep reminding ourselves that in the end we get to spend an eternity with our creator and how wonderful it will be!

Love of Sin

So this title can probably be pretty confusing as the beginning to what I am about to say. But the real question I want to get at is... do we love God as much (or more) than we love our sin. Think about it, your sin is a culmination of a couple things: a) your desires and passions miscontrued or in excess so that it is unhealthy and takes away from God b) a rebellion against God and a selfish way of going about things c) temptation to indulge yourself in what you find pleasurable (OK, the temptation isn't actual sin, but it does lead to it).

Really what I am saying is that our sin tends to take up most of our lives. What we indulge in unhealthily especially in North American society tends to take up our time and effort. What WE want to do and where WE want to go is the only option. Our individualistic thinking gets us to do the things that we want to do, and shows us what we truly love. it is common knowledge that if you want to know what a man truly values, you look at where he spends his time. Yet, we tend to spend most of our time sitting in things that do not matter, or in sinful things. Most of our time is not spent in/or even with God. Or even with the knowledge that God is there! So how can we say that we love God more than we love our sinful indulgences, when we are more willing to give time to those indulgences than God? It seems like a tough thing to handle, and it definitely is, but I think until we can say that we are willing to give more time to God and less time to our sinful thoughts, attitudes, and actions I think it shows what we truly love more. I think that this can be a depressing thought, but it is not meant to be that way there is definitely hope.

Because you see God understands that, he understands that unless we have him our lives are ruled by sin. And he has given us a way out of that. Not so that we can feel okay about sinning, but because we now have the opportunity to love him more than we love our sin. We are not bound to our sin any longer because we have the option of ridding ourselves of that sin and choosing instead to love God. It is something that is not always easy. But I challenge whoever reads this, the next time your in a situation where you are tempted and feel like you are in a place where you are going to sin with something you are struggling with. Ask yourself the question, am I going to indulge myself and choose to love myself and this sin, or am I going to choose to love God in this moment and turn away from this. I think it is not always an easy thing to do but I think it can be rewarding. We need to be continually praying that we can find ways to love God, because there is so much we could do, but the more we do it I think the easier it is to turn from sin and choose to love God more than that sin in our lives.

PARAGUAY!!!!! - Part 3

So I lied in my last post, it is actually going to turn into a 4 part post, because I forgot that I had neglected to finish the journal for the last week of activity. so here is part three.

EASTERN PARAGUAY.

So what is is about eastern paraguay that is so special? Well nothing too much really, we went out to eastern paraguay (more central than anything) Paraguari and Escobar. WHile there we stayed at a place called ALMA which was intended to be a seminary but never really got going because it is literally in the middle of nowhere. It is in the bush and is just a little ways away from EScobar but right now it is just kind of sitting dormant, while the man there named Richard, works to keep it up and build more all on the Churches dime. Our group was quite frustrated with this, and it was quite interesting to see how some very nice facilities could be put to waste because of the lack of positioning, and the wrong purposes. OUr group also thought we had one hundred million better ideas of what to do with the place, some quite good. Yet, there it still sat when we left it dormant as ever.

WE arrived in Eastern Paraguay wet, and with quite the adventure and story to tell right off the bat. WE took the bus to Paraguari and got a truck to pick us up to take us to our residence. Yet, right when we were climbing in the back of the truck with the cover on, it started to rain. We tried to hole the cover down, but the rain just kept pelting us (some of us getting more wet than others). Me JOel and Bonnie were sitting closest to the front and of course we were just drenched as we tried to hold the tarp down so we did not get so wet. It still soaked us much to our enjoyment, and much laughter was had on this ride. We got to our destination and the rain had basically subsided and yet, we were drenched from head to toe. Almost right away we were ready to give the church there our program. We went to ALMA to get ready and eat some food and then we headed right to the church. The production went quite well and we really enjoyed the people of the Mennonite church there, they seemed to be quite into the program. Yet, we had a surprise waiting for us when we got back to our residences later that night. We were all tired from the 2 hour bus trip that going out to Eastern Paraguay gives us, and so we planned on heading to bed quite soon after our program but when we had gotten back to our residences, we noticed after stepping on the veranda that there were swarms of ants waiting for us. Turns out we were foolish to eat on the veranda and not clean up the crumbs after we were donje eating. So there we were in the dark, getting eaten ourselves by ants. So we gained some brooms and went to attacking ourselves, while some of the others went into the rooms and made sure there were none in the residences. Lucky for the guys there were none in our dorm. Unlucky for the girls the ants liked something in their room. There was a solid line of ants coming out of the girls room and it went on for quite some time. While all this was going on me and Alan took to sweeping the ants off the veranda for probably a good solid 20 minutes. Needless to say we never ate on that Veranda again. We headed to bed, and thus started our stint in Eastern Paraguay. O yea, and our pampered air conditioned, pillow ridden trip was about to be thwarted.

That night, was our first without pillows, and without air conditioning. I did not sleep well during this time. I came to realize how much more I love my pillow than actually the temperature of the room when I am sleeping. I tried almost every combination of clothes I had, along with almost all of them in the pillow case I had brought, but nothing could replace, and everything felt like rocks on my head. The only time I would come close to accomplishing any sort of comfort, and sustained sleep was when I rolled up some of my shorts into a U-shaped neck pillow and put the top of my head on that. This seemed to work, unfortunately, I only figured this out on our last night in Eastern Paraguay.

Sunday January 16th

We had another program at the same church this morning. We woke up ate breakfast, and were ready to go to the church to do what we knew how to do (or at least were learning how to do). We headed to the church and put on our program, this was the church that always had something for us as well. The night before they had put on a drama about two military men, one who went back for his friend despite orders not to. This morning their response to our program was a testimony from one of the guys that went to this church. He had been a Christian for 6 years, and he talked about how being a Christian was something that you worked for and that took hard work. It was not something that one could just get by on. THis was a good wake-up call, and a good thing to remember. We finished the service and had a barbecue with the people. We stuck around while some people played with the kids and some of us chatted and played guitar (I tried despite my lack of skill and actually got the guitar playing going surprise, surprise). Then after this meeting we said goodbye to the people, we would see some of them again the next Saturday at the wedding, and headed off to go for a swim. We went back to the residences (no ants this time) and got ourselves together. Then we headed for a swimming stream that was a couple kilometres away. We walked down the road and came to this house. A drunken man was there and Alan talked to him and we got permission to go swim in the stream that was a part of their property. It was a nice little wading stream that was a very nice refreshment from the heat of the day. We spent quite some time here and just enjoyed the cool water. We met some of the people from the church at this place, and some of the girls said hello. WE then went back to ALMA and hung around for a while. Steve enjoyed some tanning and got himself royally burnt (although only on his stomach, with a distinct white line on his back, and where his shorts were). WE ate supper and then we hung around and enjoyed the rest of the day.

Monday January 17th

Today was the day we were supposed to go and see the Campasino´s and what their lifestyle was like. However we got rained out, we basically spent the whole day just bumming around ALMA, and sleeping.

Tuesday January 18th

Today was one of the busier days on the trip. We headed out to Paraguari to go for a bit of a hike. We got to the church after picking up some of the local youth and headed out with about 15 of us and probably another 15 other people from Chile and the youth group in Paraguari. We basically rode the whole way standing on the back of the truck that we were in and enjoying the wind that was in our faces. We arrived at a house and from there we took off to tackle this mountain. It was quite an interesting climb, we were all of the sudden on sharp incline whereas jsut previously we had been walking through a farmers field. The rest of the hike was a combination fo barbed wire fence climb-overs and rock to rock climbing. There were some parts where some decent climbing was needed and one part the guides pulled out a rope that we used to traverse up some tree roots that were exposed. IT was actually quite enjoyable and surprisingly not too difficult. We got to the top and had such a wonderful view of the countryside and even of Paraguari. We climbed on the top of some of the rocks and looked out at the view, and some went to other peaks to look out over the countryside, when Adriana found a tarantula under a rock! We prodded it out from under the rock and trapped it in a sawed in two pop bottle, and watched it and took pictures of it. This was quite neat as we had not seen one up to date. We stayed up there for some time and then it was time to head back down. The climb down was definitely tougher than the climb up the mounatin but not too difficult we all got down in one piece. We joined at the same house and just relaxed and allowed the sun to beat down on us after a good hike. Dwight found some friends that were into the same metal music that he is into and they immediately connected naming off American bands that they both knew. This was quite enjoyable for everyone else as well. We travelled to Tropicana a Empanada place in Paraguari where we indulged in Empanada´s and pop for everybody. They were quite delicious, and we had our fill. We said goodbye to the friends we had made on our hike and headed back to the ALMA where we were staying. It had been a long day and we had to travel back to CEMTA the next day so we said goodbye.

WEdnesday January 19th.

This was a travelling day. We took the truck back to Paraguari (without rain this time) and took the bus back, and all of the sudden we were back at CEMTA (our home for the trip) . It was nice being in a place that we knew again and enjoying it. This time however we were anticipating not quite so comfortable a stay, as Alan told us they had no airconditioning, and such in the place we were at. This did not bother us too much we were just happy to be back at CEMTA. There was a German Mennonite convention going on that happens every eyar, and so 100 germans were in the CEMTA dorms, so they moved us to a house just off campus that they owned. To our surprise there was air-conditioning when we arrived, and to my delight a pillow so I could sleep through the night (which I had not really acheived a single night on the trip). Also before we hoped on the bus at Paraguari we purchased some Machete´s for the guys as souveniours and were mighty pleased with them. We also went back to Tropicana to have some more empanada´s before we left. WE woudl be coming back to Escobar for a wedding on Saturday, but only for the wedding not for anything else, and we would be going back to CEMTA that night as well. We enjoyed playing soccer with some of the Germans in the evening and enjoying a meal of roulcoocing and watermelon (a good mennonite meal) and slept in comfort that night. The girls did almsot experience some culture difference that they did not appreciate. They almost were not allowed to join in the soccer game, because they were girls and soccer was a physical sport, and they were not happy about it either. Yet, they got to play and everyone was happy.

Thursday January 20th

This was the day where we were touring and going to go shopping. And when we woke up it was raining. It seemed that many things had gotten cancelled already due to rain, and this time we did not want the rain to spoil our parade. We waited a little while longer than we had planned and then headed out in the rain to do what we could and see what we could. An hour busride later and we were in downtown Asuncion. We walked 15 minutes to the orphanage that was in Asuncion and saw the place where kids go to recieve schooling and get out of unhealthy family situations. It is run by Germans and many young adults come to help at the centre as internships and other volunteer opportunities. It was interesting to see this kind of program run by the germans, and to hear that they get 60 percent funding from churches of Paraguay and the other 40 percent they recieve on faith. This was quite the cool place to see how it was run, and was very interesting to be able to tour it. We kept going and saw the presidential palace, the pier, some monuments of the history of paraguay. Then we came to the Guarani shopping complex. It was just one street block of homemade shopping ornaments and things, that has been going on for many many years. It has been under the same roof for quite a while and so we did some shopping there and bought souvenirs for those at home. We then continued on to do some more shopping of soccer jerseys, and other paraphanelia. WE enjoyed a afternoon of looking in shops and buying things. I bought a soccer ball coincidentally at an Adidas outlet. The same store I bought a germany jersey previously in the trip. Yet, I still got deals on them, and so here we are at Cemta awaiting the next 6 days of things and then back home to the land of the free. Tomorrow is wedding planning. Saturday is the wedding. Sunday we are going to a church and then possibly going to barbecue (barbecue might be tuesday). Monday we are doing something I cannot remember. Tusday seems like a chill day before we leave. WEdnesday brings an early morning and another 24 time-span of flights and lay-overs. Homestretch, here we go!

PARAGUAY!!!! - Part 2

This is a continuation of my three part paraguay journal...

WEdnesday January 12th.

Well as much as I want to say this day was very interesting it wasn´t. WE went toi filadelphia in the Chaco in order to catch our bus, and went to a museum. This showed some artifacts from German refugees and also some animals that had been taxidermeed that could be found in Paraguay. THis was fairly interesting but we were all pretty tired from the previous day. However we got onto the bus and to our surprise the whole trip was air conditioned! We had gotten lucky this far, as every place we had slept had been air conditioned. We knew our luck was going to run-out but not for at least another three days, as we were headed back to CEMTA to have some classes and have a day off.

Thursday Januy 13th.

This day was one of the most interesting as far as ideas go. We were in classes for close to six hours of the day and were being taught by a Argentinian professor named Diego. He talked about the problems the church was having among many other things to do with history and suich. I found it interesting that he explained that the church was just something everyone did. It was a ritual and the people did not really do it because of personal conviction. They had picked their leaders because of how well they could speak, not by what they were saying and the church was really full of people that were doing things that were not really for GOD. He explained that the missionaries in the history had brought a dead Christ to the land. They brought images of Jesus on the Cross and in doing so had brought Catholicism into the mix. People worship mary because that is the only way to speak to a dead God. Yet, the natives also worship mary yet behind mary is the God they were worshipping before the missionaries had brought Jesus and the gospel to people. They were merely worshipping this thing through Mary, as almost a decoy to the fact that they were worshipping something other than Mary. I FOUND IT INTERESTING THAT this problem seemed to be a lot like North America because there are people who just don´t want to believe in God because of whatever reason. Yet, there are people in South America who say they believe in God but have not reason behind it. They kind of fit together in one big mess. To reach both of these groups you have to meet them where they are at and be a part of their life. It is not about merely showing up and telling them something and expecting them to understand and follow it to the letter. It is not about a set of lists that people need to follow. It is really about discipleship and showing people and guiding them in the way that they are supposed to be going. He had many good points and it is hard to remember them all, I only wish I could. But there is enough here to brew over and try and understand. People in NORTh america might say they are christians and worship god just as a decoy to what they are really worshipping, just like South Americans, North Americans worship money, time, and many other things. When does that change, how does that change.

Friday January 14th.

We had a day off today. Found a German National Soccer jersey for 40 american bucks, or 180 000 GUARANI. steal of a deal; and its not even a fake: ´that´s about all for today so far. Now to east paraguay. Stay tuned for more.

PARAGUAY!!!!! - Part 1

So if you did not know, I went to Paraguay for three weeks with my third year class here at bethany. The following post is my journal of events that I kept while I was down there so I would remember. This is my chance to share some experiences and lessons that were learned down there with you.

We arrived in Paraguay on Friday January the 7th. From here we were picked up at the airport and driven to Cemta in San Lorenzo where we would make our ¨home base¨ for the next couple weeks. Saturday we were already up and at it. We headed to the Chaco by bus in order to get to Yalva Sanga. The bus trip was an interesting one as we spent 6 hours on it and fell asleep to nice cool air conditioning and woke up to hot humid heat. This was a unpleasant surprise but we did make it there eventually. We got to Yalva Sanga and were greeted by an ambulance. Not because anyone was injured but because that was the bus that would carry us around for the next 5 days.
Our host in Yalva Sanga, Rennvik Reimer showed us our places where we would be staying and we went to bed fairly quickly after the long day of travelling. Although we were already getting used to the idea of Tarade every day multiple times a day. Sunday we woke up with the expectation of presenting for the Inclet church, and so we woke up got ready and headed to this church. We had already bonded with Rennvik the night before and could tell he was going to be a fun guy. He is 24 and attended CEMTA and is working with the natives in the bible school in Yalva Sanga. We completed our first presentation and got ready to present again in the evening. THis time at a Evenclay church. Before this we went back to Rennvik´s house for lunch and some Siesta (which we were about to get used to in Paraguay). We also headed out to a dugout to do some swimming. While the water was not particularily clean it was a lot of fun having mud wars, and just sitting in the nice cold-warm water. We arrived at the Evenclay church and sat right up front at the stage. THis was interesting and kind of awkward as we were all pretty tired, yet we had no chance of zoning out at this service. The service went well and we were greeted with basically a recieving line of native people. We eneded up staying up and joking some more with Rennvik, while of course drinking tarade. While also enjoying a rain storm that came in and dropped 160 mm of rain in the next three- quarters of a day.

Monday January 10
Because of the rain we were not quite sure if we were going to be able to go to La Huerta (the agricultural school) because of the roads and other conditions. So in the morning we ended up walking around the streets of mud and touring the town of Yalva Sanga. Rennvik showed us the hospital and the school and explained to us that the native people are always split between guys and girls. There is marriage at a very early age, because they cannot really interact with one another unless they are married. and because of this the students at the bible school MUST be married. He also told us about how the students pay 80 dolllars a year to go to school and live at school, they get fed and a place to live. They can go home at Christmas and holidays and long weekends but many stay because the conditions of the school are better than their home conditions. We had a fun time walking through the mud and taking pictures. Eventually the day cleared up and we got to go to La Huerta. THIS IS an agricultural school for boys that takes boys in and teaches them how to work, basically. They come and learn how to build stools for milking and other projects and with it they can recieve their high school learning diploma as well as a college agriculture degree. The boys live on the farms and farm their own plots. THe school is run by four teachers and has a great amount of land. Among other things the boys do on the school is play soccer. THis was our first time playing soccer since we had arrived and we were sweating out of every part of our body but having fun doing it. THEY Were quite good little soccer players, even though they were all 14-18 years old. We did a program in the eveing and the boys seemed to really enjoy it despite our lack of spanish speaking abilities. It was interesting having to have everything translated and was hard to stay focused, but I WAS starting to pick up some words.

Tuesday January 11th
WE travelled to another part of the chaco. This tme we headed to Neueland. We arrived and the tour started. We arrived in this small town that seemed to be built around the ¨Co-op¨ and were in the middle of the German Hub of the Chaco. Our guide, Heinz, led us around tellling us about how the woman of the Chaco were the ones that helped it survive. They were the ones that did the farming and if it were not for them the Germans would not be in the Chaco doing all they are for that community to this day. We got to go to our billets for lunch, and me and Chris met our lovely billets named Kathy and Herman. She spoke broken English and was a very sweet lady. He spoke almost no English and so it was hard to communicate with him. We ended up drinking tarade on their porch me, chris, and herman and sitting in silence. Me and Chris did not know what to really say in our broken German, and I´m sure he was in the same boat but at first impression he seemed kind of grumpy. Later Kathy would tell us that he was suffering from heart failure. Their doctor had told him that his heart was at about 35% and he would not be able to do much else other than sit around all day. Which is hard for a cattle rancher and man who likes to work with his hands fixing everything he can lay his hands on. We went back to our tour of Neueland after lunch and went in for a presentation about what the Mennonites are doing in the Chaco area. They told us about their missional perspective and what they were already doing. THEY HAD partnered with the natives and were offering them jobs and places to live, and were doing what they could to provide but not just give things as a gift to the natives. They were working at initiatives that would allow the natives to provide for themselves without living in poverty. Yet, in fact the most natives around Paraguay have the basic essentials. They have food and water, and they normally like sleeping under the stars so even if you give them a house, unless it is rainging they will sleep outside anyway. We went to a museum and to Heinz´s house in the next part of the tour and he was a very nice good tour guide. WE then went back to our billet´s for supper before we wre to head off to the GERMAN YOUTH group that was meeting that evening. We went to our billet´s house and to our surprise Herman was woodworking. He was turning candle holders. He had learned wood turning and was doing it as a hobby. This was one of the few things he could do, and he did it a lot. Their house was full of things he had made big and small, and now all he could do was the small things. He could turn a candle holder or a guampa in 30 minutes to an hour, easily. The hard part was getting the wood to do it and from then on he would finish it in no time. One surprise we found while he was doing this that to finish off the product, he would use old jeans and run them along the turning product. This would create a nice smooth shine, and we were astonished. WE ate supper and headed out to youth group.
While at youth group we talked with the youth (through a translator) that they were having a tough time dealing with being lukewarm and not having to live like a Christian despite the fact that they were in a Christian group. They found it hard to be a light in a place where it did not seem that light was needed. I found it interesting that this was some of the same things that Christians in Canada deal with, and found that we need to keep supporting these people through prayer even if we are a couple continents apart. It was a good moment to see that these problems were not North american exclusive. We then got our second opportunity to play soccer although in a way nicer temperature because the sun had already gone down.