An Answer to Prayer

Today we are thankful. We're thankful for a God who has an incredible message of hope to spread in an otherwise hopeless world. This is first and foremost what we are thankful for today. But somewhere, way down the line from that, we have gratitude of a different kind. A gratitude that as God continues to author his story, we get to be characters in it. God is painting a picture and we are active participants in it (Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:19).

Today, we got to witness what may be the end of our part in this particular sub-chapter of God's great story—this sub-Chapter that could be titled “How I chose to reach children in Paraguay with the truth of my Good News.” But as for this chapter, it's near the beginning.

Of course, God has been working in Paraguay for generations, so when I say it's near the beginning, please understand that as one small character, I'm speaking from a very finite perspective. Nonetheless, here is what made this day so special...

At approximately 9:00 am a couple of busses rolled in. There was nothing remarkable about the busses themselves or even, at first glance, the people on the buses. However, WHY these people were on these buses showed a change had happened in their life some time before—a change that so affected them that there is nothing else they would rather be doing for the next three 100+ degree days in central Paraguay than sit in a non-air-conditioned campground and learn how to reach boys and girls with the gospel of Christ and train them to serve him. And their faces reflected a joy that showed us this day would be special.

As mentioned before, it was a hot day. But I never heard a complaint. The heat was mentioned to be sure, but each one was engaged. They knew the heat was unworthy to be a distraction from their calling. They received the training with the same joy and enthusiasm with which they arrived, even until 10:00 that night.

These leaders are being trained to bring Awana (Oansa in Spanish) back to their church and specifically to the nutrition center where they volunteer to feed hungry children once per week. For most of these centers, this training is exactly what they needed—a way to effectively evangelize and disciple the children they love.

Praise the Lord with us that by this time next month, these 100 leaders will be starting 50 new Awana clubs. And that every week, approximately 2,500 children will have the opportunity to hear the greatest story ever told—the story of the Gospel of Christ. Pray that they would not only hear, but respond and become characters in it as they in turn tell the story to a world without hope.

As for God's plan in Paraguay, even these 2,500 children that will be reached may be just the beginning. There are over 400 churches with nutrition centers in Paraguay who are currently working diligently to meet the physical needs of their communities, but don't have the training to effectively meet the spiritual needs of the children. Perhaps in the next few years each one will have an Awana club teaching children to know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. What an exciting beginning...

-Brant

Arriving by bus, everyone is so excited!

Lining up to get checked in- it's already a hot day! 

Preparing the materials

Seed Planters Training Materials

Brant with Phillip - new Awana missionary and great translator!

Everyone is ready to learn

Winston from Venezuela and Jorge from Argentina

Several different teachers bringing different themes- these are the teachers who were trained last week. 

Game pins - water bottles with food coloring

Gorge teaching how to share the gospel 

Ready to learn how to run games

The game square

Did we mention it is hot?  Over 100 degrees! These leaders are troopers, learning to run games in the heat of the afternoon sun.

Hot, but still smiling and having a great time!

Always quick to smile

Game time concentration

Cheering for their team

A very enthusiastic group!

Game square on a budget

Learning how to conduct a small group time

More small group training

Expectations...

I'm continually reminded of how much more grateful I am for something after it's almost been taken away from me. So often I go through life just assuming that everything will work just as planned. We drove through snow in Seattle on the way to the airport and I admired the beauty of the wintery wonderland, reveling in the fact that the hot South American sun awaited me. En route, Brant received a call from Delta saying our flight is delayed. When we get to the counter, the woman says it does not look good. We are going to miss our connecting flight. She wishes we would have gotten there earlier so they could re-route us through Atlanta instead of Detroit. The problem is that there is only one flight to Sao Paulo Brazil, and she's says with this delay we will miss it. She encourages us to go back home, but our brother-in-law Alan had already dropped us off and left. Then she said to stay the night in Seattle so that we don't have to spend 24 hours in Detroit. That doesn't sound good. 24 hours in Detroit in the middle of winter without even a coat. Missing an entire day of our packed full itinerary in Paraguay. Shoot. I ask her again to clarify the timing- our layover was scheduled to be 1 hour and 10 minutes. Our flight was delayed 1 hour and 15 minutes. I have hope though... I figure if our flight is delayed maybe our connecting flight could be delayed too? So we decide to continue as planned. I prayed and asked God to help us make our flight, and to help us have a good attitude even if we missed it. The gate attendant was so helpful and gave us a seat closer to the front. The stewardess was encouraging and said they may be able to take off a bit early and that they let the ground crew in Detroit know we were coming. The captain made good time. And we made it. Barely. As it turned out, a one hour and 15 minute delay turned into a one hour delay, with a one-hour and 10 minute layover which didn't leave us much time to catch the plane. In fact, it left us breathlessly running through the airport weaving in and out of people and yelling “we're coming! Hold the plane!” as we arrived at the gate. They looked at us with a smile and said “you must be the Barons... relax, you've made it!” Praise the Lord!

And just like that, my whole perspective changed. Instead of dreading an 11 hour flight, I was so thankful to be on it I could hardly contain myself! The discomfort of sleeping upright, cramped seating, the movie not working right, the guy behind me punching his screen at my back instead of pressing it, my back freezing up in pain... none of that bothered me at all now. I was grateful, not because any of my circumstances changed, but because my perspective changed in light of what we had gone through to get there.

I was reminded of the importance of letting go of expectations, and changing your perspective when you go to another culture. Like, for example, the expectation that your bags will arrive when you do. We made the connecting flight, our bags did not. It gave us an opportunity to be extremely grateful for the generosity of our friends to loan us what we needed until our bags arrived 4 days later. Or the expectation that you will get to take home all the fish that you catch on a fishing trip. We eventually “found” one of the 3 “lost” fish, walking away from the hotel shaking our heads and wondering about the integrity of our captains who had been so wonderful up to that point. But those were just little things. Not really any big deal at all in the grand scheme of things. We had been to Paraguay before, so we had an idea of what to expect. But the best thing we could do was to let go of expectations and try to just enjoy the experience from the perspective of gratefulness for the opportunity to be here. And so far, it has been such an amazing opportunity.

Judah wasn't able to go on the fishing trip with us, which made Brant and I the unofficial translators of the group. Our Paraguayan driver AnGell did great at explaining things slowly for us and we had several great laughs along the way. At one point it was quite hilarious trying to figure out what to eat at a restaurant (I was trying to avoid things like tongue...), but all in all it was good for us to be stretched in our Spanish, and to realize again that we have a lot more yet to learn! Just ask us to tell you the story about Dona's peanuts in the van... we had some good laughs with great camaraderie. Spending a long car ride with Jack and Dona Eggar and Alex and Susan Snyder gave us a wonderful opportunity to ask questions and learn from the wisdom and experience of our wise friends.

The actual fishing part of the trip wasn't particularly exciting for Brant and I... we didn't catch anything. Several times I thought I had a bite... and I did- several bites from piranhas tearing my bait to shreds without actually grabbing the hook. But Susan showed us how it is done and caught 3 dorado (the yellow fish kind of like salmon), and Alex and Jack also caught a few piranha and boga (like a catfish).

At the hotel we ate fried alligator as an appetizer and Piranha soup for dinner, which was quite tasty. They had a lot of animals on display, including a few adorable monkeys, small emu type things, turtles, macaws, coatis, and a capybara- the largest rodents in the world. I just love taking pictures of these exotic animals and am amazed at God's creation just looking at them!

The adorable and friendly coati

The capybara - largest rodent in the world.

Brant and the emu- Alex called them "furry pterodactyls" because they looked like they wanted to eat us. 

Enjoying our piranha soup

They served us this appetizer and after we had all eaten a bit, told us it was alligator! 

The huge Parana River

The dock at our hotel

One of Susan's Dorados

One of Alex's piranhas

The electricity went out at the hotel during a magnificent thunder and lightning storm.  We stood outside by the pool to watch the lightning flash.  We just don't get storms like this in Washington!

Why Paraguay?

We've already been here for over a week, in reality our time is winding down. As I sit for a moment to reflect on this trip so far... I can't help but be overwhelmed by all that I want to share. I realize that I did a poor job of blogging about our trip last year, and to tell you some of these stories without explaining the history behind them would be remiss. Where do I begin?

Some of you have been praying for us and this trip for some time. Others may be reading and wondering what in the world are we even doing in Paraguay?

In an attempt to answer that question, I'll give a brief overview of how we got to this point. It seemed that the fall and winter season of 2012 seemed to be especially dark, dreary and rainy. Brant's business at the hotel, while successful, was beginning to feel monotonous to him. We both recognized the effects of seasonal affective disorder and knew that some time in the sun would be beneficial for Brant especially. Friends approached us about going on a cruise, and though we had gone on cruises before and really enjoyed them, it didn't seem right at that time. I began to pray, asking God to provide an opportunity to do something of value with our vacation time. I prayed that God would touch our hearts with the work of His Kingdom, that somehow we could be involved in a ministry that would ignite a renewed passion in our lives, something that we could invest in. And I prayed that we could be an encouragement, help, and support to those giving their lives serving the Lord. So I prayed, and waited. And it kept raining.

And then one day in January 2013 Brant comes home from work and asks me what I thought about taking a trip to visit a friend. I was curious because he seemed excited... which friend? Judah Mooney, a missionary that our church sent out 6 years ago to Paraguay. Brant remembered a conversation he had with Judah the previous year while Judah was staying at Brant's parents' house. They had spoken briefly about Judah's ministry in Paraguay and also the Awana children's ministry that Brant directs at our church. As the conversation ended Judah said, “If you ever want to come to Paraguay we'd be happy to have you... we don't get too many visitors.” At the time he didn't think anything of it, but Judah's informal invitation came to Brant's mind in the middle of a dreary winter, knowing that in Paraguay our winter is their summer. When Brant came to me with the idea of visiting Paraguay, I knew that God had answered my prayer, so we began to work out the details. Jonathan wasn't even 1 year old yet at the time, and so my first concern was the kids. Right away we called my sister Vicki, who just so happens to be an incredibly good nanny. She also just so happened to have a week of vacation during the time we were thinking of going, and was able to get another week off to stay with the kids while we were gone. Judah was willing to have us, Vicki could care for the kids... so we booked our tickets and were on our way to South America for 2 weeks.

It was a fantastic vacation. We spent the time with Judah and Mary Mooney and learned all about Paraguay and the different ministries that Judah is involved in. Initially Judah came to Paraguay with a program of Power to Change Canada called “Tranforming Paraguay Together.” Their goal was to reach 1 million people with the gospel and plug them into churches to be discipled. Power to Change partnered with a local ministry called “Jesus Responde” (Jesus Responds) which was a well-known Christian ministry already very active in Paraguay. They planned large evangelistic events and as part of the vision to reach Paraguay with the gospel, they went to local churches and asked the pastors and leadership what they needed to reach their communities for Christ. Several of the churches responded that they needed food. The children in their communities were malnourished and meeting the basic needs of the children would help them to build a bridge between the church and the families they were trying to reach. Members of the churches wanted a place to serve their communities, and the greatest immediate need in the community was feeding their children. Originally the nutrition centers were just a part of the overall ministry, but soon the nutrition centers became the first thing that all the churches in impoverished areas wanted. And so Judah was put in charge of the humanitarian aid program of the ministry. He developed and coordinated the implementation of nutrition centers, where local churches provide a meal (usually once a week) and a program for children. Jesus Responds provides the vegetables (donated by the gleaners) and imperishable food (donated by local Paraguayan companies), and the local church provides the place, volunteers, and perishable food.

Last year, Judah asked us to bring a few of the Awana materials to show to Samira, the children's ministry coordinator at Jesus Responds. Samira explained the great need for Biblical teaching materials for the children at the feeding centers. These churches didn't have the funds to purchase books and supplies to teach the children about Christ. She spent 4 months writing a curriculum called “the Forgiveness Campaign” which was used at the feeding centers. It was affordable because they could copy it in Paraguay and make it available to the churches cheaply, who used it and were now asking for more materials. But she couldn't keep up with the demand. So when she saw the Awana materials she was very interested to see if they could get a copyright and use it for their curriculum. We said we would look into it and see what we could do.

That was just a short meeting during our trip last year. At the time we didn't really think too much of it. And, we unfortunately didn't get the chance to go to a feeding center last year, though we were busy learning all about the other ministries going on in Paraguay. Alongside of the humanitarian aid program, Jesus Responds is involved in several different kinds of ministries, including theological training for pastors, clown and street ministry, church planting, Athletes in Action, marriage seminars, showing the Jesus film, and vocational training for the poor, just to name a few. They received grants from the government for the vocational training programs, which seemed to be a great program, until the graduates from the program were unable to start businesses because they lacked the resources. While continuing to work with Jesus responds, Judah saw this need and started a new micro-finance ministry called Diaconia. So while we were in Paraguay last year we learned all about Diaconia and how it works (more about that in another post), visited orphanages and foster care homes, participated in a dental outreach, went to see Iguassu falls, met Mary's parents and learned about the Mennonites here, and basically had a fabulous time in Paraguay.

It wasn't until we came home last year and were talking about our trip that we remembered Samira's request for materials. As we looked on the internet at Awana International we watched a video about the new leader-based model that Awana started using around the world in 2007 with great success. And right then it clicked for both Brant and I, like a light bulb going off (or rather a lightning bolt striking us!) we realized that Awana was exactly what Judah, Samira, and the volunteers at the nutrition centers were praying for, and that Judah's work with Jesus Responds had paved the way, laid the groundwork perfectly, for Awana to come to Paraguay. For those of you not familiar with Awana, this is from their website:

“Awana is a global non-denominational ministry leading kids to know, love and serve Christ. There are 1.8 billion children around the world. Millions have never even heard the name of Jesus. Awana's passion is that every child, everywhere will have the opportunity to hear the gospel, respond, and grow in their faith. To reach more kids for Christ, we equip leaders. Awana provides the training, tools and resources they need to be effective in children's ministry. In most cases, for every leader we train, 60 kids are reached with a weekly club-style program. Kids love it...and it works.” Awana International Website

The partnership with the local churches and pastors was already established. The volunteers in the churches were already willing to give of their time and energy to reach the children in their communities with the gospel. And at that time, there were already 350 nutrition centers feeding an average of 50 children each week! So right then we prayed for Paraguay, the nutrition centers, and Awana, not knowing what would happen, but praying in faith that God was going to work.

And work He did! Fast forward ten months: Brant, Alex Snyder (a good friend from our Church), Jack Eggar, CEO of Awana, together in a fishing boat on the Parana river in Paraguay.  

Dona & Jack Eggar, Brant & I, Susan & Alex Snyder

Susan caught 3 Dorado on this fishing trip!  I would do well to learn to fish from her. 

Brant just recently, as in the last couple of years, has become a fishing enthusiast. It began when Alex invited him on a fishing trip with his friend Jack, who also happened to be the CEO of Awana. So it is fitting that we started out this trip in Paraguay with a fishing trip. The last 10 months have been spent praying, e-mailing, skyping, budgeting, fundraising, coordinating and communicating between Brant, Judah, Awana International and Jesus Responds to bring the Awana leader-based ministry to Paraguay. Ordinarily the process would probably take considerably more time, but being able to present the idea directly to the CEO and having him jump on board, combined with the foundation laid by the work at Jesus Responds with the nutrition centers, and here we are. By the time Brant and I arrived, Jack and a team from Awana International had already presented to a group of local pastors, inspiring them with the mission of reaching children for Christ. The next weekend there was a 3-day “train the trainers” seminar where leaders were strategically selected and trained to teach others how to implement the Awana program. And beginning Friday, 2 representatives from 50 churches will come to be trained how to start Awana clubs in their churches. Brant and I are so excited to be a part of it all!

It took us 7 hours in a van to get to the remote fishing location on the Parana river, and the whole way we were inspired and encouraged as Jack shared with us the vision for Awana, success stories and challenges along the way. He shared how Awana has changed over the years to meet the challenges of global evangelism and discipleship and shared countless stories of lives changed by the good news of Jesus Christ.

There are times in life when I want to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. This is one of those times. As I float down the second largest river in South America fishing for Dorado, I look out over the water and see Brant, Jack and Alex standing with their poles (not catching anything at the moment but losing a lot of bait to Piranhas!), and I can't help but praise God for how He has orchestrated all of the details to bring us to this point.