Paraguay

Every nation always has something different to give…a different aspect of God to reveal to us, and Paraguay was no different.

A common misconception is that on a year like this, the purpose is to go out and make a change, to impact rather than be impacted… but everywhere we’ve gone so far it seems to be that the nations always have so much more to give us than we could ever give…

We were in Paraguay for a short week, but during this week we really saw God’s kindness and his generosity in the people around us. So many were rushing to bless us with whatever they could offer but the true gift was the love we received from so many, especially the people in the church, the kids we spent time with, and our hosts. 

Our ministry looked quite different in Paraguay compared to what it looked like in Brazil. Ministry here revolved more around children and young adults. 

Every day of the week our mornings sometimes consisted of us cleaning up and revamping the church. We did a variety of tasks like repainting the walls, sorting donated toys and clothes, and reorganizing the library space. When most of our work was done at the church we set off to evangelize in the streets and invite the community to the church services and events that were coming up at the church. We also had lunch with the community kids that receive lunch at the church every day and we occasionally got to share short messages and testimonies with them. In the evenings we were normally transported to a different church where we would lead youth services…

Needless to say, it was quite a busy week in terms of ministry but the team remained enthusiastic to serve in every way we could.

Unfortunately, during our time in Paraguay, the team received a lot of spiritual attacks and we were largely affected by the strongholds. Many of the team members struggled emotionally, mentally, and even physically. We were all lacking joyful spirits and some days we just felt extremely low on energy and irritable. As a result of these spiritual attacks, ministry became increasingly more difficult for us as the week went on. 

Thankfully we were able to pick up that we were all being affected negatively by the spiritual atmosphere here thus we could pray into it. We serve a mighty God that has already overcome all the dark forces of this world. The Lord remained faithful and gave us the strength we needed to continue even on the very difficult days.

Here is a testimony from David about his experience in Paraguay: 

“Paraguay, while generally busy, has been a rather restful place for me. In Brazil, we frequently were involved with the ministry on the spot, where we were told what our full day of ministry was going to look like the night before. Paraguay has been more predictable and consistent. Our schedule is roughly the same each day and we are told what we are doing a day or two in advance. Additionally, we aren’t just told to do the ministry and left to ourselves, in many cases we simply showed up to assist rather than lead. I also had ample opportunity each morning to spend time in prayer and reading the Bible. In one of my mornings of prayer the Lord caught me off guard with a rather bold question: “If I called you to a people and you knew that you would die by their hands would you still go?”. Pondering this question I realized there was yet another area of my life that was not surrendered to God, I was living on the assumption that I would live a long life, fully devoted to God no doubt, but well into old age. While I never would have said it, I had subconsciously decided that I had the right to a long life and had not surrendered this desire to God. Standing in the yard listening to my worship music pondering this question in the early morning light, I answered ‘yes’. This will likely be a recurring point of surrender, it’s rare that I surrender a part of life to the Lord fully the first time and never look back. What does this mean for my life? I haven’t the slightest clue, in fact, when I answered yes to the Lord this was all he said, “Ok, good”. Will I go to hostile people to preach the gospel and be killed in the process, will I live a long life with a wife, kids, and grandkids, will I die for some unrelated cause while still young, will I reach an unreached nation and spend the rest of a long life there? Only the Lord knows, and He doesn’t seem to feel the need to tell me. Perhaps the Lord was only testing me, God didn’t allow Abraham to kill his son, after all, he only wanted to ensure total surrender. Regardless, I am ready, day after day I am going to continually try not to see my life as my own but as a vessel with which to spread the glory of God, however long that may be. I don’t write this to scare anybody, especially my family, as there is no certainty in what happens next, except that God demands my (and your) full surrender. I think of the parable of the man who upon finding a great treasure, sold all he had to purchase the field in which the treasure was hidden. Do we really consider the Lord a great enough reward to lay down everything for? The Lord wants us to give all, not just our words, not just our rights, not just our pocketbooks, not just our aspirations, but everything down to our very life. If we only truly knew who God is, and saw Him as He is, I believe this would hardly be a decision worth considering, we would immediately be willing to give all that we are to His glory. But that is not the case, and so please pray for me that I could see and understand the Lord better to continue surrendering with full abandonment.” 

It’s a beautiful experience to see God work so differently in the places we go, and the One Year team is beyond grateful for the work the Lord has done in and through us during our time here. Please continue to pray for us and we head off into the next season…

Paraguay…you, like all the other countries, are not simply another place to tick off our bucket list. You are a nation that belongs to the Lord of Lords and He reveals Himself so evidently in His body here. 

Thank you for every gift, every kind word, every warm hug, every word of encouragement, every smile, and every tear that you so freely laid onto us. You were not merely an experience for us. You were so much more than words can describe