My Fourth of July

Friday was a day I was tempted to complain. There were plenty of good reasons to do so, too: it was a really long week, all my dishes were dirty, it was the Fourth of July and I was in Paraguay, and all the Americans in the mission were off to travel the world on the day of American Independence. A couple people wished me a happy Fourth of July, but overall it could have been a really downer day.


Thankfully and by many graces, though, it turned into one of the most enjoyable and consoling days of my time here. This past week was Missions Week at Adonai, a time set aside each year to remember the countries and cultures of the world in prayer. This year the assigned countries all came from Europe. Each class was responsible to research and present to the rest of the school a report on their assigned country, and to pray for the evangelization of that country every morning of the week. The week ended, then, with a Missions Fair and every grade presenting its nation to the school along with its way of dress, typical food, and style of music.


Each grade took the project as a matter of class pride and did their best to participate, from the tiny preschoolers dressed as Greek philosophers to the 11th graders as classy musicians from Austria. Each stand representing a country was meticulously decorated with banners, balloons, and billowing polyester fabric by parents, students, and teachers working together to finish the project. There were vast banquet tables set with dishes from all over Europe, although somehow a lot of Paraguayan food snuck its way in to the mix, too. In the course of the night, I sampled a thick quiche and coffee from Finland, fondue from Switzerland, roast pork and sweet potato from Ireland, fried mashed potato finger from France, lemon meringue pie from Greece, a tuna, egg, and tomato sandwich from Norway, and paella from Spain. Needless to say, by the end of the night I was feeling a little sick.


Still, there was a world of beauty to the entire event: to see all the students putting their best effort forward in study, planning, and prayer for Missions Week was an awesome privelege; to participate in the Missions Fair and see hundreds of students, their parents and teachers, and people from the neighborhood come to the school together was an amazing blessing; and to have my Fourth of July occupied with such excitement and activity was an unbelievable grace.


Missions Week at Adonai really showed me what the school is all about: preparing students to reach out to the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The awesome part of the event was that the students of every grade were really excited to participate, learn, and pray. Even better, though, was that included in the festivities were dozens and dozens of parents and guests from the neighborhood. Thus, the value of my own participation in the school and the time I’ve set aside this year to teach at Adonai were confirmed to me in a mighty positive way as I got to see the mission of the school “to educate children, molding their character in order to serve God and the nations” lived out practically and powerfully.