Lord, Increase My Faith

It was easy to come here: listless after university, seeking adventure, eager for foreign lands, Paraguay was a good and logical choice. Girls swooned, guys admired, people prayed.

Lord, increase my faith.

My family was a wreck, my college friends spread out across the globe, and the times were changing. I had no home. It was good for me to leave.

Lord, increase my faith.

It was cool to go abroad in an exercise of faith. God was calling me, I was listening and following. New difficulties came with new possibilities and new challenges with new graces. It was in style to be poor, a bohemian college graduate without anything and depending on the grace of God and others for everything. I was grown in faith to trust and to not value so much the things of this world.

Lord, increase my faith.

A year later, I’m packing up and getting ready to follow God again. This time, though, it’s to much more familiar lands, and this time it’s not so glorious. “Yeah, I come from Ohio,” I tell everyone here. “The most normal state in the United States.” People won’t be so impressed when I tell them I’m getting an office job. I’ll probably get crossed off several prayer lists a few weeks after my return.

Lord, increase my faith. .

My family is still a wreck, and after a year away there’s nowhere now where I can run away from the reality. “The divorce is December 9.” My friends are still all over the country, but now they have really cool jobs in elections and government agencies and national banks. They’ve found success, and I’ve found a pauper self to be self-conscious about.

Lord, increase my faith.

I’m going back to Ohio without a car, without a cellphone, without health insurance, and without a job. At one time I spurned these “things of the world,” but now they´re all looking pretty attractive as I start dealing with American reality. At one time I thought settling down in a place with friends and family was pretty boring, but now I envy those who have never moved out and have it mostly all figured out.

Lord, increase my faith.

A lot has changed the past year, and a lot will change this next year, too.

Lord, increase my faith.

A Prayer for Sion

“Teacher, are you married?” one of my adoring second grade students asked me. “No,” I responded. “Why?” “Well” she continued, “I was hoping to have a little brother. If you were married, I was thinking you could have a son. Then he could be my brother if you adopted me. I would like you for a dad.”

Although I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time when I heard it, these words were nothing of a joke for Zion. Her mother abandoned her several years ago for work in Uruguay, she doesn’t know her real father, and, although has a baby brother come along the way since her mother left, she’s never met the child. She lives with her grandmother, who I suspect of many eccentricities and perhaps a touch of senility, and only hears from her mom by way of telephone a couple times a year. The child is starved for attention, doing whatever she can to spend time with me and other teachers and to be heard. Although she is very smart and has a great sense of humor, Zion hardly does her work in class and spends her time in school ambling about the classroom and whispering things in the teacher’s ear.

Zion once asked me in whole and simple faith to pray for her family—her mom and her baby brother in Uruguay, and her grandmother-who-turns-sixty-five-today in Paraguay. Athough nearly abandoned, she loves them terribly and hurts because they’re not all together. I told her I that would, and I really do. She is a beautiful child, but one with so many needs and so much brokenness that only a heavenly father can heal. Her and her family are in much need of grace, so if you think of it please say a prayer today on their behalf. She’s the reason that the ministry at Adonai exists and the reason why I’ve come to Paraguay—to bless and reach out to students with the love and hope of Christ, doing whatever we can, no matter how small it might seem, to offer the good news of redemption and restoration through the Gospel of Peace.

You Can Thank Me Later, Jason Jacobs

The Spanish word for bribery is “coima.” If I were anywhere else in the world at any other time in my life, I’d probably be disgusted by acts of bribery. When I was in Egypt and got snuck in the back way to see the pyramids, for example, our guides paid the guards coima (in Egypt, backsheesh) for us to get through. Although they saw it as a way of polishing the dancefloor of bureaucracy to make it easier for us and them to dance, I saw it as corruption and dishonesty, and I was angry.


Here in Paraguay, though, memories of Egypt and the United States and being upset at corruption are half a world away. Here in Paraguay, I’ve adapted too much to the culture and today have even become guilty of paying “coima” myself. You see, my last dances with the Paraguayan bureaucracy are now being held in the grand Asuncion ballroom, partnered as I am with the need to renew my visa for an extra two months of residency. Today found me making an elegant foot-move at the police station, where I had to get an official paper saying that I do indeed live where I do in Lambaré.


At the end of today’s shuffle of feet, the police chief gave me a sly look and asked me if I just wouldn’t like to give a little money to help make any future dances go a little smoother. It was a complex question, like the innocent-yet-guilty glance of an inviting tango partner from across the room. “How much would leave,” I asked him, “and for what purposes?” “Oh, to cover the cost of paper and so on,” he responded. “You can give whatever you want.”


Knowing that he knew me and the school that I represented (and would in fact come into direct contact with other missionaries like me in the future) and could make their experiences at the police station good ones or bad ones, I was left with little choice. I consciously and intentionally secured the crooked arrangement, offering him 10 mil guaranies, or about $2.50, in thank-you bribe money. The sad part is, it didn’t even cross my mind to decline his invitation. He smiled, perhaps pleased that he could buy a few more empanadas this morning or a week’s worth of yerba for his family, and I knew better than to ask for a receipt. This was bribe money.


I left, feeling a little dirty and a little compromised. I definitely gave money to a dirty police man as a little floor polish to clean up the dances that future missionaries will have with the police, and I definitely didn’t think twice about it. That’s the way things go here: obey blindly, give money to the authorities, don’t ask for receipts, and they won’t hurt you. They may even be your friends if you give enough.


I think I’ve too-quickly adjusted to the bad parts of South American culture, and not quickly-enough to the good parts. South America reinforces some of my sinful tendencies. Thankfully, though, I think I hear North America and a little sanity calling.

Tropical Bonfire

This past weekend the church youth group went to camp, where I got to sit by the best campfire of my life. It was huge and full of very hotly-burning hardwood, probably taken from the ancient reserves of Paraguay’s tropical and sub-tropical rainforests. In the United States, people might be sad that these natural rainforests are being cut down and burned by those in the South. For those people actually in the South, however, there’s no fire quite like a wood-from-the-rain-forest fire. It was hot and brilliant and beautiful; in the light and warmth of the fire we could have cared less about the World Wildlife Fund or Green Peace or the environment. Destruction of species? Don’t care. Less oxygen for the world? So what? It really was the nicest bonfire I’ve ever seen.

It was even nicer, though, because Oscar knew how to use it as a form of entertainment. He had a pile of nearly-dried sugar cane stalks, each one about 10 to 12 feet long, and every once in a while threw a few on the hot fire. The cane, which grows in segments like bamboo, would burn evenly and rapidly on the outside, causing the gases inside to quickly build up with immense pressure. Then, when the fibrous cane casing could no longer stand the force of the steam from within, the canes exploded with the sound of a gunshot and sent an explosion of burning coals into the night air. Each explosion came as a complete surprise disrupting the calm and cool countryside, startling us to a very giddy laughter and the most fun I’ve ever had around a fire. Many of us couldn’t stop laughing at the joke of exploding coals and loud firecracker sounds, especially at those who had to jump out of the way of the shooting bursts of pressurized fire. The unpredictability and randomness of the trick made the night, and made for the best campfire I’ll never forget.

Impertinent Youthful Ratiocinations on the Falling American Economy

One of the greatest pleasures of being young is impertinence. As youths we can throw around opinions without experience, talk about things we really don’t know about, and live in an imaginary world where everything conforms to the way we understand it to be. Some might call it idealism, others smug self-assurance, but it’s a state of being in which I find myself particularly caught up recently. Being in a rather isolated Paraguayan evangelical community where my closest friend is nearly identical to me in many aspects of worldview and identity, the temptation to understand things from a very limited perspective is even stronger.

Today I saw that the stock market crashed. The US economy is in terrible shape, and my mind immediately goes to several impertinent thoughts:

1. The US is reaping what it’s sown.
2. I’m glad I don’t have any stocks or a 401K plan to worry about.
3. I’m kind of thankful I don’t have any money at all.
4. My family knows how to grow and can tomatoes. If there’s another Great Depression, we’ll at least survive on stewed tomatoes all year long.
5. I know how to work, and I also know that no work is below me. I’m ready to wash dishes or do yard work if the economy fails and there are no jobs for me when I return
6. Manual work is a large part of spiritual formation and practice in many Christian communities, from Catholic Trappist monks working on egg farms in Tennessee to Anabaptist Mennonite believers toiling away in dairy production on the Paraguayan frontier. These say that calluses are good for Christians and moral development, and I kind of agree with them.
7. Another Depression could serve the US well. We have, after all, become proud consumerist fat cats. My family has four televisions and only three people are living at home. I have an entire household of appliances in storage waiting for me when I come home, and I’m only 23. Where does all this wealth come from? Most Paraguayans live on a couple dollars a day.
8. I have some friends who lived in Argentina when their economy crashed a few years ago. Without any money, they grew and ate fried manioc (a big tuber) all year long. I kind of envy their frugality, and think fried manioc with stewed tomatoes alongside it would be a good combination.
9. A crashed American economy would show American Christians that the blessings of the Gospel are spiritual, not material. We need to hear and know that. “every spiritual blessing in Christ” does not mean a chicken in every Christian pot or a Mercedes in every Christian driveway.
10. I think I may invest in Paraguayan cattle. Cows can have babies every year, reproducing the investment annually, and I have contacts that, for the price of milk they sell, would manage and breed my herd well.


Yes, I am an impertinent youth. I have a particularly Christian view on everything, too, which makes my impertinence even more dangerous and self-justifying. I have a wild and rebellious streak in my ratiocinations on the economy, a strange mixture of workers rights, just desserts, and flippant disregard for the mammon of this world that I’ve inherited from both Joe Steidl and Jesus Christ and the gist of which goes against established financial wisdom, the power of the wealthy, and most of the economic policies of the Republican Party. I really don’t know what’s going on in the financial markets, but I do like to imagine that I could survive well in mind, spirit, and body with calluses on my hands and stewed tomatoes in my belly. I am, after all, an impertinent youth.

Stay on the Sunny Side

It’s amazing how much a difference of perspective can make. As people, I’m convinced we have an amazing capacity to adapt to whatever situation or way of life where we find ourselves; as Christians, I trust we can stay steady and unshaken in soul and spirit like the Apostle Paul who, despite all the tough confusing times of his life, was able to be content in all things. Often times the thing that matters is the attitude we take and the choices we make when confronting life situations.

I take as two examples circumstances from my life here in Paraguay. Last October, when I was only here a month, a vertical blue line appeared on my laptop screen. I did some research and found the line was a factory defect that came along with my computer when I bought it, replaceable with an extended warranty that ended last March. Since the first line appeared, several dozen more have appeared, making my computer screen into a rainbow of Easter-egg colors with new shades added every week. Thankfully, I can still write and do what I need to do, but the messed-up screen is still a pain.

For me, I have a choice to make about how I think of the lines on my computer. I can complain about how technology is worthless and Dell is a terrible brand and woe is me because I’m a poor missionary with a decomposing computer. Or, I can look at the lines and remember and be thankful. I can look at the lines and see one blue one that appeared right after I was robbed at gunpoint and thank God I still have my life. Or, I can look at a red one that popped up during my cousin’s visit, and thank God I had family and visitors with me for a Christmas away from home. Or I can glance at a green one that showed itself in the days after the first grading period ended, and remember too God’s faithfulness to me as a teacher. The choice, really, is up to me as to how I look at my now-defuncting computer screen. I can complain or use it as reminder of God’s faithfulness to me.

A second illustration comes from my experience in the AC church here. Whenever one lives in community, small things start to bother and quirky eccentricities to chafe. Living in a community with a culture far different than one’s own makes the temptation to complain and be grumpy about the way things are done even much more strong. Customs, even church customs, appear sometimes strange, unbiblical, and perhaps even unchristian. For me and the AC church here, this difference in spiritual practice and opinion has made itself clear many times, but perhaps one of the clearest is in the giving of the tithe.

I was raised, as any good North American ACer, in a church with the donation box at the back of the sanctuary. There was never any passing of the plate or possibility for public demonstration of tithing. We discreetly put our money in the back box at the beginning or end of the service, almost embarrassed by the fact that anyone might see us doing so. Scripturally, Christ’s call to not let our right hand know what our left hand was giving made itself manifest in stealthy donations by way of quick, James Bond style handmaneuvers.

The church here, however, makes the tithe giving a big show. There’s a special worship song when it’s announced that everyone can offer their gift, and then everyone goes up front in a big processional line to deposit their money in an open white box. There is a big and public to-do about giving, undoubtedly cultural but entirely foreign to me.

For me, the temptation is to judge. I can look around at everyone who has their money in hand and think that they must be so prideful to make such a public display of their gift-giving. I want to tell the pastors that the way they donate tithe money is wrong and against what Jesus taught, making people more concerned with what other people think as they go up to the offering box and less concerned with what God thinks as they pridefully do so or stay seated in their shame.

Thankfully, though, there’s a way out for me of this temptation to judge. While Christ speaks of giving alms in secret, the scriptures also speak of celebrations after harvest time and during festivals when the people of God joyfully presented their offerings and sacrifices to God, the first fruits of everything with which He had blessed them. Seen is this light, the communal tithe giving becomes a festive occasion to remember God’s many mercies in providing for basic necessities, a sort of public demonstration and testimony of God’s faithfulness in providing for finances. With this view of things, the people lose their pride and the offering becomes an act of worship towards a good God. The pastors are no longer manipulative and wanting to shame people into giving, but leaders themselves of a congregation joyfully giving back to God what is already His.

I pray that everyday we might look for the best in life: to count the little inconveniences as little blessings and the little differences in the practices and opinions of other people, especially among other Christians, as little manifestations of God’s goodness to all differently displayed. Then, as Christians, we may truly be content in all things and live out the love of God that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

A prayer

A beautiful prayer by Thomas Merton, and one I can really call my own:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following

your will does not mean that I am

actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope to have that desire

in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart
from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
you will lead me by the right road though I

may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I

may seem lost and in the shadow

of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my

perils alone.

Angry Papa Bear

Don´t mess with my kid

(Warning- Contains a new bad word I learned in Spanish)

I had a “papa bear” moment with Christian the other day. He came home from school very upset, and when I asked him what it was about, he didn’t really want to talk. Upon further investigation, though, he opened up and told me what had happened. In school that day the art teacher wrote him up for calling a girl “pelotuda,” even the he had no idea what “pelotuda” meant.

From what I gathered, the story was this: Christian’s schoolmate, who talks too much and rarely leaves him alone, called him “pelotudo,” so logically Christian returned the remark in reply, even though he had no idea what it meant. The girl got offended in her uncomprehensible-little-high-school-girl-gets-offended-sort-of-way and went and told the art teacher, who is a very cold and unfeeling person that never greets me or any of the other teachers anyways. The art teacher asked Christian if the accusation was true, and he truthfully responded that it was, even though the girl had called him the name first and he didn’t know what it meant.

Long story shirt, Christian got written up and a point or two added to his record towards a one-day suspension (the only kind of punishment the Paraguayan school system knows how to hand out) because an annoying classmate spit out a tattle tale and the conniving art teacher licked it up. The girl walked away scott-free. I was disgusted and upset at the girl for her hypocrisy and the teacher for her man-hating tendencies and unintelligible punishment towards high schoolers who, after all, can do much worse things than call names.

About a week later, Christian and I both found out that “pelotudo” literally means big-balled, and is a some-what crude word used to insult people. When I got his weekly bulletin, which complained that he used the word in art class, I wrote a curt little response that went something like this: “Neither Christian nor I knew what “pelotudo” meant until his classmate called him the name first. Since neither Christian or his classmate are “pelotudos,” however, there really is nothing for us to be worried about. ---Prof. Jason” Christian was a little embarrassed by the note, as I would have been by my mom or dad sticking up for me like that in high school, but he accepted it and took it to school anyways, facing up to the reality of the situation in a pretty good realistic way.

On a Chest of Gold Bars at the Bottom of the Sea

The sneaking premonition that nothing in this world lasts forever came up and nipped me quite unexpectedly when I was just four years old. I remember the day clearly, and the thought that came upon me without any warning at all: a chest full of gold if thrown to the bottom of the sea will eventually be dissolved by the water. Even the biggest and best bars, with enough time, disappear with the current as if they had never existed.

Startled by the prospect that even the best things might not last forever, I asked my mom if the dissolving of so much gold at the bottom of the sea could really be so. Perhaps she wasn’t listening to my childish question or really was and instead wanted to instill in me the values of security and eternity, but she answered me wrongly in saying that even if the gold was worn away bit by bit it would last forever. Either way, I was too smart for her answer and reasoned my philosophy through to its logical conclusion that everything on Earth has its time and then dissolves away.

They say that when one reaches about my age they start to realize the reality of worldly impermanence and physical death. Parents start getting sick and the cycle of birth and death can be seen as clear as an unmuddied stream as we start to have kids of our own. I don’t know how I’d come to grips with it all if I didn’t have the assurance of faith that there is a place where gold, even streets made entirely of gold, is never dissolved away and where water represents not the wear and tear of time but instead an eternal life-giving fount of beauty and love.

Ready for the Revolution

A man in the supermarket parking lot this evening told me there was a military coup beginning and that every person should quickly go to his own home because tanks were rolling in from the Chaco to take over. Given the current and tumultuous political environment in Paraguay, his claim was not unbelievable to a generally disconnected and ignorant North American. And so, in good preparation for the revolution, I impetuously purchased

1. 5 pounds of bread

2. 2 pounds of sugar

3. 2 pounds of flour

4. Crackers

5. Toilet Paper

6. Suave hair conditioner

7. 3 cucumbers

8. 4 onions

9. Bananas

10. 4 and a half pounds of rice

11. 2 packages of noodles

12. 2 pounds of yerba for terreré and maté

13. A gallon of milk, in boxes

14. A lot of ricotta cheese

When the revolution gets here, you can bet I’ll be ready. After the prices of commodities fly through the roof because of the political instability, people will want to pay me in gold for my food, but I’ll give it to them for free because I’m nice like that.

Ready for the revolution

Visit to Bañado

On Saturday I took up the invitation offered me many, many months ago to spend a day in Bañado, home to the smaller and poorer sister congregation of the Lambaré church and perhaps the poorest neighborhood in Asunción. The pseudo-municipality of about 52,000 inhabitants stretches along the uneven coast of the Rio Paraguayo outside all the comfortable edges of mainstream society. Although so many people call Bañado home, it is formally unrecognized by the government and municipal maps (although they also receive formally unrecognized government water and electricity free of charge). The land here, frequently flooded by rains and soggy through and through, is free and up for the grabs. 70 percent of its inhabitants work as trash collectors, rummishing through wealthier neighborhoods searching for anything that can be recycled for money: plastic bags, pop bottles, newspapers, metal scraps. A mere glance at the neighborhood betrays the profession. Trash carts take the place of family automobiles in front of homes while piles of recyclables take the place of swingsets and sandboxes out back.

I was invited by Alberto, a young man my age, Bañado native, and extraordinary servant of Christ with the Apostolic Christian Church in the neighborhood. Although gifted with so many spiritual and intellectual talents, Alberto has been without steady work for nearly a year now. He started university a while back, but left to pursue a work opportunity and lost out on all his credits. Recognized as an honest and trustworthy leader among neighborhood youth, he helped found and organize several community programs with a former American Peace Corp member. Now that she has left and abandoned the work, however, Alberto remains fully invested in the work of the Bañado church.

The congregation is very poor, and most everything they have has been donated by North American brothers and sisters in Christ. The Canadian AC churches sent work teams and money to build the church building, and my family’s own Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship recently donated the fans, lights, and curtains that the building still lacked several years after its construction.

Although the community is very poor, however, it is a community that is committed to and dependent on living a life of faith. Several members meet every evening of the week to spend time in prayer, and several members rely on this prayer for their basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. Somehow and with much sharing and charity, the people survive. When someone lacks food, a collection is taken up and God provides. When someone lacks a place to stay, someone opens up their house and God provides. Theirs is a life completely dependent on trust in divine providence.

The congregation also ministers to the neighborhood, sending out groups every Sunday to meet, greet, and pray with new families in the area. There is a weekly Sunday school along with a women’s ministry, and a youth group that often plays sports together on Saturday. Church life isn’t always rosy, but each one I spoke to had a great love for the Lord and a deep commitment to service and evangelism. In Bañado, there are only three evangelical churches and a couple more Catholic churches. The spiritual need, like the economic need, is great.

For all the poverty among the people of Bañado, however, there are signs of hope in community organization and international aid efforts. Alberto showed me a cooperative of women bakers, most deserted by their husbands, who have banded together for the work and profit of making bread. We also passed by the Catholic Church, where a donation from the government of Spain has permitted the building of a vibrant community center where reading and writing classes and public health campaigns are offered free of charge. There was also a community grocery store where the church offers food at bargain prices, a neighborhood pharmacy where the poor can buy medicine at discounted rates, and a library where the luxuries of books and internet are offered to those who would never have the access to knowledge elsewhere. There was even a small radio station, giving public service announcements and keeping the community informed of important news and events. I also got to meet a Catholic missionary from Chicago, an older gentleman with big spectacles and an even bigger heart, fighting drug addiction with the hope of the Gospel. He is a dear friend of Alberto’s, whose oldest sister is a drug addict and who often receives much help by way of the Catholic lay minister.

It was an amazing privilege to see the work of development going on in Bañado, first in the church and then in the community. Often times I wonder if North American aid and volunteer associations actually do their jobs and really accomplish anything at all, but after visiting Bañado I have no doubts. Community development in the poorest places is working. The American Peace Corp is good and effective, as are the donations of churches, civic groups, and governments. A most practical example of this was a school where boxes of school supplies, bought by North America families for those in poorer places, are distributed through an organization called Kids for Kids.

Overall, the day was a refreshing visit to a poor place where the work of God often partners with the development of man in bettering the lives of so many poor. I got to see so many organizations at work, so many projects put to good use, and churches using spiritual and economic resources for the good of their fellow man and the greater glory of their transcendent God. Although Bañado is a place of extreme poverty, it is also a place of extreme grace where the work of spiritual and economic redemption is plainly in sight.

Goin´ on a Jetplane

Bought my tickets today. Lord willing I´ll be home December 9 after a brief stay in Miami and Nashville.

Update

Holy smokes- this new president has spent no time in showing his real colors. Lugo´s first act as president: touring Paraguay with Hugo Chavez. Heaven have mercy.

Ascenion and Assumption in Asuncion

Friday most of Christendom celebrated the Feast of the Assumption, a day calling to joyful remembrance Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven after her life and mission on earth were completed. In Paraguay, the day has special meaning since Asunción, the capital city, was founded on this feast day in 1537 and thus takes as its name the predominantly catholic and orthodox belief. Yesterday was an even more special day for Paraguay, however, because of the peaceful political transition of executive power to Fernando Lugo, the former Catholic and rebel bishop who is now the lay and secular president of the Republic of Paraguay. Sixty-one years of corrupt one-party rule by the formerly dictatorial Colorado party came to an abrupt end, ushering in a presidency with many expectations for change and reform. Not wanting to miss the festivities celebrating Lugo’s inauguration or the founding of Asunción, I headed downtown to the Centro to see what was happening.

I arrived at 8:30 and found a mammoth crowd surrounding the temporary stage that had been set up for the inauguration ceremony. Only dignitaries could enter the stands to watch, but normal folk crowded around for peeks inside at the president-elect and foreign heads of state who came to the event. I was lucky to see past the crowds to the stage because of my height, but my best point of view was among a large group of Paraguayan Communists waving Che Guavera flags. Dressed as a conservative from Ohio, I may or may not have imagined dirty looks from so many frumpy-looking Marxists.

The ceremony started with introducing foreign dignitaries: around a dozen Latin American heads of state, a prince from Spain, a few African leaders, the president of Taiwan, and the vice-president of Iran. The inauguration proceeded with other normal inauguration proceedings: the national anthem, the swearing-in, the oath to uphold the constitution, the speech. I didn’t listen very much because I wanted to take pictures of all the interesting normal people who showed up: rich and poor; young and old; Guaraní and Spanish; Asunceños and campesinos; Mennonites and Catholics; everyone was represented. I even saw a group of feminists who were handing out owl-eye masks that said President Lugo ought to look at the abortion issue with “ojos laicos,” “lay eyes,” now that he is no longer a priest and is free to disobey the Church. (As a side note, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lugo did legalize abortion after all. He never obeyed the Church even when he was a bishop.)

The National Church of Asuncion
(No worries about separation of church and state here)

It was only after the inaugural ceremony, however, that the real excitement for the crowds began. Every head of state had to travel three blocks from the temporary stage to the central church in Asunción, where a celebratory mass was held to install the new president. Along this route crowded thousands of common individuals to hail leaders from all over the world, and among these I found myself, like the others, wooed with the excitement of seeing and shouting at royalty and heads of state. The most exciting part for me was when the most notorious world leader in the Western Hemisphere passed within a mere ten feet of where I stood. Had I the desire and courage, I could have physically attacked and punched Hugo Chavez, the bedeviled president from Venezuela. Not wanting to be a bad missionary or start an international incident, though, I kept quiet and instead crowded close to the terrible man to take his picture. Along with Chavez, I came within a few feet of presidents from Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Taiwan, Guatemala, Columbia, and vice-presidents from Iran, Brazil, and Cuba. The procession, in many ways, could be summed up as a who’s-who of corrupt and bad world leaders; still, they were corrupt and bad world leaders that I got to see face-to-face and at whom I got to shout with much popular excitement.

Hugo Chavez, South American Foe of USA Foreign Policy Number 1
(So close I could´ve punched him)

The president of Argentina, looking like a superstar
(Yeah, I´m that cool and famous.)

After the morning mass, which only specially invited guests could attend, the new president and his cabinet shared lunch with the other world leaders. In the afternoon was a military parade for Lugo, symbolizing the peaceful transition of military power to the new administration. What I can imagine to be all of Paraguay’s armed forces marched by on foot in a line perhaps a mile long, while the entire air force of eight airplanes and ten helicopters flew overhead. I half expected the tanks and military vehicles going down the road to take over in a grand revolutionary coup, but thankfully the day was peaceful and the military accommodating to the choice of the people.

It was a long, beautiful, sunny day. A new president was installed by the people and the Church, and no few Paraguayans or foreign leaders were able to attend. For me, I came closer than perhaps any of my high-fallutin friends to real political power, even though it was only South American political power and I was only a spectator among a crowd of common folk. Still, it was a real special day for me and for Paraguay and for everyone who got to take part in the uniqueness of an Ascunción Feast of the Assumption.

My Terrible Tropical Voodoo Rash

I look in the mirror and sigh quietly to myself. Ehhhhhhhh: another day, another cross to carry; another moment as a missionary, another burden to bear. Sometimes the days just seem so weary. Sometimes the load just seems too much.

I look in the mirror again. The little red circle on the skin of my jaw bone seems to grow larger every moment I watch. It quickly transforms, defiantly shining and pussing and becoming uglier no matter how much I wish it away. At one point I imagine that in its little red irritability it screams and yells at me announcing the arrival of endless filth and pain.

I picture myself with a chunk of cheek missing, eaten away so many days from now by what started off as this terrible tropical voodoo rash. Maybe, I fancy, I’d look like one of those old men in middle school health books with chewing-tobacco induced face cancer, their appearances twisted and scarred like soda pop bottles rescued from the middle of a roaring fire. Or, perhaps I’d appear like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator II when the outer flesh of his bionic face gets blown away to reveal cold hard metal inside . Yes, I think to myself, that second option sounds much better. Super movie star cool. Arnold Schwarzeneggar cool.

When it first appeared, I thought the rash was just a bit of acne, perhaps from eating too much of the peanut butter that my family brought for me in July. I’ve been mostly stingy in keeping the JIF to myself, so a patch of acne to accompany my sin would in no way be an unsuitable or illogical judgment for me on God’s part When the splotch started to grow into a bigger perfectly round circle and a similar one appeared on my leg, though, I realized the redness was more than peanut butter punishment. It was ringworm.

I once made fun of my wrestler brothers for getting ringworm. I thought the sickness, its accompanying creams, and all stigmas were really funny. They were jocks and I wasn’t, so they deserved it and I laughed at them. Rolling around on greasy dirty wrestling mats with a bunch of greasy dirty wrestlers? Yep, they definitely deserved it. It was probably even God’s judgment on them for caring too much about a dumb sport.

Now I sit in Paraguay, not laughing and very humbled. I think to myself, what could have caused this terrible tropical voodoo rash? I look around at my room, and it isn’t difficult to imagine. I haven’t washed my sleeping bag since I arrived nearly a year ago; my towels are both damp because I haven’t taken them outside to dry in a couple weeks; some of my clothes have a funny smell because I haven’t taken them to be washed in a while; my bedroom has that same funny smell as the locker room where all the wrestlers used to change.

On top of all this, I recently took in a kitten from the street. My mind flashes back to Israel: a dear friend there once took a fancy to a stray kitten, too, and she got ringworm as a result of it. I remember laughing at her and mocking her misplaced compassion in a cat from the street. Now the joke’s on me, though. I’ve been taken in by the whiley purr of a friendly tomcat I’ve taken to calling Charlie. I realize in horror that my own misplaced compassion for Mr. Whiskers is maybe what has caused my terrible tropical voodoo rash. It’s all my own fault.

I swear to myself that I won’t be taken in by Mr. Whisker’s wiles another time. He won’t come near me again, and I won’t ever let him cuddle on my bed or even come into my house from this day to eternity. I make a solemn and holy vow that I’ll wash every sheet and send my sleeping bag to the cleaner to quit my house of every hint left by Mr. Whisker’s fungal fur, even if that means I won’t have a blanket one night or two. I just want to be clean myself.

The pastor this evening preached on Jesus, who cleansed the leper who had faith. I feel like a leper myself, but I’m thankful that everyone still shakes my hand even though I have ringworm on my face. They don’t cast me out, and don’t even mention my skin condition. I wonder if I’m contagious. I think that this is what it might be like to have AIDS, then I condemn myself for making the comparison. AIDS is much more serious than ringworm.

A friend told me that he once had Paraguayan ring worm and that it spread very quickly in a big mess all over his legs and interior parts. I run as fast as I can to the pharmacy and buy an antifungal cream, the same kind I made fun of my brothers for using once. Now I don’t make fun of myself, but I am thankful that one can buy anti-fungal cream in Paraguay without a prescription. I apply it lightly and hastily without rubbing because the cream itself can spread the disease, and put on a fully body-suit of pajama to keep the fungus on my leg and face from contaminating all my healthy parts. I will not sleep well tonight since my mind is worried at profound conscious and subconscious levels about a terrible tropical voodoo rash. I may not sleep at all, I think, and just then my heart sinks inside of me. Mr. Whiskers sits on the window sill crying for me to feed him, but I won’t. I can’t. He and his fungus-bearing fur must leave and find a new owner. He and the terrible tropical voodoo rash he’s carrying must find a new place in which to torment another face.


Glorious.



The closeup.

Argentina AC

The past weekend saw me off on a trip to the Argentinean frontier city of Formosa, a largely untamed countryside far away from the delicacies of civilization in Buenos Aires. I went for the Seventh Annual Formosa Church Retreat, a weekend of preaching, singing, and sharing put on by the two churches in the city after which the retreat is named. Although the retreat usually finds a large group of Paraguayans coming to visit (the Lambaré congregation is only a three and a half our ride away, unlike those in Buenos Aires that could require a full day’s trip), this time only I, two brothers originally from Formosa, and a divorced single mom from Asunción were able to make the voyage. It was eye-opening weekend as I got to meet and greet Apostolic Christians (in South America called Nazarenos) from all over Argentina.

One surprise to greet me when I arrived at the camp was the lodging logistic. We stayed at a public school near the church where mattresses were brought in and where folks stayed one family per room. Because I didn’t have a family of my own, though, I slept in the cafeteria-turned-general-meeting hall/church and didn’t have a moment of privacy for three days straight. There were no showers and the water in the bathrooms was turned off, so by the end of the first day both the facilities and the people had a distinctly people smell. When someone did finally get the nerve to flush the toilet or take a bath, the water had to be carried in bucket-style from the one working faucet. I felt like a good abused missionary the entire weekend and I’m certain I gained a lot of crowns in Heaven from my misery, although I think the sophisticated Portenos (those from Buenos Aires) had an even worse time of it.

As with any good AC camp, there was an overabundance of romantic drama and sexual tension as well. The Formosa brothers who live in Asunción kept trying to hook me up with there cousin, a beautiful young believing lady studying literature at the university there. I met her in January when I visited Formosa the first time, thought she was pretty, and can even say I may have liked her a little bit, but thankfully my discernment and self-control this time around was stronger than my desire for an Argentinean spouse. I told her up front and a couple more times throughout the weekend that God is calling me back to the United States and not to move to Argentina. Although she was disappointed, she eventually accepted it. Unfortunately, however her cousins didn’t, and that made for a really awkward weekend being around her and having so many accusatory smiles thrown at me from every angle. Her unbelieving dad was at the camp too, which made things even better. He was a funny little man who drank too much, apologizing to me on the first day at lunch when he had to take his “medicine” —a little bit of wine—after the meal. I smiled and told him not to worry about it because Proverbs 31:6-7 says it’s ok. He eventually saw the banter going on between the cousins, me, and his daughter, though, and took to calling me his “yerno,” son-in-law.

I got to meet and know a youth about ten years my junior who looked about the same as I did ten years ago. You can imagine my delight to find that I wasn’t the only blonde-haired blue-eyes German at the camp, as there was this Argentine named Franco who could’ve been my kid brother. His great-grandparents came to Argentina a few years after mine came to the United States and belonged to the same church, too. It was surreal to meet someone who could’ve been me on a completely different continent with a completely different language and culture.

From what I learned, the Argentinean AC Church was originally founded in the 1880s a few years after the North American AC Church, but really established itself as a denomination in the mid-war period of the 1920s and 1930s. The church went through a boom of growth from the 1960s through the 1970s, but since the late 80s has been declining considerably. Its membership is much like the American AC Church with Germans, Serbians, Czechs, Swiss, and all other sorts of Eastern European nationalities mixed in, too, although there is no lack of Hispanic families that have converted, either. Today, there are Apostolic Christian churches all over the country, with dozens in Buenos Aires alone.

The church is still very traditional. Perhaps because it’s been united in the difficulty of spreading the denomination in the midst of a very Catholic Argentina, the church has seen none of the divisions plaguing its North American counterparts. Moustaches are ok, but jewelry is not. All the elders agree that women should wear head coverings and skirts, but only during church services. (As a side note, the head coverings here are bold, huge, and clumpy affairs that look very little like the delicate, discrete, and beautiful laces that North American AC sisters wear). Elder and ministerial authority remains very strong in Argentina, as do harsh forms of discipline and excommunication. One pastor I spoke with said nothing of grace or restoration in church discipline, and left me with a sick feeling after he told me that many people who sin in the church are never restored to fellowship again or counted as brothers and sisters in Christ after they’ve morally messed up. I think this same man, too, really believed that he had never sinned after becoming a Christian; a belief which, no matter how proud or self-deluded he may be, is wrong and anti-biblical. Along with many other things, I took away from the weekend a greater appreciation for biblical truths of sin, grace, and forgiveness that many times I’ve taken for granted because of my Christian upbringing.

The women cooked and cleaned all weekend long while the men talked. The ladies worked like horses, the gentleman laid around like pigs. I was astounded, but not so much to make me remedy the situation except by showing a lot of appreciation for all the great food, hospitality, and service coming from the pastors’ wives. You might say I was just as guilty as the rest of the men, although not quite. When I and two other guys accepted the offer to wash dishes after one meal, the women were all amazed and three or four young single ladies came out of nowhere to take our pictures in the kitchen. The moms told us that no one had taken a single photo of them serving all weekend long, but there we were-- ten minutes with our hands in the sinks-- and we were the all-male stars of the camp.

The theme of the weekend was “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD in vain.” When I first arrived I was thrilled and thought, “finally, a practical topic that every South American Christian needs to hear.” Many evangelicals here think nothing of saying “Dios Mio,” or “Oh, my God.” Whereas in the US we see this as breaking one of the ten commandments and using the Lord’s name in vain, here in the South they just don’t think of it that way. The topic, though, wasn’t what I expected, and the preaching was more of an exhortation to act like Christians if we willingly take that name upon ourselves. Thus, breaking the commandment and taking the Lord’s name in vain would consist in living a secret life of hypocrisy and sin while claiming to be a believer in public.

The weekend ended with an altar call, and a whole lot of people originally from the Formosa Church went up at the end. It used to be a vibrant church, but after many years of serious sin, broken leadership, and bad teaching these days it can only count a handful of faithful members. The story of the congregation is unimaginably bad, but on Sunday many who haven’t been a part of the fellowship in more than a decade went up once again to the altar to renew their commitment of faith. I pray that this past weekend might be the start of a new work in Formosa founded on mercy, grace, and the Gospel to give new hope and life to such a small and sickly church community.

Much More than a Potato

I found this Asuncion fast-food chain french-fry carton on the side of the road. Translated, it says, ¨McCain: Much More than a Potato.¨


Just wait until the McCain presidential campaign gets ahold of it as a slogan-- they´ll hire me on as a campaign manager for sure, even all the way from Paraguay. Just think of it: ¨Vote for McCain, because he´s much more than a potato.¨Has a good ring to it, doesn´t it?


Stance on abortion? Doesn´t matter. The Iraq war? Ha- a non-issue. Surging energy prices? Out the door.

I´m just voting for McCain because he´s much more than a potato.

Big Anniversary

Saturday marked the ten-year anniversary of my baptism. If I were traditional Apostolic, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized into the flock of faith, accepted as a member of the church, and my rebirth through repentance sealed by the Holy Spirit in the laying-on of hands. If I were Baptist, I’d say ten years ago I was symbolically buried with Christ in the waters of baptism as an outward sign and public testimony of the work that God did in saving the inner-most parts of my soul at an earlier time. If I were Presbyterian, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized and welcomed into a New Covenant Christian community much like Old Testament Hebrew babies were circumcised as a sign of their membership in the People of God. If I were Eastern Orthodox, I’d say ten years ago baptism marked my passing from death to life, from darkness to light, from Canaan to the Promised Land, even as Joshua and the people of Israel crossed through the waters of the River Jordan. If I were Catholic, I’d say ten years ago my baptism sacramentally broke the chains of Original Sin and drove away the darkness of Adam’s curse from my soul, indelibly marking me as a Christian and ushering me into the newness of life in Christ.


Whatever one’s views of baptism, though, ten years is a long time. Think of it: I’ve officially been on the walk of faith for a full decade now. After so much time, it seems that I ought to be arriving already from my journey to the New Jerusalem. As I look around at the road signs, though, I realize I’m only a few steps outside of my door. My soul was changed when God first met me and I started out on a path of faith, but I still struggle with a whole lot of the same sins that I struggled with a decade ago. Lust didn’t get any better after being thirteen; many of the temptations that seemed innocent to me then have become much bigger, bolder, and uglier to me now. My pride and self-dependence don’t seem to have shrunken any, either; my higher education and greater achievements in the eyes of the world only seem to add kindling to an egotistical fire that was sparked in elementary school. Ironically enough, though, I’m still just as self-conscious as my thirteen-year-old self who did everything he could to please the people around him in a never-ending search for acceptance and success; with scores of friends recently making over a $100,000 a year, joining the ranks of the political elite, and starting their own families, the stakes have just become much higher and my vulnerability to criticism much greater.


In spite of all this, however, I wouldn’t trade a day’s walk with Jesus for anything else in world. I don’t ever regret a moment giving my life away to Him and being publicly identified with Him in the obedience of faith. I’m not perfect, I struggle with sin, and a lot of times I fall down flat on my face recognizing the poverty of my still-prone-to-be-spiritually-poor soul in the presence of His rich holiness and awesome grandeur of perfect righteousness. As the people here in Paraguay tell me, though, I’m “joven todavia,” still young. God-willing, I’ll have a few more decades on the road of faith and a whole lot more of sanctification to be had. I thank God for however long I have to live that He’s patient with me. I know He’s walking by my side, straightening out my course when I get sidetracked to the right or left by my sin and pulling me forward out of the pits when I get stuck in self pity, regret, and hopelessness.


Perhaps the greatest joy to me on this anniversary of my baptism is that God continues to lead and want to be with me. Although I stumble sometimes and don’t keep up with where I ought to be, by His love I continue to follow and He continues to change me and help me along. Time teaches me everyday to love my Lord more and more, and, by His grace, I really am being transformed.

Visit Wrapped-Up

Me and the family at Foz de Iguazu
Dad definately should have been a cowboy
The team and their lot of tile work

The past two weeks have been jam-packed with the excitement of winter vacations and a visit from Ohio family and friends. A work team came down from Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship, the church where I grew up, with my dad, brother Joey, sister Jennifer, youth pastor Brad, second-cousin Steve, and two other young friends, Chad and Matt. They came down with the intention to do some tiling and painting work for the school, visit with and get to know the Paraguayan Church and culture, and visit with and encourage me. Now that they’re finished, I can say with a big thankful smile that everything they wanted to do was accomplished, and accomplished well.

Although their trip started and ended rather roughly (coming down, a one-day delay in Atlanta because of Hurricane Bertha and nearly a half-day in Argentina because of a missed flight; going back, an extra day in Buenos Aires because of a missed connection to the States and an extra stop in Cincinnati because of their re-routed itinerary), everything they did while in Paraguay went along smoothly and basically without a hitch. The weather was in the mid-seventies and sunny every day, a real Paraguayan miracle in the middle of winter (Paraguayan folklore says that these two weeks of summer weather in the middle of winter usually come two weeks before the Feast of St. John on June 24^th. As Oscar joked, though, this year, when St. John asked permission from God for the good weather to be in the middle of June, God must have told him to wait until the middle of July when some Protestants would be visiting Paraguay). Although the team suffered a bit from runny noses, sore throats, one multi-day case of diarrhea, and a trip to the Paraguayan emergency room after Brad passed out from a badly-sprained ankle (an emergency room, by the way, where a visit with a doctor cost two dollars and x-rays with family and friends standing all around you in the x-ray room only cost $4.50), God was good and no one’s health was ever seriously in danger. The work was never hindered by sickness, and neither was the sightseeing.

Tourism perks of the trip for the team included a trip to Foz de Iguazu (the South American jungle Niagara Falls), a Paraguayan meatfest buffet, seeing Itapu Dam, boating on the River Paraguay, shopping at a Paraguayan bazaar, visiting the Center of Town and seeing historical monuments and sights twice, and climbing up a little mountain for a beautiful view of the Paraguayan countryside in Yaguaron. Visiting with the people from church, they had dinner prepared for them six times on a trip of only a week and a half, and every day ate an excellent Paraguayan lunch prepared by a sister from the church for only about $2.50. They received much good hospitality, which helped them work hard with determined purpose to lay and grout tile floors and clean and paint the church soccer field. They were able to bless the church in Lambaré as well as the church in Sajonia, where the team spent some visiting with church members in a rough area of Asunción and was able to purchase for the congregation badly-needed fans and lights.

For me, the trip was a huge blessing as well. I was kept very busy throughout my winter vacation with making plans and organizing details for the team, but I got to share a lot of time with my dear family and friends. I had the chance to see Paraguay through their eyes, once more as a new, foreign, and exotic place full of adventure and hospitality. They showed me how not to take small things for granted, and made me appreciate much more everything I’ve come to know and have in my missionary life in Paraguay. The snickerdoodles and small American necessities they brought from my mom, along with the peanut-butter-popcorn balls and chocolate chip cookies they brought from my aunts, ought to hold me off on good home-cooking at least until I return home in four and a half months. Speaking of home, having my family stay with me for a week and a half made me realize how much I really do like home and miss my family. I’m going to keep doing my best as an English teacher and missionary in Paraguay, but I’m also looking forward to Christmastime in Ohio half a year away.

Trip over

The family is back home after a day delay in Buenos Aires. Thank God.