OPERATION STUDY SPANISH

In the muddy fields of Paraguay, we have discovered a hidden treasure of many hearts that are hungry for the Word of God! But like the man in the parable, we too want to make the most of this and so have some more preparing to do!

Our greatest challenge is understanding and being understood in a culture that freely merges 2 languages in every sentence! After much evaluating, discussing and planning, we judged it best to study Spanish from January 2011. Thus, we can be back sooner with more language to be more effective in a teaching and mentoring capacity.

It's a Muddy Miracle!

Our tale begins on Monday morning, 6am. The red dawn heralded a gray-scale sky billowing in rolls of thunder. And down poured the rain for 3 hours. So, we were not going to spend our 7th anniversary moving house after all! With our house already vacated, our wonderful team-mates had allowed us to use their house while they were away. But would one more day be enough to get us up the 80km dirt road, now thick mud, before we even hit tarmac?

So, 6am Tuesday morning revealed clear skies and we gingerly loaded the truck and trailer to the brink.


Accelerating up to 20km/hr we slimed and bumped and jiggled for 3 1/2 hours to San Francisco. A journey that usually takes 1 hour. By God's mercy, right at our other wonderful team-mates' house, we found that we had broken a trailer leafspring and the axle had shifted under the load. Hmmm, which rut could have done that?


By the time the break had been welded it was after dark. Praise God for a team that will take us in for a night unexpectedly! After a delicious chicken dumpling soup, a bath and a good night's sleep we were ready for another day of trudgery!

Just 5km north of San Francisco though, we arrived at a pit of pitch black bog as long as the road was wide. Seeing a 5 ton truck trying to be towed by a yoke of oxen through the slushy right hand verge of the road, we opted for dead centre. I'll get through this, thought our trusty Toyota truck. And we would have... if the muddy middle man wasn't higher than the wheel arches! After an hour of shoveling knee high mush, another truck arrived that pulled us backwards. We unhitched the trailer and pulled the 5 ton truck out with shrieks of joy in the tyre-spinning smoke and splatters...

And we watched in amazement as a 20 ton truck arrived. I'll get through this, thought the 18 wheeler. And he would have... but the muddy middle man was still made of black bog and sunk those wheels with a squelch. A 10 ton truck arrived behind them and pulled them backwards.

And we watched in amazement... I'll get through this, thought the 10 ton truck... the pit of bog swallowed him too. Who would have thought?

By now we had our trailer rigged up again and found the verge on the left of the road more solid. And with 6 1/2 hours on the clock and 50km of the mileage down, we could get on with the next 250km!!!

Strangely though, we were filled with the sense of living our dreams here. And WE LOVE IT!

Oh, and our number one moving tip: TARP ALL WITH PRAYER!