We Made It Home!

We are all back in the USA! We had a long, but safe trip back to the states. Thank you all so much for partnering in this incredible ministry trip to Paraguay. We are confident that this was led by God and that He moved through all of it. Please keep praying for the Church in Asuncion as they take the momentum that they experienced with us these last few weeks and move forward in continuing to share the love of Christ. Pray for Brenda and Bob Boston as Brenda has her lumpectomy tomorrow (August 28). Also, pray for our field team as we adjust to being back to the US and start processing all that we saw and did and all that God did in us. We look forward to sharing more with you in the upcoming days. We also look forward to getting a lot of sleep in our own beds- we'll see you when we wake up!

Crossing Borders and Coming Home

Jen steals a kiss at the Iguazu Falls

"Ladies of the Mist" at the Iguazu Falls in Argentina

First Day of Awana at Asuncion Church

The Entire Church of Asuncion

Sunday Morning Worship at Asuncion Church

We are on our way back home! Currently, we are in the Lima, Peru airport where we have a 5 hour layover. We are doing fantastic, although slightly sleep deprived. We've come off of a end of the trip whirlwind vacation to the Iguazu Waterfalls in Argentina and to visit Ciudad del Este (City of the East) and meet people who are doing ministry among Muslims in Paraguay.
It was a 5 hour bus ride that we did from mindnight to 5am on Monday morning. We got back at 10pm on Tuesday night and got back to Asuncion with enough time to pack and take a quick nap before getting up at 3am to get to the airport. We'll be traveling all day and will arrive in San Francisco around midnight on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. So we are tired!
But we are also happy! This has been an incredible trip and we'll share more stories as we have more time with you in the US and can process what we have experienced. The weekend ministries of Ladies Tea, Awana, Sunday Worship and Prayer Walk were all fantastic and we saw God's presence in amazing ways. It was incredible to worship with them on their first Sunday in their "new" sanctuary with wide open doors.
Pastor Marcos and Lorena shared their deep gratitude for the work of the team and for all of Almaden Neighborhood Church. The church in Asuncion has been dormant for many years and hasn't had the people or the momentum to make an impact on the community. These past 2 weeks showed the community that the church is alive and showed the church people how to serve, love and reach out. Pastor Marcos said that this team was an example of love and an example of how people with such different personalities can use their different gifts to serve the Lord! At least I think that's what he said. He said it in Spanish and I noticed that my translation can be a little "interpretive". But the look in his eyes and of the people of the church and the community told us that this was a trip that made and impact for the Kingdom of God. Glory to God!
We love you all and will see you soon.

Last Day of Construction!

Pastor Marcos and his wife Loraina.

(no idea why this picture is upside down- must be a southern hemisphere thing)

Jared and Jorge chopping down a tree

Kathy and Tom in front of the wall that they built around the bathroom

Kathy and Susan baking cookies- they had to be creative with the ingredients they had!

Siesta Time.

Today was our last day of construction at the church! All that we can do is done- we did all the demolition and brick laying. Now we{ll leave it to the pros to come in and tile the steps and hang the doors.

Yesterday, Kathy and Susan baked cookies and we went through the neighborhood giving them out and inviting people to church and to the Ladies Tea Party. Today we went on a prayer walk around another Alliance Church and tomorrow morning we will prayer walk around the Asuncion Church. Prayer is powerful and we are seeing it first hand!

Tomorrow, we{ll clean up the church and launch the Awana kids program at 3pm, then the Ladies Tea at 5pm with Kathy as the speaker. Pray for both events that there is a good turnout and enough volunteers to reach out to people well. This church only has 25 members at the moment, so we are praying that there are people who step up into leadership to care for those that come as the result of outreach.

The neighborhood has been excited by seeing the physical changes to the church and the new life of activity. The church people and the pastor are incredibly encouraged by our presence here and take it as a confirmation that God is going to do something big in this barrio and that the best days of this little church are not behind it.

Pray for-

Kathy as she speaks at the Ladies Tea Saturday

Jordan as he preaches on Sunday

The team to continue to stay healthy as we continue to minister

Bob and Brenda Boston, as Brenda prepares for surgery next week. The chemo didnt work as well as we had hoped and the tumor has split. Pray for complete healing and total success of the surgery.

That{s all for now. Everyone{s asleep so Ill sign off. We had a great night and as reward for all our work we got to have pizza and hear great missionary stories and then went to see GI Joe (or is it GI Jose?)

Miss and love you all. Thanks for your comments. Keep them coming.

-Jordan

Good Stuff

I am so proud of our team! Every person has done many things that they have never done before, whether it is sharing their testimonies in public, leading people to Christ, mixing cement or laying brick. So many new experiences and great results. God is also doing a work in each one of us as we wrestle through different things about ourselves that He is revealing. This trip has been a furnace for Gods refining fire to reveal and burn off stuff and will transform us more into the likeness of Christ. Not always an easy process, but also good. God is also forming us into a strong team that cares deeply for each other and utilizes our strengths well.

Thank you so much to everyone at Almaden Neighborhood Church who sent cards of encouragement with us! Every day I give out two or three to each person at breakfast. Susan particularly loves mail call and we are all so blessed and uplifted by your words!

The last couple of days we{ve continued doing construction in the morning, invitations and evangelism in the afternoon and visiting small groups in the evening. We have had several people pray with us and it has been very exciting. Muna and Tom Alexander went out with Jorge (a seminary student here at the church and a great guy) and they met a young man on the street and shared Munas testimony with him. He proceeded to tell them that he was recently robbed and lifted his shirt to show the fresh stab wounds on his body that he received while trying to protect his friend. Jorge told the young man that what he did for his friend is exactly what Jesus did for us. Except that Jesus not only received the wounds but He gave His whole life for us. That young man prayed to receive Christ as His savior right then.

Another young man, Sebastion stopped by the church to visit his friend. I pulled Jared out from the back room and said ¨¨There is someone hear I want you to share your testimony with.¨¨ He came out and thought that it was someone in the church that he was going to practice with. Jared didn{t realize that Sebastion didn{t know Christ. Jared sat with Sebastion as Pastor Marcos read Jareds testimony in Spanish and then talked to Sebastion in Spanish about God and then prayed with Him to receive Christ. Jared thought that the whole thing was a role play until he heard Sebastion say¨Si¨ and pray with Pastor Marcos! God is using us even when we don{t know what is going on. This has been something that is sometimes difficult for the team as they go around with the church members talking to the people in the community and its all in Spanish. The team often walks away from the conversations saying ¨What happened?¨ And its hard to judge the response by looking at people because Paraguayans tend to not show much emotion on their faces.

Surprisingly, I{ve found that I{m able to communicate in Spanish, but I get frustrated that I can{t do more. I try to translate for the team and talk to people but I find that I can understand better than I can speak. Yesterday I told someone that I have a 10 year old wife when I meant to say that Ive been married for ten years!

So keep the prayers coming! Pray that we dont get frustrated from language and culture barriers (like the constantly changing schedule). Pray for physical strength- we{ve all been healthy, Muna has a little cold but is doing fine. Pray for open doors and open hearts as we talk to people. Pray for us as we prepare for another busy weekend of ministry starting the Awana kids program, Ladies Tea with Kathy speaking, Sunday me preaching and Sunday night showing the fireproof movie in spanish.

Sunday morning we will try to video skype into the Sunday morning worship service at Almaden if it works. We are a little over halfway through the trip and this time next week we{ll be back in the USA!

We love you and appreciate all of your prayers. Please post comments on this blog if you can so we know that you are reading it and can be encouraged by you!

Dios te Bendiga (God bless you)

-Jordan

Tearing Down Walls and Building Up People

God is Good! We have been seeing Him move in amazing ways! Sorry for the big gaps in updates but our schedules have been packed with ministry and activity and we{ve had limited access to the internet. Sorry for any typos- the keyboards here are not the same as in the us and some of the keys are marked incorrectly! Here{s a quick rundown of what{s been going on.

Saturday, Day of the Child- We had an awesome kids outreach as over 100 kids came! It turned out to be kind of a mini-Vacation Bible School with games, songs, puppets and crafts. Our ladies did the crafts and took and printed pictures of the kids to put in frames made by the Almaden kids. Unfortunately, the printer wasnt fast enough to print the pictures for all the kids in time, but it turne out to be a blessing. Next saturday, the church is launching it{s Awana weekly childrens program, so Pastor Marcos told all the kids to come back next week for their pictures and frames. Hopefully that will help make it a great turnout.
In the evening Jared spoke to the youth group and did a great job! His appeal to kids and teens goes beyond borders and language barriers. Everyone loves Jared and he has a great ministry here especially to the young men.

Sunday, Church Tour-
In the morning, we visited 7 of the 8 Christian and Missionary Alliance churches in Paraguay. It was great to see all of the good work that they are doing. In the evening, we split up and went to 4 different churches and each person got to share their testimonies. I had the opportunity to preach at a small church in a very poor neighborhood. The smell of marijuana smoke was thick in the little church because of all the people smoking outside. I'm not sure if the sermon connected, but they were all very relaxed!
I also heard great stories from the church where Muna and Kathy gave their testimonies. The people were very moved and Muna and Kathy prayed with several women afterwards. Jen and Jared were followed by about 45 kids to the church that they visited. Jen gave her testimony and they both helped with the kids ministry.

Monday, Construction and Visits- This was a long day! We knocked down an entire brick wall by hand! Everyone (including all the ladies) were a part of this! We couldn't use sledge hammers because it would have damaged the integrity of the rest of the structure so we had to chisel the wall out brick by brick. We took it down! Kathy and susan also spackled another wall while muna and jen began to build a brick retaining wall with brick and mortar!
In the afternoon, we went around with the paraguayan church members sharing our testimonies and telling people about the love of God. Praise God that 2 people prayed to receive Christ!
Much more to tell, but it is time now for us to get ready to do some more visits!
Will try to update again soon! Dios te bendiga!
-Jordan

In The Neighborhood

Yesterday and today we went into the neighborhood (barrio en espanol) and gave out flyers to invite people to the upcoming events that we are holding at the church. Tomorrow is the National Day of the Child and we are going to have a big festival here for all of the kids! Most of the work that we are doing here is to help kickstart this church and give it momentum to mathat we are here we are providing the manpower to do the things that the church wants to do butke a positive impact in this community for Christ. Because the church is so small(about 25 people) they don´t have enough volunteers to do big outreaches or projects. So for the 2 weeks that they didn't think that they could because they don't have enough people. The church has been small and has not been relevant to the community but they really want that to change.

So yesterday we handed out 2,000 flyers (along with some people in the church and the mission team from Paradise Alliance church who was here yesterday). Today we handed out almost as many. Muna and I also brought balloons as we went through the neighborhood and made balloon animals for all the kids. Their eyes lit up when they saw them and they all took the flyers for tomorrow's festival.

Today was also cleaning day as we cleaned the church and prepared it for tomorrow. The construction for the building project (tearing down a wall and steps and putting in a new entry) has begun, so the church is kind of a mess, but we tried to get it as clean as possible for the kids. Tomorrow Jared is also speaking at the youth group meeting.

We are having a great time and are getting along really well as a team and with the local church. We laugh a lot! Especially when Kathy is in the room! We have many stories to tell and are making more each day. Thank you for all your prayers! We definitely see the hand of God at work and the answer to many prayers appearing before us. It's time for bed and I've already had to type this twice because of computer issues (sorry about the sideways picture too) but I will try to post again soon! Dios te bendiga!

We Made It!

We are in Paraguay! After a long trip on 3 planes,we finally arrived at 2am local time. A little exhausted, especially from our 7 hour layover in Lima, Peru. But we were met by the missionary team of Bob Boston, the Harmons and John. We also got to meet Pastor Marcos, the pastor of the Asuncion church where we are working. I´ve really enjoyed getting to know him and his wife Lorinda. Pastor Marcos is 30 years old and has just been installed of this church that is 45 years old and is made up of 25 people. Somehow, I can relate! The church here is very excited for us to help them re-start the ministry here through events and through improving the grounds of the church. There is lots to do and we are excited about how God is going to use us to encourage the people here and how our faith will be encouraged through them.

We are about to have lunch now. I´ll try to update more later and will post some pictures as soon as I can.

This picture is us on the steps of the church. One of our projects is to demolish the entryway and create a new entrance and door. On Saturday we are preparing to have an outreach to the children and are expecting over 100 kids! Currently, the church has very few children in it and this outreach will help to connect them to the kids of the neighborhood and make an impact.