Ellen in Paraguay

I always remember how before I came, Ben told me about how one of his students accidentally said he was from another world instead of another country, and how for a Paraguayan it was not such an inappropriate error because of their lack of contact with other nations. You see, for many years Paraguay was closed to the rest of the world due to political reasons, and besides the landscape makes it somewhat impenetrable. To counteract this isolationism, we had a missions week at the school where every class chose a country, learned its capital, what percentage of the population is Christian or Muslim, looked for recipes, etc. It culminated last night with an international festival. Everyone made foods from their chosen country to sell, kids were dressed in traditional clothes, each class presented its respective country and prayer requests, and there was a strong focus on missions. I thought it was very fun, the kids learned about countries they probably didn’t even know existed (kindergarten kids and Morocco, grade four and Turkey), and the money that was raised will go towards a school project. I think the international flavour of Colegio Adonai is one thing that makes our school really special. It is good for the kids not only to be taught to learn about and pray for other nations, but to have contact with other cultures every day at school. One of my goals in coming here was for people to see that Christianity is much bigger than just the Paraguayan version, and that the Gospel is applicable in any culture. Unfortunately, just last year grade 4 did Canada, so no one repeated it this year. Although I don’t know how much help I would have been since I think our most traditional food is donuts and I have no idea what’s going on in politics right now.