Py Nandi

Latest Family Portrait

2011-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Our latest family portrait, including Joe, the latest arrival.

Latest Bowen Arrow

2011-08-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

A link to our latest newsletter is on the left hand side of the page.

My current excuse for not posting for a while is the addition of a new member to the family and the changes that brings. Is it unfair to blame things on such a small person who can't defend himself?

Watch this spot for more updates in the near future.

February 2011 Video Update

2011-02-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Battle of Paraguarí

2011-01-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

Today is the 200^th anniversary of the Battle of Paraguarí. If you aren't Paraguayan, or connected to Paraguay in some way, the chances are good you haven't heard of Paraguarí and even better that you didn't know there was a battle fought there on January 19^th, 1811.

Cerro Porteño, the smaller hill to the left, with Cerro Acahay in the background, as seen from my yard. The Battle of Paraguarí was fought on the plain to the right.

General Manuel Belgrano, sent by the government in Buenos Aires to deal with the rebellious Paraguayan province, had far superior arms and led professional soldiers. But the Paraguayans outnumbered the Porteños—the term still used to describe people from Buenos Aires. In addition, they were passionately defending their homeland.

They met each other in the valley between Paraguarí and Cerro Mbaé, or, as it is known today, Cerro Porteño. We can see this hill and the valley from our house, located on the south side of the range of hills called Cordillera de los Altos. The battle is also called the Battle of Cerro Porteño.

The Paraguayans won the day, both on the 19^th of January and 50 days later further south at Tacuary. These victories were key events that led to Paraguay's declaration of independence from Spain on May 14^th of that year. This year Paraguay celebrates its 200^th anniversary.

Perhaps just as important as Paraguay's military victory at Paraguarí was the custom of officers of both sides getting together before and after the battles and shooting the breeze. Many of them knew each other—several of Belgrano's officers were even Paraguayan!—and they came from the same privileged class. Through this fraternization the Paraguayan officers learned that Napoleon Bonaparte had replaced Spain's king with his own brother. Napoleon wanted to retain Spanish possessions in the Americas and the Philippines, but Paraguay now realized that the new reality gave them the opportunity to break once and for all from Spain.

So it became one of the first in the series of South American provinces to declare independence between 1809 (Ecuador) and 1825 (Uruguay). Basically the Spanish empire in the New World disintegrated within 16 years, although Cuba and Puerto Rico still belonged to Spain until the Spanish-American war in 1898. (Guyana didn't get independence from the United Kingdom until 1966 and Surinam separated from the Netherlands in 1975. French Guiana continues to be an overseas department of France.)

There might even be an argument that the events that took place two hundred years ago out in the valley I can see from my front window contributed to the eventual fall of Napoleon. I might need some help from the historians to make my case, though. At the very least, one of Paraguay's most popular soccer teams, Cerro Porteño owes its name to the feeling of victory Paraguayans feel when they remember January 19^th 1811.

December Newsletter

2010-12-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

I've posted a link to our December newsletter on the lower left of this page.

We've been in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, since the 27th of November, visiting with Lizet's family. The boys have been having a wonderful time with their tías (aunts) and their abuelito and abuelita. We came for Twana's graduation from high school, which was on the 4th, but decided to stay a couple of weeks. It's been a very pleasant, relaxing time.

I wasn't going to bring my laptop, but at the last minute I decided I would. On the whole, it's been a good thing. I've still gotten plenty of rest, had nice times with the family, and enjoyed playing with the boys. But I've also managed to get caught up on lots of things and been able to stay in touch so that I don't anticipate having to dig through a mountain of emails when I get home to Paraguay on Tuesday!

Good to be Home

2010-09-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

What a good feeling to be back home in Paraguay after fourteen months in the US, mostly traveling around. We flew back into Asunción on August 4th and got back to Escobar as soon as possible to find our house and our dog Oso wonderfully cared for by Antonio and Lida Guerrero.

Before we went back to Escobar I went to our cell phone provider to get a phone that I could use, as I was using our Motorola V3 before, to connect to the internet. The salesman talked me into buying a BlackBerry, saying not only could I get email and browse the web using the phone but I could also use the phone as a Bluetooth modem to connect my laptop to the internet as I had done with my other phone.

Lucas and Timmy are happy to be home

Well, salesmen are salesmen everywhere, I guess, and this guy somewhat exaggerated the capabilities of the BlackBerry which, though a good phone and very useful for brief emails and a little internet browsing, is not good at all as a Bluetooth modem. The upside of that is I've been wasting no time at all online. The downside is that some things I really need to do online--paying bills, for example, or updating my blog--I just can't do.

Part of the problem is a very variable cell phone signal at our house. This aspect of the problem I'm hoping to remedy with a dual band cell phone repeater. But there also seems to be a problem with the phone itself as a modem--even when I have a good signal it only connects a fraction of the times I try.

Our neighbor "Abuela" (Grandma) Asunción's house

That's the frustrating side of life. The exciting part of our life is helping missionaries with language learning, and I just finished this week a four-week refresher course with SIM missionaries Jeff and Amy McKissick, who have also just returned from the US. They are super committed to ongoing Guarani language learning and it's always a delight to work with them. Check out Amy's post on their language-learning experience.

Right now we have a couple of days in Asunción. We're celebrating Timmy's fourth birthday today, and tomorrow we'll go back to Escobar and take with us Lizet's mom who is here for a visit from Bolivia. We're staying at the mission guest house, where we have a wireless internet connection, so I'm trying to remember and catch up with all the things I need to do online.

I keep reminding myself that to get to live in such a wonderful place as Escobar, and be involved in the exciting ministry we get to have a part in, we have to make some sacrifices, and if one of them is a reliable internet connection, well, then, so be it! It's well worth it.

July Newsletter

2010-07-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've posted our latest newsletter on the lower left of this page.

We've finished up our time in the US and will be returning to Paraguay on August 4th. We're looking forward to getting back home!

Don't Forget Haiti

2010-07-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

Don't Forget Haiti: Tent City from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

Caleb and Ben Cameron at the World Cup

2010-06-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Paraguayan soccer team is getting ready for its first game of this World Cup on Monday against Italy. They are staying in the beautiful city of Pietermaritzburg in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

It happens that our friends, colleagues, and former students, SIM missionaries Greg and Vonni Cameron, have just returned to South Africa for furlough and are living in the city of Pietermaritzburg. They went to see the Paraguay team practice at the Harry Gwala stadium. The Camerons were sighted by reporters sitting in the stands with their Paraguayan jerseys on, drinking tereré and speaking in Guarani. They were asked down to the field and interviewed.

Since Greg and Vonnie speak Guarani but very little Spanish, they responded to Spanish questions in Guarani! They told the reporters they had studied the heart language of Paraguay in order to read the Bible in Guarani to people who speak Guarani but don't read it, and to serve the community. The interview was on national television in Paraguay and the photo of the boys turned up in the June 7th edition of the daily ABC Color.

Operation Py'aguapy on BBC

2010-05-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

BBC has posted a news item about the search for members of the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo, or Paraguayan People's Army, who are on the run in the north of the country, possibly in the Paraguayan Chaco. About 25 people are being pursued by the Paraguayan Military and Police in a massive operation being called Operación Py'aguapy, or Operation Tranquility in Guarani.

The BBC article cites the comparison Paraguayans are making between the EPP and Jasy Jatere (or as BBC calls him, Yasy-Yatere,) a spirit being familiar to all Paraguayans. This creature is a one of a number of spirits that are well known in Paraguayan culture and are usually referred to as "mythological" but which, to speak with rural Paraguayans, are not mythological in the sense of being fictional. Many people believe very firmly not only in the existence of these creatures but also in their regular interaction in their own lives.

Another example is Pombero, to whom some people leave offerings of cane alcohol, tobacco, or yerba mate in their tatakua, or brick oven. These offerings are said to appease Pombero, also known as karai pyhare, or "gentleman of the night," who might otherwise attack family members or wreak havoc with their livestock.

Google's Doodle Honors catorce de mayo (May 14).

2010-05-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Google Doodle in the Paraguayan version honored the 199th anniversary of the independence of Paraguay. It features the Paraguayan flag and a Bare-throated bellbird (Procnias nudicollis), the national bird of Paraguay, as the letter 'l'. Cool.

April Newsletter

2010-05-06T18:44:00.000-07:00

I've posted a link to our April 2010 newsletter on the lower left of this page. For those of you who pray, thanks for praying for us!

Incarnation is Identification

2010-04-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

I recently spoke with a man who had been a missionary in Brazil. While he was there he made a great effort to learn Portuguese well, taking as his models the Brazilian Portuguese speakers around him. His goal was to sound just like them them--or as much like them as possible--when he spoke.

To this day, twenty years after leaving Brazil, he speaks excellent, idiomatic Brazilian Portuguese. The hard work that he did many years ago continues to yield dividends in the way he speaks the language.

He told me about a time he traveled with a fellow missionary in Brazil. After an interaction with a Brazilian man, his colleague turned to him and asked in an annoyed way, "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" my friend replied.

"Why do you try talk like the Brazilians, instead of like an American?"

"Because they talk right, and I want to talk right."

"Well," his friend concluded, "don't do it around me."

I thought about that story again a couple of weeks ago when I was listening to a radio program about language learning. The man being interviewed said something to the effect that the greatest compliment you can pay a language learner is to mistake him/her for a native speaker.

I realized that this was exactly what my friend's colleague had wanted to avoid. There was something in his self-identity that resisted identifying with Brazilians and he didn't want to risk ever being taken for anything but an American.

Now I realize that for most of us it is very unlikely that we would ever learn a language so well as an adult that we would be taken for a native speaker. But putting that aside for the moment, one of the reasons that my language students tend to be the most motivated language learners in the world is that they don't only want to communicate information with Paraguayans; they want to identify with them in the language that defines them as Paraguayans--Guarani. By learning Guarani, we affirm, value, and make part of us something that most Paraguayans hold in very high esteem--the language that is uniquely theirs.

Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen, in his book Missions: Biblical Foundations and Contemporary Strategies, talks about this identification: "Such identification is not an external façade designed to create some kind of artificial congeniality; it is the heart of God incarnate in the missionary." (p. 66) The heart of God was demonstrated in Jesus, the Word who took on human form and had to learn words--human language--as a baby. His identification with us, his creation, sets the pattern for missionary identification.

That's why language learning for missionaries is not an onerous task to be endured so that the real missions work can begin. It is an indispensable step in the process of incarnation that every missionary must engage in completely in order to be effective ministers in the context they've been called to. For this reason, people who go to minister in contexts where they "don't need to learn the language" find themselves at a distinct disadvantage, because they lack one of the most fundamental tools of identification.

My Irish Forebears

2010-03-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

Of all my ancestors whose details I've uncovered over the years in censuses, wills, tax lists, city directories, Civil War pension files, and other documents, by far the most mysterious is a man named Edward Harding Ryan.

Edward was born in Ireland in 1826 and immigrated in 1873, arriving in Philadelphia. He was apparently a Protestant so I'm guessing he may have been from the North, but I have yet to find any more concrete information on his origins.

He was naturalized on August 31, 1880, but strangely I can't seem to find him in the 1880 census. I don't know what his wife's name was and I don't know his profession.

He had at least two children, one of whom was my great great grandmother, Isabella Esther Ryan, born in 1859 in Ireland. She married Andrew Lucas Chamberlain and died when my great grandmother, Laura, was only five.

Edward's other daughter that I know of, Catherine S. Ryan, was born in 1857, also in Ireland, and married Douglass Bellerjeau, a Philadelphia native.

The most informative source on my great great great grandfather is his death certificate, dated January 1886. He was only sixty. He died of pneumonia and was buried in the Greenwood Knights of Pythias Cemetery. His address was listed as 1477 Cook St., and he was a widower.

I'm fascinated by the mysteries of my past. These people are part of who I am, and it's amazing to think that this almost anonymous Irish immigrant was one of the people without whom I would not exist. Some day I'll find out more about him but until then it's good to know on St. Patrick's day (though surely Edward would not have acknowledged St Patrick!) that I'm at least that little part Irish.

Quisqueya Relief

2010-02-14T12:40:00.000-08:00

Check out this new blog about the Quisqueya Crisis Relief Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Don't miss the opportunity to donate.

Paraguayan guitarist Agustín Barrios Mangoré is one of the greatest musicians of all time.

2010-02-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

That's what world famous Australian guitarist John Williams says about this Paraguayan icon of the first half of the 20th century. Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas and Williams talk about this remarkable composer and guitarist that so beautifully represented the musical heart of Paraguay in this BBC interview.

Still Thinking About Haiti

2010-01-26T06:56:00.000-08:00

My posts about Haiti have slowed down considerably since last week. On Friday we left home (our temporary home in Kentucky) for a one-month road trip. This is the first extended time I've had internet access since then.

I haven't forgotten about Haiti. It's been on my mind constantly and I've particularly been praying for Steve Hersey and the team at Quisqueya Christian Academy and all the folks that continue to work for the restoration of Haiti. For the last few days they've been updating their website and tell of the excellent work they're doing to coordinate medical teams and help patients find the right location for the help they need.(To contribute to the ongoing aid and recovery work based at QCS, go to their website and scroll down to the PayPal "Donate" button.)

It does seem that the news media are forgetting, as they are bound to do as our own attention span wanes and our eyes look elsewhere for news-entertainment. Troy Livesay tweets that the media row, so much in evidence for the first week and a half at Toussaint Louverture Airport, has now disappeared. The aid effort, of course, has not disappeared and in some ways is only now beginning.

I've followed my sister Ruth's blog for a long time. She's been mysterious about where exactly she was located, preferring to refer to her adopted country as Tecwil. But after the quake she outed herself as a resident of Haiti, where she has in fact lived and worked since 1993. Check out her blog for beautiful writing in general and specifically these days for her own reflections on the earthquake, being a mom in a crisis, and being evacuated.

Some Links

2010-01-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

We're on the road for a few weeks and I'm not able to write a full post but I'd like to refer you again to the following excellent blogs:

Ben and Katie in Haiti, an excellent update on the goings-on at Quisqueya Christian School.

The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog, following the very hands-on relief work of missionaries Troy and Tara Livesay.

And the following interesting links:

Satellite image of the location of the QCS campus. If you zoom out you'll find the nearby Montana Hotel and Caribbean Market.

Article about a lady who will be sending aid for the work at QCS.

Interesting news today from QCS director Steve Hersey: they are going to reopen the school for the few students who are still in the country. They'll resume classes in a very scaled-down way on January 27th.

QCS Earthquake Command Center

2010-01-21T18:47:00.000-08:00

"Our campus has been preserved for a purpose." That was the realization that Quisqueya Christian School's Plant Operator Ted Steinhauer came to just hours after the earthquake hit Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area on January 12th. Although there was great destruction around the school, the QCS buildings had not sustained damage.

Almost immediately the QCS campus began to become a center for relief efforts. Its most obvious resource was its physical plant--undamaged buildings and courtyards as well as fields and open areas. Director Stephen Hersey comments on Facebook about the structural soundness of QCS buildings:

It is amazing. Many people are using the word 'miracle.' Walls collapsed right across the street, and the house directly across from the High School building suffered huge damage, big pieces falling off. I really have no explanation.

But it also had a dedicated, compassionate team of administrators, faculty and staff who love the people of Haiti and feel a call to serve them. Many of them were already involved in ministry in orphanages and Haitian schools. An additional resource was the community of parents and alumni, both Haitian and expats, that QCS is connected to.

Many of these people responded to the call for help and have teamed together under the leadership of people like Steinhauer and Hersey, sometimes using their training and experience in administration, organization, technology, and medicine; sometimes reaching out to their connections within Haiti and beyond; sometimes simply doing the grunt work that needed to be done to make the relief effort work.

An example of the last category is Ben Kilpatrick, a North American teacher who had barely worked in Haiti for two weeks when the earthquake hit. Yesterday he volunteered to accompany a trip up the mountain to the Dominican Republic to search for a truck carrying relief supplies that had broken down. Reports say that Ben and others like him have been available to do whatever was asked of him, joyfully serving others and helping to ease pain.

Part of the extended QCS community are Troy and Tara Livesay who work with Heartline Ministries and World Wide Village. They have been working with missionaries John and Beth McHoul, John and Jodie Ackerman, and others to treat those injured in the quake. Using very basic equipment and supplies, they have sutured wounds, set seriously broken bones, and otherwise helped to relieve suffering. They've had to get creative, like using sterile gloves to provide drainage for wounds. The Livesays' blog tells an amazing story of how they found help for some of their most serious patients on the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort.

The Livesays report that the larger Non-Government Organizations, better-supplied with water, food, fuel, and medicine, have not been heeding the call of smaller NGOs for help. The smaller organizations, many of which have invested in Haiti for years, are trying to band together to provide the support they are not finding in the large groups.

It's not clear whether the humedica team from Germany continues to lodge on the QCS campus now that they are no longer working in nearby Hôpital Espoir, but Els Vervloet reports that a Korean team will now be moving onto the grounds.

With access to communications equipment, motorcycles, trucks, interpreters, and runners, the QCS Earthquake Command Center has become a vital nexus in the ongoing relief and recovery efforts in Port-au-Prince.

QCS--For the Long Haul

2010-01-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

In the wake of a strong 6.0 aftershock early this morning, the administrators, teachers, and staff of Quisqueya Christian School are determined to be involved over the long term in the relief and recovery efforts in Port-au-Prince. Reports indicate that the campus was again undamaged this morning though other buildings in the neighborhood still standing after the quake a week ago have now collapsed. To give to ongoing relief efforts at Quisqueya, click here and donate through PayPal.

Teachers who have remained in Haiti this past week, some of them European or North American, have found ways of being involved. Ben and Katie Kilpatrick just arrived in Haiti at the end of December. Less than a month into their stay, they find themselves carrying makeshift stretchers, cleaning wounds, and comforting injured children at a temporary clinic established on the grounds of their church.

High school principal Tony Dekoter ended up on guard duty on campus one night. The Canadian missionary from the Christian Reformed Church plans to remain in Haiti as long as he's needed to help in any way he can. Sean Blesh, in Haiti with his family since August 2007, who found himself on the rescue team last Tuesday night pulling people from the collapsed Caribbean Market, has been working with other teachers to prepare the campus to be occupied by the U.S. Army Southern Command.

The campus now houses U.S. Army personnel including a high-ranking general, reports Crisis Response International. Director Steve Hersey writes that he had the opportunity yesterday to brief Army Special Forces troops that will base at the school. Teachers were asked to clean out their classrooms so that the soldiers could move in. Senior Jessica Ackerman helped her mother, a teacher at the school with the task.

The German orthopedic team camping on the grounds continues to offer its services at nearby Hôpital Espoir. [UPDATE, 11:35 am. A message has come from Els Vervloet that the team has had to be withdrawn from Hôpital Espoir due to damage sustained to the operating room this morning in the 6.0 magnitude aftershock. The orthopedic team will be redeployed to Diquini/Carrefour to the west of Port-au-Prince, nearer the earthquake's epicenter.] Displaced orphans have occupied a classroom wing and the six-member CRI team from Kansas City has been camping on the soccer field.

The relief operation based at the QCS property continues to grow as administrators reach out to Quisqueya's community of students, parents, and alumni to participate. School registrar Els Vervloet of the Netherlands today requested volunteers to serve as telephone operators. She asked for people with skills in English, French and/or Haitian Creole, and Spanish if possible, to respond. These operators will be working around the clock in three shifts manning the high-tech Emergency Operations Center installed on campus.

This equipment, loaned and put in place by Quisqueya graduates Joel Trimble, Jr. and his brother, Michael, does not rely on existing telephony infrastructure but used satellite technology. The Trimbles are communications engineers and the specialized electronics come from IT Broadcasting. The brothers chartered a flight from their Florida base to Cap Haïtien on the north side of the island and transported it overland to Port-au-Prince.

This morning school director Steve Hersey sent out a request over Facebook for motorcycles and skilled drivers to be used in the relief effort. Facebook has been an important channel of communication for many in Port-au-Prince during this crisis as well as a means for those outside of Haiti to find loved ones and follow the relief efforts.

Hersey and school Chief of Operations Ted Steinhauer as well as other administrators have been working hard to coordinate with military and other relief organizations that are operating in their area, but they've also been meeting with school personnel to discuss how the relief operation will develop into a recovery and rebuilding operation. They intend to partner for the long term with their community to serve those who have been affected by the quake.

This investment in the community is not something QCS began after the earthquake. The school has a long tradition, sustained by compassionate teachers and energetic students, of investing in its community. Els Vervloet reminded alumni, parents, and students two days ago of the H.O.P.E. orphanage, this year's senior class's Community Service Project focus. The orphanage sustained damage in the earthquake and now "the H.O.P.E. girls and the family running it are living in 2 small rooms next to their clinic."

Many of those seniors, heartbroken, have now had to leave Haiti, unsure of if or when they'll ever return. A difficult decision has been made this week by QCS teachers, administrators and parents to send some family members out of the country. Torn between the desire to serve the desperately suffering and the need to see their families well, in some cases children have been sent to live with relatives or mothers of younger children have taken their children to the US, Canada, or Europe. Those not vital to the relief effort often felt they were using resources--food, water, cooking gas, power--that would be better used by someone else. Some expressed a sense that they were abandoning Haiti, their Ayiti cheri (Dear Haiti) that they love and mourn for. There are feelings of guilt and anguish for those who did not survive. Many will return as they have many times before, but for now they feel they ought to do more.

There will be much, much more to be done. International leaders swear they will rebuild Haiti but as always it will be individuals and families, serving in small ways, that will make the difference for the people of Ayiti cheri.

Day Seven

2010-01-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Although the seventy-two hour window that rescuers say is key to finding people alive following a disaster has long passed, Steve Hersey, director of Quisqueya Christian School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, writes that people are still being brought out of the rubble alive in their Delmas neighborhood. Last night sixty people were rescued from a collapsed building. His wife, my sister, Ruth Hersey, speaking in a church yesterdat in Wilmore, Kentucky, advised the rescuers not to give up looking. Haitians are strong people, she said, "They don't know Haitians. They'd better keep looking, because Haitians can last longer than anyone."

Steve posted on his Facebook early this morning, "As I start out this day, I'm thankful that the school fuel tanks were filled just before the earthquake; that all QCS teachers are accounted for; that QCS has solid internet service -- and much more."

The school campus continues to host a number of relief efforts, including a US Army logistics team that has set up shop in a classroom. The Army is also helping to support and maintain generators and other equipment at nearby Hôpital Espoir.

Missionary and QCS teacher Els Vervloet reports on Facebook, "At one gate a DR medical team came asking to put them to work, at the same time at the other gate a truck arrived from Dan O'Neil with medical supplies and more, while at the front gate a truckload of wounded Haitians showed up begging for medical help. It's easy to do the job when God is in charge."

Supplies arriving through the Port-au-Prince airport and also coming in through the Dominican Republic are coming into the campus from where they are distributed.

The issue of fuel is becoming significant as smaller organizations and missions are unable to get diesel for their generators, their only source of electric power. Missionary Troy Livesay tweets that at one gas station prices as high as $14 US a gallon were being charged for gasoline.

Meanwhile, Quisqueya personnel continue to try to track down information on those students who have as yet not been heard from. Some of the elementary school students have already been reported to have died in the quake.

One student, Jessica Ackerman, is blogging about her own personal experiences following the earthquake, which shattered the final semester of her senior year in high school. She writes, "You might watch the news and think it looks bad, but I am living it. I am affected far less than many, and I am still living it. I am living it and it is hell."

She reports that besides being a temporary home to several teachers and Haitian staff, the campus has become a meeting place for students who gather to share their heartache.

Many of the Quisqueya students, who commonly speak at least English and Kreyol, are serving as interpreters for the international aid teams. Katie reports that several of them are interpreting at Hôpital Espoir.

With communication capabilities severely damaged, a group of QCS alumni have set up satellite communications equipment on campus and are using this to contact various groups and missions, in order to cooperate and coordinate relief efforts. Quisqueya personnel are also working with families that need to evacuate, helping to facilitate getting children out of the country and to safety.

God has made the QCS community a hub of hopefulness and healing in the Delmas neighborhood.

Relief Continues at Quisqueya

2010-01-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

Medical and communications teams have made it to the campus of Quisqueya Christian School in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. News from missionary Els Vervloet says a team from Kansas City-based Crisis Response International has set up a medical base. The six-member CRI team came in via the Dominican Republic.

Another team has come from Cap Haïtien, in the north of Haiti, with communications capabilities. One of the biggest barriers to the developing relief operation is the lack of communications infrastructure. Pre-earthquake systems were meager and the earthquake knocked out many of the existing network including cell phones and many landlines.

An orthopedic team from Germany was directed to the QCS campus and are camping there while working at nearby Hôpital Espoir (Hope Hospital). The fact that the security wall around the campus is intact is a great comfort to those staying on the premises, including children from a nearby orphanage which collapsed.

Ruth Hersey of QCS reported that this hospital was completely out of supplies though the medical staff continued to work heroically. A doctor was dispatched to round up analgesics and dressings from the medicine cabinets of any neighbors who could spare them. Ruth reported she was surprised to find how many useful medical supplies she had in her own house!

An emergency team from the US Army also plans to set up operations on the school campus, reports Vervloet. Despite reports yesterday that the desperately needed emergency help had been largely held up at Toussaint Louverture airport due to logistics issues, the missionary writes on Facebook: "Still professional rescue teams working everywhere and getting people from under the rubble (dead and alive). Lots and lots of Dominican trucks with water and hot food on the streets distributing to the homeless. I saw lots of portable toilets set up. Encouraging!"

To donate through Paypal to ongoing relief work at Quisqueya Christian School, go to their website and click on the Donate button at the bottom.

Good News in the Midst of Bad

2010-01-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

Good news this evening from the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The medical team that the Quisqueya Christian School campus had prepared for has arrived. They have gotten to work treating some of the very needy injured.

My sister, Ruth Hersey, posted on Facebook: "saw the first team right after they arrived at school this evening - doctors, etc. The campus had such a peaceful feeling - orphanage kids, staff on the field, team arriving full of purpose. Praise God!"

Her husband Steve was upbeat tonight about the progress being made--streets being cleared, some beginning the long process of putting their lives back together. After three days of overwhelming sadness and loss, there's a glimmer.

What a wonderful thing to have a sense of task and mission, something useful and meaningful to do in the middle of a mess of suffering. Something that really makes a difference in the suffering.

Ruth's Facebook quotes a Rich Mullins song:

But for now we live on these streets
Forbidding and tough
Where push always comes to shove
And it's said love's never enough
Where a prophet in rags gives hope to a fearful world

Jesus, bless those who hold out hope in Haiti tonight.

School Earthquake Plan

2010-01-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

In the 2009-2010 Student-Parent Handbook for Quisqueya Christian School, in Haiti, they have included the following clause:

      2. The school will always have emergency supplies of food and water.
            a. In the aftermath of a disaster (whether an earthquake, political crisis, or a similar emergency) that occurs while school is in session:
                i. Until a general “all clear” statement is issued, students will not be permitted to leave campus without administrative consent or being accompanied by a parent or guardian.
                ii. No student will use the QCS telephone unless directed. Cell phones may be used with permission.

I don't remember if any of the schools I've ever been to had an earthquake-preparedness clause in their Handbook.

In an emergency response vacuum, the Quisqueya campus has become a center for relief. The first night many people slept on the soccer field, with the security of the school's wall to protect them, and the knowledge of availability of water. There are still staff and national workers living on the soccer field and one of the playgrounds is serving as temporary housing for children from a nearby orphanage.

Immediately after the quake news came to the campus that a large grocery store nearby had collapsed. A group of teachers and staff went up the road and helped pull 34 people out of the rubble.

That first morning, one lady who had been injured in the quake, a relative of a school employee, passed away. My sister wrote that it was "the saddest thing I'd ever seen."

Tomorrow the school will host a medical team that will begin assisting the many injured people in the neighborhood. There will be a temporary hospital/operating room in the chapel and a trauma center on the basketball court.

Steve Hersey, my brother-in-law, is the director of the school. He writes on the Quisqueya website: "We hope to be able to have a water and food distribution from our campus also."

My sister and her family have fourteen people sleeping at their house. Last night they slept outside for fear of aftershocks. But for some reason their house has not been damaged structurally. That's significant when you consider that Steve writes that at least one-third of the buildings in their area are already demolished or will have to be.

They are going to have many people relying on them over the next days and months. To donate directly to Quisqueya's happening-right-now expertise-on-the-ground community relief efforts, go to the Quisqueya website and click on donate at the bottom of the screen.

How to Help in Haiti

2010-01-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

There are a number of large agencies that are sending or have sent teams to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. Most are probably taking huge amounts of relief supplies: tents, food, water, blankets, medicine and other essentials.

One missionary blogging in Haiti writes:

If you don't speak Creole/Kreyol and don't have the ability to work with injured people - you should NOT come. We cannot feed you and we don't have a place to house you.

Makes sense.

My brother-in-law Steve Hersey and my sister Ruth have lived in Haiti through coups, Marine invasions, hurricanes, and the daily crisis that is life for the 80% of Haitians that live in poverty. When many left the country, they have stayed behind to serve. I don't doubt they are even now doing everything they can to serve those in terrible need around them. They speak Kreyol, they know their community, and they are strategically placed to do real good, if in a small way.

If you would like to help them help others right now, you can give to their account at Free Methodist World Missions. If you don't wish to indicate a home church in the sign-in process, just select a location and select the "UNKNOWN" option. When you get to the donation page, select #4. VISA from the list on the left and then scroll down on the right to "VISA Hersey, Steve." [Update: Even better, give to the Quisqueya Christian School relief program by going to the Quisqueya website and clicking on donate at the bottom.]

The site is a bit clumsy but it will work if you stick with it.

Family in Haiti

2010-01-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

My sister and brother-in-law, Ruth and Steve Hersey, are missionaries serving at Quisqueya Christian School in Haiti. I've been trying to call them ever since I heard about the powerful earthquake last evening, but haven't been able to get through yet.

Today Steve was able to get to a computer briefly and sent the following update:

Quick message while I have email at a guest house. Most communication
is down. Little phone contact. No internet at school or home.

This is terrible. Spent last night outside on soccer field with
family. We are OK. House is structurally OK, but a mess. School
will be closed indefinitely.

Dead bodies everywhere. I've contacted all but 6 teachers. Several
good friends are missing. Many big buildings collapsed. Hopefully
we'll get communications back soon.

Many teachers involved in search and rescue.

We are OK, but please keep us in your prayers.

They will be dealing with an overwhelming amount of need over the next few weeks. They already live in a hugely needy place, and now the little that many people have has been taken from them.

Air Conditioners Make You Sick

2010-01-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

Today's ABC Color, a Paraguayan newspaper, reports that the Paraguayan Ministry of Health has warned citizens of the danger of using their air conditioner too much. The cool air, they advise, can cause respiratory diseases. Doctor Margarita Ojeda, director of the Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias y del Ambiente (INERAM), the National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases, advises Paraguayans to turn on their air conditioners before lying down to sleep, cooling down the room, and then "maintain the temperature with the fan."

Keep in mind that night-time temperatures in Asuncion are expected to dip tonight to 88F, and that daytime temperatures are in the upper 90s and 100s.

A friend told me yesterday that they had resolved not to turn on their air conditioner but when their upstairs bedroom hit 108 they had to relent.

Interestingly, the same newspaper reports that ANDE, the national electric company, had the previous night reported a record peak in power consumption. At 10 pm last night Paraguayan consumers were using 1,830 megawatts, up from last year's peak of 1,713.

My understanding is that 100% of Paraguay's power needs are supplied by three hydroelectric plants, one of which, Itaipú, has the highest output of any power plant in the world.

But an aging distribution system means that Paraguayan consumers can't always get the maximum benefit from their dams. Transformers blow, switches fail, and inefficient power lines cause significant losses.

The coincidence of the two articles appearing on the same day was not lost on Paraguayan readers, several of whom commented that the government should just be honest about where the request for moderate air conditioner use was really coming from. A couple even challenged the Minister of Health to follow her own advice and try to get a good night's sleep.

Some New Features

2010-01-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

I've added a link to our latest newsletter, which you can access at the bottom of the left column. And be sure to check out our photos by clicking on one of the slideshows in the right column!

Dos mil diez (2010)

2010-01-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Our New Year's Eve was pretty tranquil. Since we're in the US this year we're living near my family, which means we get to spend time with them. My parents and my brother and his family came over for dinner.

Lizet made salteñas. Salteñas are a delicious pastry from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where Lizet's from. They're a version of the pan-Latin empanada, a flour pastry filled with chicken, beef, cheese, or other things, and often deep-fried. The salteña, though, is baked. It can be filled with beef, either fresh or in the form of charque, which is sun-dried. Or it can have chicken, which is how Lizet usually makes it, along with raisins, boiled eggs, onion, garlic, olives, cumin, salt, and pepper.

One unique feature of salteñas from Santa Cruz is that the pastry has an orange tint. This comes from the addition to the dough of the extract of the urucú seed. Urucú is the achiote plant, which grows in Bolivia and Paraguay, and from which the international food industry gets the natural food coloring anatto.

Lizet's salteñas are delicious and always a hit. In fact, she's really a talented cook, which is something I didn't realize until after we were married!

After dinner, Mom & Dad left, we put the boys to bed, and my brother and his family stayed until shortly after ten, playing 'Whoonu' which we had never played before. Anna and Lizet and I stayed up for a while watching the celebration in Times Square but Lizet and I were in bed well before midnight.

In Paraguay we would probably have been up adding to the cacophony of fireworks, though in our neighborhood, as rural as it is, the cacophony is pretty subdued. We shot some off last year but Timothy was pretty scared of them, and Oso didn't like them at all. Lizet's parents and her sisters were there to share the celebration with us.

Here's to a surprise-filled 2010!

Learning Guarani Online

2009-12-30T07:56:00.000-08:00

There don't seem to be a whole lot of good resources online to learn Guarani. Recently a colleague sent me a link to LearnGuarani.com, a site that's under development by Stephen. So far so good. I'm hoping this will develop into a useful resource for beginning Guarani learners.

If you want to learn Guarani not just as a linguistic exercise--that is, if you're interested in actually communicating with mother-tongue Paraguayan Guarani speakers--you need to keep a couple of issues in mind:

First, there's a movement to "purify" Guarani by removing as much Spanish vocabulary from it as possible. There is a sense in this movement that Guarani is somehow weakened, corrupted, or made less beautiful by the inclusion of loanwords. Whether that is true or not is a subject for another posting, but suffice it to say that if you want to use a Guarani that actually communicates, you should focus on "Guarani-Jopara," (mixed Guarani,) or Paraguayan Popular Guarani, which does include a lot of Spanish loanwords. The words that academics have either created to reference new concepts or revived from archaic sources will leave most Paraguayan speakers perplexed and instead of promoting relationship will tend to increase distance between you and your listener.

Second, if you are learning Guarani with a Paraguayan Guarani-speaker as a resource, generally speaking he or she will not be confident about writing in Guarani. Paraguayan children now learn to write in Guarani in school but this wasn't always the case. I do not mean to suggest that Paraguayans are illiterate but most adult Paraguayans feel much more confident reading and writing in Spanish than in Guarani, even if Guarani is their first language. Unless your Guarani resource person has studied Guarani, either he/she will be reluctant to tell you how to spell things in Guarani or he/she will spell it in a way that diverges from the accepted orthography.

For this reason you are likely to come across a number of different spellings for the same word, such as: jaé, jhaé, jha'e, or ha'e, (meaning he/she/it,) only the last of which is written in the currently accepted way. (Just look at any map of Paraguay and you'll see a dozen Guarani place names spelled in an orthography based on Spanish that is diferent from the current official orthography!) This can be confusing to the beginner but it's by no means insurmountable. You have to learn to hear the sounds and transcribe what you hear. With practice you'll do this with little difficulty.

If anyone comes across any good online resources for learning Guarani-Jopara, I'd be happy to know about them.

My students

2009-02-11T03:56:00.000-08:00

The people I've helped to learn Guarani are now all over Paraguay doing a variety of different tasks. I thought it would be interesting to link to some of their pages and blogs so that you can see who they are.

My very first student, way back in 1995, when I began writing the Guarani text, was James Arritt. Though he's no longer in Paraguay, Paraguay is still in him, as evidenced by his website offering yerba mate for sale.

When the Guarani-Jopara Institute for Missionaries started up in 2000, the first students were Dan and Christie Reich who now live and work in the town of Yuty, about 140 km from where we live, as the crow flies. The same year we were joined by Lindsay Gilliam who had already been a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay so he knew some Guarani. Although he just moved to Loja, Ecuador, Guarani has turned out to be very important for him, because he married Eva, for whom it's a first language! Check out their video on YouTube. That's the first class above: L to R; Andy Bowen, Christie Reich, Dan Reich, Lindsay Gilliam, language helper Irene Ayala.

Subsequent students now working in rural Paraguay include Jeff and Amy McKissick, who operate a mobile medical clinic in the village of San Francisco; Tom and Kelly Stout, who also work in rural Paraguay, though they're currently in the U.S. (check out this exciting project that the McKissicks and the Stouts are involved in!); John Griffin, in Tobati, and Paul and Marla Fields, who direct the work of ABWE in Paraguay. Their daughter, Shellie Silva, studied with us in the same class--she's married to a Guarani speaker. Another ABWE missionary, Laura Fouser, is now located across the border in Campo Grande, Brazil, having learned Spanish, Guarani, and now Portuguese. A short-termer from the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church named Tonya VanKampen has since married and lives with her husband Kris Dixon in the U.S., though by the looks of their blog they're still very involved in missions!

Other former students who don't seem to have blogs include Dan and Sarah Hough, who live in Caazapá; Gil and Renita Rempel, in Campo 9; Erna Plett and Esther Goertzen, in Caaguazú (the Rempels, Erna, the Goertzens, and the Zachariases are all members of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference); and Steve and Marilyn Haines, who seem to be living in Loma Plata, in the Paraguayan Chaco. Their daughters Rachel and Rebecca studied with us too.

My current class has four students: Greg Cameron (his wife Vonnie studied last year), Travis and Rosey Zacharias, and my wife Lizet. Here's the current class: L to R; Travis, our language helper Norma, Greg, Lizet, and Rosey.

The best I can tell, I've had 28 missionaries study with me since the Guarani institute opened in 2000. I've invested in their lives and now they are investing in the lives of countless others using the resource of Guarani.

We live in Paradise

2008-11-23T06:16:00.001-08:00

There may be other people that think they live in Paradise, but I'm pretty sure we do. Paraguay is semitropical and has an amazingly long growing season.

We throw out seeds and they produce fruit plants. We're surrounded by fruit--bananas of three varieties, mangoes, papayas, pineapples, avocados (they are fruit, right?), lemons of two or three kinds, grapefruits, tangerines, so many guava trees it makes me think I should be marketing them, as well as the raspberries that we've planted and that quickly got out of control so that we had to move them to a bigger space. We have some young loquat trees that haven't born fruit yet, and I've recently planted a pecan, a macadamia nut, a fig tree, a cherry tree, and a pome- granate.

We planted some seeds my father-in-law brought us from Bolivia. In Bolivia they call the two fruits ocoró and achachairú, and one of them grows wild here and is known as pakuri. They took months to germinate and not all of them did, but eventually they should bear some nice fruit. We also have a tamarind that will provide some nice juice and maybe sauces some day. And then there's all the native stuff that grows in the forest that's edible--inga and espuma rosa and yvapurû and yvapovõ and who knows what else.

The flowers have been especially beautiful this year--perhaps because of all the rain this spring. I've never seen so many flowers on the timbo trees (Enterolobium contortisiliquum) (that's a timbo behind our house above) and the inga (Inga uruguensis); and the jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) and yellow lapacho (Tabebuia pulcherrima) have been stunning. I never even noticed the sapirangy (Tabernae- montana australis) flower before, and this year they were all covered with beautiful white blooms.

There's one downside to Paradise--it comes at a price. Bugs. Of course, for an entomologist it would still be Paradise. And I often wish I knew more about them. I recently read that there are 540 species of ants in Paraguay, and I'm always finding new and bizarre bugs around the house (like the rhinoceros beetle above). Unfortunately--and this is the downside--a reasonable share of them bite and so you have to deal with those. Then there are the ones that lay their eggs on you and the ones that burrow into your kids' feet.

But please don't get me wrong. We live in Paradise.

AMSLA Paraguay 2008

2008-07-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

We've been planning for over a year for the AMSLA congress. AMSLA is Agencia Misionera de Santidad Latino Americana, or the Latin American Holiness Mission Agency. The churches WGM works with in Latin America have united to form a mission sending agency. Every two years we all meet together to celebrate and promote missions and to encourage and get to know each other. This year it was Paraguay's turn to host the convention.

So last Thursday believers from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and the United States, as well as Paraguayans, gathered in Asuncion for three days of getting excited about what God is doing. It really was exciting, too. Each country had an opportunity to share and we all worshipped together, mostly in Spanish but also with a few additions in Bolivian Quechua, Peruvian Quechua, and Guarani. The traditional songs and dress were impressive and even more exciting were the stories of God's grace in each of the countries represented.

On Sunday we had a special commissioning service for two couples who are being sent as missionaries—a Honduran couple to central Asia and a Bolivian couple to the southern United States—and for the new Executive Director of AMSLA, Jorge Pacheco, a Honduran. It was thrilling to see these families being sent into the harvest field from the Latin American church.

I was especially pleased with how the Paraguay team, led by Pastor Rafael Flores, put together and executed the conference. There was barely a hitch. It was really beautiful to see, especially since we've never done anything near that big before! A real milestone in the history of the Iglesia Evangélica Mundial in Paraguay!

All That Way?

2008-06-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

A man from Escobar came to buy a pig from Norma the other day. Vonni and Greg, my Guarani students, were at Norma's house so the man asked where they were from. Norma replied that they had come from Africa.

"Eh!" He replied, "and what did they come here for?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure I could explain it all to you," said Norma, "but I think they've come to tell people that Jesus lives."

"Eh!" Said the man again, "they've come all the way from Africa for that? I've been baptized and I don't even talk about Jesus to the man who lives next door to me! I'm ashamed."

Foreigners Don't Learn Guarani!

2008-04-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

"We were talking with some people who were visiting our neighbor Norma. They kept trying to talk to us in Spanish, and Norma had to tell them, 'They don't understand Spanish. Speak to them in Guarani!' We suddenly realized that Paraguayans are going to expect us to talk to them in Spanish, and we're going to have to convince them to speak Guarani with us."

In fact, I had told my students on several different occasions that it's unusual for outsiders in Paraguay to learn Guarani. But there's a difference, isn't there, from being told something and experiencing it for yourself.

Guarani is uniquely Paraguayan, and Paraguayans identify with it as theirs in a way they don't do with Spanish. But it's also considered a non-prestige language and it's unusual everywhere for people to voluntarily learn a language that's less prestigious when a more prestigious one is available.

Consider, for example, Latinos in the U.S. They are expected to learn English because in the U.S. that is the more prestigious language. It's far less common for an English speaker in the U.S. to accommodate to them by speaking Spanish.

Rural Paraguayans are generally much more comfortable with and competent in Guarani, although they may feel that they ought to speak Spanish. They feel this even more strongly when they're speaking to foreigners, instinctively assuming that the foreigner will expect this.

But Guarani is the language of relationship. "Igústo nendive, porque ikatu roñe'ê nendive guaraníme," said a friend of mine; "I feel good with you, because we can talk to you in Guarani."

By learning Guarani, my students send a strong message to rural Paraguayans: your world, your culture, your identity are important to me. I don't expect you to accommodate to me. I'll make an effort, I'll even look foolish, in order to have a relationship with you in your world, in your context. I'll identify with you so that I can be your friend.

Many here expect that their country, their values will be scorned by outsiders. Some consider themselves to be residents of a backwards country. Their relationship with Guarani reflects that--they think outsiders won't value it and will consider it a primitive language. An outsider who learns Guarani surprises Paraguayans by being interested in ore ñe'ê; our language. Instinctively the Paraguayan feels, "if he's interested in my language, perhaps he's interested in me."

So my students struggle through and feel ignorant some days and perplex people because they don't do what they're expected to. And on the way, they get into their neighbors' hearts, and their neighbors get into theirs.

Message from the Hill

2008-03-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

As I sit at my desk I'm looking south at the plain where the Pirity winds to join the Tebicuary River. Twenty miles away the Acahay Hill rises from the valley. Most of what I see is dry and beginning to get brown, but the clouds moving in slowly from the west suggest that rain might not be far away.

The community of Mbocayaty is celebrating Easter weekend--Pascua. Family members who had gone to work in the city have returned home to be with the extended family. Mother makes chipa from home-ground manioc flour. Sopa paraguaya, with corn and onions and fat from the pig that was butcherred this morning, baked in the wood-fired tatacuá, comes out smelling of childhood. Visits to the cool chorro, where the water comes cascading over the rocks into the pool under the trees, with its sandy beach. Ice-cold tereré passed around from father to son to brother. Precious days in the "valle" of their childhood, but too short. The same economics that forced them to Asunción to find work will see them back on the bus tomorrow afternoon to clock in early on Monday morning at the grocery stores, laundries, and bottle factories that pay them a living wage.

But for now, this rural community and thousands like it across Paraguay are temporarily full of their children and grandchildren. The urbanization of a nation that still has its roots largely in the country is reversed for one long weekend.

Tomorrow families and communities will once more be fragmented. Social networks, tentatively reestablished for three or four days, will be retorn and the city life will resume. Young rural men with no grandmothers to scold them into conformity will live as they wish in the permissive city and reap the consequences with no comfort of home. Young women will struggle to keep dreams alive among the pressures of insecurity, inequality, and loneliness.

They'll continue to send money home, but most will be spent as higher wages accompany higher costs. And gradually the ties with the valle will grow weaker until one year they don't return and abuelita will mourn in gently lilting Guarani, "ndouvéima che memby, che nieto kuéra. Opytapáma Paraguaýre. Che añónte apyta." My children, my grandchildren no longer come. They all stay in Asunción. I alone remain.