I am working through a study on 1 Peter, and this past week the focus was on background info on Peter himself.  We're pretty familiar with the fact that he betrayed Jesus by denying that he even knew Him, this friend he'd walked with, eaten with, ministered with.  Peter had seen Jesus do tons of miracles, had been with Him as He preached to the crowds, had stepped out of the safety of a boat to meet Jesus by walking on water.  This was no casual acquaintance they had.

"He began to curse and he swore to them, 'I don't know the man!'"  Matt 26:72

As I thought this weekend about what I'd been reading about Peter, I was amazed at the turn-around he made after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension.  In Acts, Peter and John were threatened by the officials and ordered to stop teaching about Jesus, but Peter's reply?  

"We can't help speaking about what we have seen and heard."  Acts 4:20

Another thing that struck me was the way the crowd responded to Peter and John when they were preaching, as recorded in Acts 4:13,

"When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." 

Wow, unschooled, ordinary men. I feel so unprepared and ordinary at times, like I'm underqualified for the vision God's given us in this life as missionaries. But if someone can look at me and take note that I've been with Jesus, if they see my courage and are inspired in some way to follow Jesus, okay.

I was very encouraged by being reminded of Peter's shortcomings and failures, and how Jesus called him out despite this and used him in the work.  

I. am. not. a morning person. Period.  I never have been.  I cringe when I read the Christian women books that talk about the Proverbs 31 woman rising early to tend to the needs of her household.  I volunteer to work the nursery when I know the Pastor has plans to preach about David's advice that we praise the Lord in the early morning hours.

I have a whole list of excuses to bolster me in my morning-deficit lifestyle.  Perhaps I've told them to you when I feel the need to justify why you've done hours worth of productive work before I've opened my eyes.  I certainly use them here, where the Paraguayan women have swept their yards and mopped every surface of their inside and outside living areas before the sun comes up.

1.  I do my best work after the kids are in bed, so I end up awake very late.
2.  Because we work with youth, we are often up visiting with them until the wee hours.
3.  My leg hurts a lot and is stiff in the mornings.
4.  God made me this way, and why fight the natural bent He's given me?
...and my personal favorite, because it sounds so holy,
5.  God designed the day to begin as the sun went down (see Genesis 1 and ask a Jew), so when I meet with him before bed, I actually am starting my day with the Lord.

Perhaps when I am an empty-nester, those will cut it.  But for now, I fully recognize that the house does not function well if I'm not up before the girls.  This is a challenge because Camille has always been an early riser, due to the fact that--according to my Granny--I changed the words of the famous bedtime prayer so as not to scare her with talk of death:  "Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  Please be with me through the night, and wake me with the morning light."  Lesson learned.  We made up a totally different prayer for Caroline's bedtime blessing.

So what's a girl to do?  Any mom worth her salt knows that the next logical step is to google it.  I found a group of like-minded gals, struggling with the knowledge that we should get up early vs. the nature that we don't want to get up early.  I signed up for the Hello Mornings Challenge, joined one of the accountability groups, and downloaded my Bible study, which happens to be on 1 Peter this time around.


During this challenge, I receive weekly emails of encouragement and tips--good ones, like setting the alarm clock back a bit at a time, rather than all in one chunk.  Tons of free resources on the website and associated blogs help me organize my morning, plan time with God first thing, and also work some exercise into my routine.  The exercise I already had going, but moving God into the morning slot instead of his Jewish-style night-time place was necessary.

Each morning, I check in on my group's facebook page, working through that day's Bible study with them and sharing prayer requests.  Then I have my personal time with God and get the day rolling.

I've just finished my first week, and I have to tell you that I love it.  I could go on and on about how much more productive I am, how proud I feel of myself throughout the day, how much more smoothly the day goes when I'm proactive instead of reactive.  But the biggest benefit is that when I wake up alone and have time that I can spend with God uninterrupted, it fills me so that when I spill out onto others, it's God I'm sharing instead of myself.  And that's worth setting the alarm for.

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I've always been fascinated with natural cures and living healthy.  Okay, I didn't say I've always LIVED healthy, but I'm interested in it, anyway.  Just don't throw away your prescriptions based on anything you might read here.

Any Paraguayan woman worth her mandioca knows how to take common weeds (referred to as jujos) and treat any infirmity, cure just about any ailment.  These little leaves and roots and seeds--and occasionally fruits--get chopped up, ground up, boiled, dried, you name it.

Sometimes they get mixed in with a thermos full of water, to make the base for terere (cold tea).  A few mint leaves to help with the heat.  Boldo to aid in digestion.

Other times they are added to boiling water and make a sort of medicinal tea. I once had a terrible kidney infection that wouldn't quit, even after months of doctor's visits and antibiotics--which I absolutely despise taking.  Finally, the ladies of my barrio came by with the seeds of the avocado tree, and ground those babies up pretty fine.  Then they added water and boiled until we had a dark liquid, which I drank through a filtered straw (bombilla) to avoid the seeds.  I might add that they really wanted to take these natural remedies by the curandero (aka witch doctor) before they began to "cook," but I insisted that wasn't necessary.  Within a few hours of the first drink, my pain was gone, and after a few days of 3-4 cups per day of this stuff, I was cured for good.  Can't beat that!

And at times, they are eaten straight up, or made into juice, such as this popular treatment for high blood pressure and as a before-bed drink to help you sleep well.  You'll find a lovely little vine climbing all over Paraguay, with the most exotic, detailed flower you've ever seen.  But it's the yellow fruit that makes this mburucuya (boo DOO koo yah) plant so special.  Its name actually means breeding of flies in Guaraní, because of its sweet smell.  You probably know it as passion fruit.  It is ready to use when the thick skin starts to wrinkle a bit, and then's when you can mix up a concoction that the locals swear by.

I can also testify that this juice works like a charm, because I drank gallons of it the first few weeks we were in Paraguay.  It was a terribly hot summer, the middle of a long drought, and we were new to this heat.  So the hotter and more faint I felt, the more mburucuya juice I drank, never realizing that the weakness was because my already very low blood pressure was plummeting with each swallow of the yummy yellow elixir. After passing out several times one morning, someone brought a nurse by our house.  The story ends with a lot of IV liquids, the ER doctor telling me my blood pressure at arrival was "incompatible with life," and a strong warning to never again touch a drop of the mburucuya juice.  How sad.

Blend it until it's a slushy mush, about a minute or so.  There will still be chunks of seeds in there.  Then pour the contents of the blender into a one-gallon pitcher, through a strainer.


It'll take a little while for this stuff to strain through because of all the seeds, but use a spoon to move it around until what you're left with in the strainer is a moist ball of seeds like the picture below.  You can throw those away.

Add sugar if you'd like, and enough water to fill the pitcher.  I would recommend that you start with a small glass of this at first, because some people find it makes them quite sleepy.  Perfect for hammock time!

I'm ashamed to say that my phone has this sweet lady listed that way, as Mrs. Weedeater.  It all started when a little grandpa man showed up at our gate a few days after we'd moved in.  He stood about 4 feet tall, and the giant weedeater slung over his shoulder seemed about 6 feet long.  He said he'd been the grass-cutter for the previous tenant, told us his price, and said he'd stop by once a week or so to see if we needed his services.

By the time he came by the next week, we'd calculated that it was much less expensive to pay him for a year of weedeating than to buy a lawnmower ourselves.  Manual labor is pretty cheap here, and imported equipment is not.  So, yeah, please, cut our grass, Sir.

Since it's winter, we figured we'd not need him for another month, at least.  But he showed up like clockwork the next week, ringing the bell at our gate.  I went out to let him know how happy we were with the job, and that the grass hasn't grown any yet, all the while pointing and waving my arms around like Vanna White.

Finally, he said, "I am walking around to all my clients to see if they'd like to participate in a fundraiser, because my wife just found out she has cancer.  We have to make the trip to Buenos Aires in a week for her treatment."  Now, in that statement, there is fodder for a slew of other blog posts, but let's sum it up....

Most people here do not have health insurance (mostly just us foreigners and the wealthy Paraguayans) because public socialized medicine is "free."  I say free, but somehow major surgeries, many medicines, and specialized treatment have price tags, although it's still MUCH cheaper than what you'd pay elsewhere.  But the Paraguayan people know that--well, how can I say this?--you get what you pay for.

So when they are faced with a serious health crisis, many bypass their own system and do what they need to do in order to obtain care from neighboring Argentina.  This doesn't just happen in the city of Encarnacion, but all over Paraguay.  If I understand correctly, Argentina provided inexpensive treatment to everyone, but this has changed, especially since Paraguay is being punished by the other countries of Mercosur for the recent political upheaval.

Now, a person seeking care must fill out the paperwork to become legal in Argentina.  I don't know if this is citizenship or residency or what, but I've heard of all sorts of ways people have found to work this out, from forging papers to changing birth records to using a family member who does live there as an anchor.  Either way, they leave Paraguay for important care, if they can raise the funds for a bus ticket.

Back to Mr. Weedeater, who really does have a real name, but after asking him the fourth time to repeat it, I gave up and pretended I understood.  I asked him if I could visit with his wife, after I bought a few of the fundraiser tickets (They're selling alfajor pies.)  He was very excited about the visit and gave me directions.

The next day, I called Mrs. Weedeater, avoided trying to say her last name, and we dropped by for a visit.  True to Paraguayan form, we arrived to find them all dressed up and ready to receive us.  "No, please, keep your seat!  You should be resting!"  They're so hospitable here.

We talked with her for a while, passed around terere, and had a great discussion about trusting God.  This little roly-poly grandson of theirs climbed all around us, grinning and being shy, until he asked me to take his picture in Grandma's lap.  We prayed with her and told her we'd share her story so that you could be praying for her, too.  I think God will know exactly who you're talking about when you ask him to heal and strengthen Mrs. Weedeater. :)

In packing, moving, and unpacking, we found that Caroline has outgrown a lot of her clothes.  I mean A LOT of her clothes.  She really hit a growth spurt this past year or so.  In fact, she's now taller than Camille and almost my height.  So, yeah, she found that most of her pants are now high-waters, and most of her shirts look like something you'd find on a Bratz doll.  We don't do belly buttons, so time for donating clothes!    A perfect opportunity to get to know another ministry in Encarnación.

Ken is playing the "Can You Remember All Our Names?" game

Remember Thiago, from a few posts back?  He came and hung out with us for a week, sharing his know-how in street evangelism and urban tribes.  He's been studying at YWAM-Brazil for the past year or so, and is a young man full of vision and talent.