December 8 is the Day of the Virgin, when Paraguayans make walking pilgrimages to pay homage to Mary, Mother of Jesus.  They walk through the night and have early morning mass together with the other pilgrims. We visited the nearest cathedral a few days before, where they'd begun to change things up a bit in preparation for the upcoming activities. In this photo, there is a line of people on the left, waiting their turn to sit with the priest (white robe to the right, beside the column) for outdoor confession.  It was very quiet, so those confessing had to practically whisper to keep their confessions from being heard by all.

Ken and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary on the 19th.  We ate at a restaurant we'd never tried before, very close to the border of Paraguay and Argentina.  The restaurant happened to be Brazilian.  ;)  Santa was sitting outside, all dressed up despite that it was about 95 degrees that night.    

The next day, we met with a couple other missionary families in a Japanese colony not far from here.  We took advantage of the chance to stop off at their local grocery store, which was full of products we don't normally see. 

One of my Christmas gifts from the folks back home was money for decorating our apartment.  I decided on an original piece of pop art, designed by our friends and fellow missionaries, the Lees.  I just LOVE how it looks on the wall.  Despite our original decision to skip the tree this year (the apartment is already so small), we ended up dragging it out and stuffing it in a corner anyway.  We've had a whole lot more young people than usual visiting / hanging out this month, so we've felt the crunch when we start stuffing chairs all over the place, but it's been great to light up the tree--with caution, because it's generally close to our just over 100 degrees, and the lights warm it up even more.

We hope you're all enjoying the time with friends and family, celebrating Jesus' birth.  Merry Christmas from Paraguay!