I had another post for today, but I wanted to interrupt my regularly scheduled programming to talk about last night. A lot of people have asked me what’s so special about Paraguay because I usually talk about the awesomeness here. Like it’s a veritable utopia. I mean, it’s new to me, so it’s all pretty cool, right? But even if it wasn’t pretty cool, why would I just talk about all the bad stuff? Anyway, I don’t want people to think that I only love Paraguay and my new friends and everything else is garbage, but you probably won’t read about the stuff I don’t like here. I wanted to start with that, cuz I’m about to write about something that’s amazing.
The Lambaré church is a church that prays. For example, a couple Sundays ago, we prayed 6 times before the service actually started. Once before singing, twice during singing, once after, a specific petition prayer for someone I think, and then finally the one to begin the morning meditation. They’re not dumb prayers, or necessarily short ones for that matter, either. At first I was like “come on…more praying? Why don’t we just combine them?” But now I like it a lot. It shows that the people love to talk to the Lord and they nearly literally carry everything to him. I’m going to start writing down some of the things I hear prayers for (like “Thank you for our jackets in the cold to remind us how You care for us”).
Last night was really cool. After some really great singing at the beginning (well, it was good for me at least – I can’t speak for everyone else), Ben read from the Psalms about blessing the Lord. After he had finished sharing his thoughts, it was time for the usual prayer meeting. We always start with a rondo (I think that translates to something like “in the round”), where anyone can pray whatever they want. It’s usually folks thanking God for blessings and praising him in prayer. Typically that one is pretty general. After a time, the pastor finishes up. Then after that is the more specific prayers. People say what they’d like to pray for, which is more like the prayer meetings we have in the states.
Last night, though, perhaps drawn from the Psalm that was read, Oscar had everyone come to the front and pray and bless the Lord together. We are typically very few for midweek services, and last night was very quaint. We also had a family that I hadn’t seen at church before, though their daughter was in my 2nd grade class, who just recently became Christians. Like a week ago recently. So we prayed for their family as a family, each one individually, and then for the dad as the leader of the home. We also praised God for bring with Don Marcos during his surgery and bringing him through it and being with him throughout his life (his wife died since I was here last year and it’s still pretty sad). It was really cool because we were all of maybe 20 people tops standing in a circle holding hands and praying together uplifting this young family to God together. I’m not sure what it is about it, but I’ve always enjoyed praying like that (holding hands) as a group. Like we’re more connected that way.
I think one thing that will change for sure while I’m here is that my prayer life will become more vibrant. As I begin to experience a real need for dependence on God, I’ll begin to understand more the importance of talking to Him. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to pray for!
-j
I'm Jason, and I like to write.