CPA -1

In these COLEGIO PRIVADO ADONAI updates I want to share with you how the school came around to being what it is today. It is much easier to tell the stories individually, but hopefully I will be able to tell about God’s leading and our journey through this beautiful project.
Let’s go way back to 2000. Oscar and I were working in the church – full time…and loosing members. Different city attractions took our youth to other places. We were left with seven families at church and even they were not regular church goers. We went canvassing around the neighborhood with two other couples and their families, weekly visits with those interested in the gospel, kid’s programs, and Bible courses. We had prayer meetings, late night vigils and other activities, but nothing seemed to “work”.
We had this idea that the church should be opened all seven days of the week. We could drive past any church; Catholic, Evangelic, Mormon, whatever, and see it locked…no one around. How sad! Huge buildings representing the spiritual side of us…and they are empty, cold, and locked. Where do you go if you need spiritual help? How do we get into a locked up building? We prayed for a project that could allow our church to be opened all week long to give spiritual help to anyone at anytime.
At that time Brandon was in 2nd grade and Gabriel in kindergarten. I was helping out in the English classes in their school one day a week. The principal, Sara, is a very strong believer and she said to me. “Here in Paraguay the government allows private, Christian schools and it is easy to open them. Every church should have a private, Christian school in its neighborhood.” I thought about that over and over again. Oscar and I started to pray about it and…that little spark was lit. In the little neighborhood school that my kids were in, there were about 80 students. That’s around 50 to 80 families that could be evangelized. I also volunteered to play guitar in their chapel services and was so impressed to see these beautiful, eager faces ready to worship and hear God’s word.
I kept thinking that we could reach them (the students) with the Gospel and work with their parents. The “church” could be opened seven days a week! We would have them 5 days a week, not only in Sunday school, to preach to them, teach them, do devotions with them, give them a purpose in live and pray with them. It seemed like a dream. It seemed perfect. What could go wrong? We started praying about it at church and people became excited. We could offer jobs to our members; the youth could prepare themselves as teachers or administrators. We could have youth from the states come to help in the English department. What an opportunity in every way!
We set the project before the Lord. The members started to pray and many of us started to see what documents, paper work, or other things needed to be done to start this new project. We weren’t sure about anything. We didn’t even know what we were getting into. We just had a desire to reach out and provide Salvation to our kids, the youth, and the neighborhood. We “jumped” a huge step of faith.