CPA-2

We had a church building that our own Paraguayan, people built with our own hands. The Sunday school rooms, though, were built through many donations from the North American churches. We had rooms for a school. They were small, but our hearts were on fire. We knew it would work. Our kids could go to our very own school!
We started writing up our project. Zully Dominguez (teacher) and Marcos Garcia (secretary) helped out with so many details. Zully’s dad worked in the Ministerio de Education and helped the paperwork move along…to get the project approved and accredited by the Ministry of Education. We asked for permission to open an elementary school from kindergarten to 6th grade keeping in mind the grade level of our own church kids. It could have taken months. We just had to wait!
The paperwork was turned in October 2002. We had a meeting at church around that time to actually document the church’s approval of the school project. We wanted to be backed up 100% by the church (the members). First of all we thought that the church should be prayerfully responsible for the school and secondly, if things would happen to go wrong, no one person would be to blame…the church body would work things out together. Everyone was excited. It seemed as if our dream…to have the church open all 7 days of the week…would finally come true.

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.

News

This whole week went by soooooo fast.
After our “Monday Morning Missionary Meetings”, I did some grocery shopping and came home to house duties. Tuesday was my day at school, but it was Teacher’s Day…we didn’t have class. (In the picture you can see the Guarani teacher, English teacher, Math and Science teachers.) We had nice parties all day, a school program, and a dinner out with all the teachers and workers at school. (Some people took spouses and there were about 42 there.) It was really nice. We are happy with our group of teachers this year and see many changes (especially in the 3rd grade – hyperactive group).
Wednesday was actually “Teacher’s Day” so there was no school. I spent the morning preparing for a very special guest (Vivi) who was planning on spending lunch and the afternoon with me. And, since I am a “quality time” person, I dropped EVERYTHING to be with her…even blogging.
Ben told us that afternoon that they actually WERE going to have the little party for our orphan friend Hugo and so we quickly prepared sandwiches, cookies, etc for this little guy’s (15 years) party (at Ben and Vivi’s). Hugo has been around for about 4 years. He is on a scholarship at school and has a wonderful outgoing personality. That night we had a prayer meeting first. Hugo went around the neighborhood inviting other friends (about 5) to come to his birthday party, too. Hugo has a light blue hat on. He's the shortest one of his 15 year old friends.
Thursday was a HOLIDAY! There were going to be sports activities at church but a light, steady rain kept us at home…cooking, studying, reading, and sleeping….a good break from the rush of weekdays.
Today we are back on track…the early morning schedule, regular school day, blogging day, answering emails day, etc.

New Chapters

Bear with me...I am going to start a new project!

Someone told me once that they'd like to hear about the amazing stories of how the school started and how others came to know the Lord. Along with my family updates, I want to start posting CPA (Colegio Privado Adonai) chapters...way back from the beginning. Well, it was only six years ago. I think I can still remember some stuff from 2003.

Why??? I want to repeat over and over again what the Israelites said about their God..." The Lord is good and his love endures forever!" I want to write and share about the miracles we experienced. Keep tuned!





By the way...this is one of my favorite pictures. It's Pastor Dario's 5 year old son. Check out that smile!!!

A nice thought...

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments,
but what is woven into the lives of others." Pericles

I’ve Been Reading This Novel…

…called THE BIBLE. Way back in January I started a program to read the Bible in 1 year. (I am actually just reading the OLD TESTAMENT for now.) I never really challenged myself to do that…sorry to say. I always read here and there, book by book, chapter by chapter, or whatever. Of course, I have ALWAYS been reading my bible. It’s underlined, highlighted and even broken in the binding. It’s a Spanish/English NIV. I actually read both translations sometimes just to see how something is expressed in the other language.
Anyway, I get everyone off to school by 6 am and I have about an hour to drink coffee and devour this amazing, God-inspired novel. I went on the whole “Exodus” with Moses, and captured the Promised Land with Joshua. I discovered the terrible stubbornness and disobedience of God’s people in Judges. I read about their cry for A KING and how this king’s pride ruined his whole kingdom. And now, I am totally captured by King David, Samuel, and Solomon. It’s neat to read about their ups and downs, their errors and sins, their battles, their decisions, but most of all their strong faith in God.
The temple King Solomon built was just amazing. It must have been so beautiful! The whole Temple was sparkling with gold, bronze pillars, cedar walls, carved flowers, and beautiful pools and so much more. Peace on all sides, a beautiful home for THE LORD and a WISE KING…after so many years of slavery, travelling, disobedience and fighting.
I’m ahead of my schedule, now. I just couldn’t stop reading. This NOVEL has every kind of wild story you could ever imagine…stuff rated for the General Public to the X-Rated kind with sex and violence, rapes and massive killings. It seems even worse than what we read about in newspapers or see on TV. There is so much to learn…so much to apply to my own life. I guess that the more I read, the more I realize how much God honors our obedience and love for Him. He is a jealous God…He wants 1st place in our hearts. Ever since the beginning…that never changes.

Brandon

Brandon came home yesterday from a neighbor's house. They were playing soccer and had to be home by 6:00pm - little before dark. He came home saying, "Mom, don't worry about anything, I had an accident, but it's nothing." He lifted up his (long) hair and showed me an egg size bump, red (bluish at the base) and scratched.
He was goalie. He blocked the ball, it fell back onto the ground, his cousin (who is as big as he is) kicked at it again, but kicked Brandon's head instead of the ball. Ouch!!! He was knocked out for a couple of minutes They put ice on it and later he continued playing.
He thought it was a total adventure. I worried like a mother!