Sunday, December 1, 2013

Tengo TANTO Para Agradecer

This past Thanksgiving weekend, I realized that I have SO MUCH to be thankful for here in Paraguay!

I'm thankful for:

Joe and Yoej, who show me much love and grace as well as make sacrifices for me! and they help keep me sane :)

the Chos! It's so nice to just spend time with them and hear their stories. They continue to serve us with their generosity and we love to eat Korean food with them!

the Jovenes. These people are so humble, kind, and fun! I'm so blessed to know these brothers and sisters in Christ and I'm seriously going to miss them so much.

& my students. Although they challenged me every day, I was amazed by their ability to love me even when I didn't deserve it.


Feasts!

To start off our Thanksgiving celebrations, we had dinner with the Chos!
it was raining so hard that day- there was a blackout.
and the lights turned on right as we were about to begin!
BOMB. 
Yoej made the apple crumble! I helped cut apples!

Paraguayans don't celebrate Thanksgiving so we decided to cook a traditional dinner for the jovenes! By the way, jovenes = young adults, not kids! Eric thought it meant "children" this whole time, hope you didn't think so!
salad, stuffing, gravy, rice, chicken, creamed corn, mashed papas
seriously felt like we were at home!
played some games, love this edition of Stacko
the girls
nuestra familia Paraguaya

Had a wonderful Thanksgiving with loved ones here in Paraguay! Hope you enjoyed your time with family and friends <3

Remember, we have much to be thankful for! Hopefully we can remember to be thankful every single day, not just for the blessings we have received, but for the One who continues to bless us with His presence and the gift of vida eterna.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Last Stretch

I can't believe it's already November 20th. Just one more month left!

Lately, we've been...

enjoying our last days at school:

Alison & Augustina
Franco & Florencia
Mariam & Ceci 
my Mombarete student, Roci
such a little rascal
Juan is thankful for Jesus!
Farid and Tobias
all the kids buy those chocolate (on the table)
so they can get Ben 10 stickers
Carlossss so cute
Harry Potter!
Matias and Milka
we played Battleship
we did a Halloween Mad Lib
the first graders had a little traditional party
and danced with each other, so cute
my English club :)
some more boys started to show up and my club grew to 8!
our last meeting is on Friday, i'm pretty sad...
working on our video project
judged the Senior presentations...so crazy (in a good way)!
it's like a Masters Project!

another Olimpiada!
students making team posters
"Let's go!"
had some fun with a student's pom-pom
Olimpiada for upper elementary!
the 3rd grade performance

still hanging out with awesome people:


Here's Tito! He took us to a Chinese restaurant, where he ordered for us in Mandarin! Thoroughly loved the food and drinks there :) The next day, we went to the mall to watch a movie!
tastes like my drink at Half & Half!
found some more at Agros shopping :)
WHATTTT
Gap's coming to Paraguay!
watched Gravity in 3D

Eva took us to San Bernardino, which is a vacation spot for Paraguayans. Felt like we were at the beach and I loved it! Got to hang out with David, Lea, and Toby for a bit and then went to see 420 Paraguayan harpists break the Guinness World Record!

had some delicious frutilla popsicles!
isn't he just the
CUTEST?
WOOHOO PARAGUAY! 

Ate Mexican food with Rudolfo! The food was seriously delicious, can't wait to go home and eat some al pastor tacos! and the restaurant was sooo cute. He even sneakily paid for our dinner...Rudolfo is seriously one of the nicest guys you could ever meet! 
at Quattro D- we ordered too much dessert.

Got to hang out with the oldest Cler, Samantha! We loved her crochet work so she offered to teach us! We're in the process of making headbands :)
Isa- her daughter is sooo cute

Rita is a fellow English teacher at CPC. She's the sweetest person and has great fashion sense! We invited her over for some kimbap after school!

We celebrated a couple birthdays recently!
Silvia- she has such a joyful spirit and I love her group of girlfriends!

Our dear brother- Amilcar Cler. We spend a lot of time with Amilcar, especially because of Ytororo. He is one of the most dedicated and caring people and he serves so faithfully! He even cooked hamburguesas for us on HIS birthday!
Amilcar- we are so blessed to know you and your family!

Looking through all these pictures just made me realize that I have so many memories here that I don't want to forget and knowing that I only have one month left makes me want to take advantage of every moment! Although we will be in Paraguay for 1 more month, the school year ends next Thursday! and that means we only have about a week left with our students! Although there are moments when I want to throw some of them out the window, I'm hoping to be able to show them love, kindness, and compassion. If I'm having a rough day, I want to respond to them in a manner that is reflective of the gospel. Please pray that I would be a witness of Christ in all that I do!