Flooding

Hello family and friends! I hope you all had a blessed holiday season and a wonderful start to the new year.

Since the last time I posted, Ben Flanagan arrived in Paraguay to accompany me in my mission. When I invited Ben to Paraguay, he had been serving with an order called the Sodalitium in Lima, Peru since September. For the past six weeks I have really been enjoying Ben’s company as he works alongside me in many of my activities.

While you all in the States are receiving the coldest weather of the year, we are in the middle of summer here in the Southern Hemisphere. Because of this, all of my previous work in schools came to an end with with the start summer vacation in December.

Also round the beginning of summer, Paraguay began having extremely frequent and strong rainstorms. In just about a month, the Paraguay River, a river very close to the garbage dump where we live, rose to its highest level in over 20 years, forcing more than 120,000 of Asunción’s people to leave their homes and search for a place to relocate their families. This was just weeks before Christmas. Over about the last month, the river has luckily receded significantly, but the majority families remain in their temporary houses on higher ground. Paraguay commonly has heavy rains in March, so it is expected that the river will rise once again. The most families resorted to setting up plywood sheds on sidewalks, fields, and any other free piece of land available. For example, about fifty families have moved into the soccer field directly next to the seminary where we are living. Below are before and after pictures of the soccer field. Keep it in mind that only about one month in time passed between when these photos were taken.

After watching various families move their houses and all their belongings to higher ground, I realized that it wasn’t just each family moving their own belongings. Neighboring families gave help, and then were helped in return. To me, this is a clear example of the resilient love of Christ, that families going through such hardship could still find the will to join together and conquer the flood as a community.

Meanwhile, Ben and I, feeling the need to actively participate in flood relief, began working in a few summer day camps. These camps are specifically for children of families that have been forced out of their homes by the floodwater. The camp that we have most frequently visited is located on a military base where the Paraguayan government has accepted flood refugees. The camp is run by Plan International, an organization that works for fighting child poverty throughout the world. Below are pictures from the day camp with Plan.

A typical session of camp lasts between two and three hours. At Plan there are two sessions per-day: morning and afternoon. To begin the day, we, the teachers, sing various songs with the kids. After, there is an activity such as drawing or playtime. In the middle, we have a snack break and then later, more singing and playing until the time ends. Each of the day camps have brought many exceedingly beautiful experiences. These pictures below are the pictures from the day camp that we had at the seminary for the kids recently moved into the soccer field.

Although it is sometimes hard working in the heat of the summer while trying to get four and five year-old Paraguayans to listen, all of our work is extremely rewarding. Regardless of how much effort Ben and I put into our work at summer day camps, we always receive a reward many times greater in the form of smiles and hugs from the kids. 

Here are a few pictures of the floodwater from late December. The first photo is of a street within a hundred meters of the seminary. The second and third photos are from the BBC and the United Nations respectively. Both these photos are taken in a nearby neighborhood.

That’s all for this time. Enjoy the cold weather for us! And please keep all of us in Paraguay in your prayers, specifically for the many thousands of people are in search of a home.

Peace and goodness,

Jack