The Messenger May 2020

Page 21

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Paraguay: Old News? Not When Christ is at Work in New Ways! By Ken Zacharias and Brad Brandt

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araguay is not a strong tourist destination. It is often overshadowed by surrounding, bigger, and more noteworthy countries when describing beauty, progress and peoples. It is a landlocked country with just over seven million people and where 90 percent of the population speak Guarani as well as Spanish. Paraguay has prospered and progressed in recent years. There is an improved road infrastructure; the main road from Asunción to the Ciudad del Este is being twinned and many secondary roads are being paved. Many large businesses and industries are flourishing. Agriculture, the main economic activity, is strong and those who own land can harvest two soybean crops plus one additional crop of corn every thirteen months.

Religious Freedom

Yet for more than a half-century, the EMC has been involved in Paraguay for reasons that have nothing to do with tourism. We’ve been there because of the message of Jesus Christ. Spiritually, Paraguay has religious freedom and its evangelical churches are slowly growing. The Evangelical Mennonite Conference’s

For more than a half-century, the EMC has been involved in Paraguay for reasons that have nothing to do with tourism. We’ve been there because of the message of Jesus Christ. mandate is to see local churches begin and grow in the countries where its missionaries are serving. This is done through various ministries, one being to see missionaries enter communities to visit and share Christ’s love and redemption with people living there. In East Paraguay, this visitation ministry began in the mid 1960s in a time when the Paraguayan lifestyle was very different than now.

Honorio’s Answer

Let us tell you about one of these ministries. In 1974, when missionaries first entered Yhovy, a

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