Asuncion a very old city, oldest in South America I believe, and there is quite a mix of wealth and poverty intermingled throughout the entire city. A ride in a taxi or on one of the city buses is an adventure of grand proportions. Make sure to try them if your ever there.
Here is the group I was with:
Before the conference I attended the Global Mission Fellowship. A fantastic experience, lots of great stories, testimonies and messages, as well as some fun connections made while I was there. It was held in a nice little compound that was very park like, and had some nice trees.
Here is the massive church where the General Assembly was held for Mennonite World Conference. It's a large Pentecostal church that is not quite completed. However, it was completed enough for us to meet there.
This would be the opening session. You can see some of the uncompleted rafters at the front of the worship space.
In some type of bizarre twist, I did not have any yerba mate for almost my entire 1st week in Paraguay, which was probably the first time in 7 or 8 years that I had gone more than 2 days without any mate. In any case, at the general assembly you could rent all the gear, with either hot or cold water, and the yerba for about 15c a use. A very good deal, and it was nice to finally have access, especially since the H1N1 scare in Paraguay had organizers discouraging the sharing of mate. Perhaps it was more than coincidence that a day after I did share in a group I managed to acquire a cough and a fever. Not a fun experience. Anyway, here is the fun Pajarito stand:
We were also served a tonne of meat while we were there. Especially beef. I probably ate more beef in my first week there than I usually do in 3 weeks. As you can see by this large platter they served us at a dinner our first week there, they like lots of BBQ beef.
Since we were nearby, we took the opportunity to go visit Iguazu falls in Brazil. So this is our group at the falls. From the Brazilian side you walk along for a kilometre and there are large and small sections of falls along the entire stretch.
You eventually end up here - a place called "the devils throat". As you can see, it's an intense section of water falls, pouring tonnes of water into this massive u-shaped area. There is a walkway going out toward it, that enabled me to get the second picture here.
Yup - it's quite an amazing waterfall - well worthy of being one of the 7 natural wonders of the world!
We went up to the Chaco following the main assembly. They have a lot of these "Bottle trees" up there.
We also stopped at one of the small churches there.
Todd is here hoping that they change the water in the baptismal tank before they use it...
Finally, here is a nice shot of Andy B.K. and I representing Canadian Hockey in South America.
Anyway, this is only a fraction of my pictures, and only a very brief outline of my trip. Should you want to know more, you'll have to call me, or take me out for coffee :-)
