by Tony and Jean Floyd, SIM Paraguay
4 May 2010
About twelve years ago it was love at first sight when we entered the little town of San Francisco, Paraguay. God gave us a 'man of peace' (Lk 10:5-7), and we lived with his family while learning the Guarani language.
Over the slow passage of time, we began a few Bible studies. Years passed, and there was a scattering of believers. Eventually, some leaders began to emerge, and they led the Bible studies with us. More recently, we have had a weekly meeting with the leaders to prepare together what they will teach. Those leaders then led the various Bible studies without us.
Last week, we told the leaders that the next step was for one of them to lead the leaders' meetings. They talked about it, and Pedro, our man of peace, was chosen for a six month term.
It has taken 12 years to work ourselves out of this job. Now it is time for us to move on, but we are by no means finished! This is merely the end of a chapter. While it will be sad and hard to leave our spiritual children and grandchildren, we know that in order to continue maturing they must depend on the Holy Spirit and not us. Seeing the marvellous ways that God has changed people's lives in San Francisco makes us anxious to see that happen again in another town.
As we have travelled to town after town in rural Paraguay searching for where God would have us minister next, we have been struck by the vast number of people that are totally unreached with the gospel. There are so many little isolated towns that have 200, 400, or 1,000 people, with a string of spread out houses between those towns. How can they all be reached?
Two things that we have learned in our years in Paraguay are that:
- Guarani touches people's hearts better than Spanish
- People are more likely to listen to God's Word than to read it.
That is why SIM has started the Audio Bibles project and the Guarani Recording project. Bringing God's Word to the people of rural Paraguay in their heart language and in a way that they can listen to it instead of read it cannot help but change the whole country!
Evangelism and discipleship have to be relational. It is most natural and most effective to reach our immediate neighbours. Therefore we need a Christian witness in each of these towns. We will go to one of them, but who will go to the rest? 'Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.' Matt. 9:38.
Pray
- Pray for these two projects, Audio Bibles and Guarani Recording Task Force, that they will continue to be well-staffed and fully funded so that the Word of God can continue to penetrate Guarani speakers' hearts.
- Pray for God to show the Floyds where he wants them to serve next in Paraguay.
The Audio Bibles project was one of our Alternative Christmas Gift projects in 2009. To learn more, click here.
