One of the most important holidays in Paraguay is Children's Day.  It seems that in the late 1860's and into the 1870's, Paraguay had a president,Francisco Lopez , who was a bit of a megalomaniac.  Paraguay was on the cutting edge of technology at the time, being the only country in South America to have telegraphs and the only one to have a rail system.  Confident in his country's supremacy, he declared war on Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay simultaneously.  This became known as the War of the Triple Alliance. (Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War )  Simply put, Lopez got his country in over their heads.  Instead of  surrendering, Lopez continued to send men into battle.  It is estimated that 80% of adult men in Paraguay died in that war.  When he ran out of eligible adult men to send to war,, he began sending children.  It was a blood bath.

Since then, Paraguay has become the Charlie Brown of Latin America.  Peace loving people, but poorly esteemed  not only by others, but by themselves, too.  It is not uncommon for Paraguayans to refer to themselves as Paraguayan-titos:  "Little Paraguayans."  They have no rail system at all in the nation.   They lost much of their land to Argentina and Brazil, including the Iguazu Falls.  They have never recovered.

But they are grateful to the children who died for their country in that war.  Thus this uniquely Paraguayan holiday.  Each year, there is more gift giving here on August 16th than on December the 25th.  For the last two days, we have been a part of Children's Day celebrations around Asuncion.  Yesterday, we did two programs at a local school.  Students are in school only four hours a day, so we were at the same school for both shows; One for the 7:00 - 11:00 AM session and another for the 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM session.  When we arrived in the morning, we walked into a party.  Latin music was blasting in the courtyard, kids were playing soccer and teenagers were hanging out.  After setting up, we did our show, complete with the Gospel message and an invitation to the local park for a Children's Day party thrown by the church ( we just finished that party earlier today).  We did it all over again at the afternoon session.

Today over 200 people -including about 35 from the school we had just visited -came to the local city park, not much more than a median strip with rusted and broken playground equipment, to celebrate with the local Alliance Church.  There was a bounce house, balloon animals (Sue headed this up), face painting, games, gifts and our show.  Pastor John was very pleased with the turn out.  He introduced himself to everyone who came and told them about the church, which is only a block away.  He is very encouraged with the positive contact this gave his church with the surrounding neighborhood.  May God use this initial step for much growth.