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Ed Houghton working in Asuncion Paraguay.
 (Me with the Tony Somervell, the Pastor of the working at here in Paraguay)
Dear Friends,
Greetings, I've now been in Asuncion for nearly 3 months so I thought it was time I sat down to write a rather overdue prayer/news letter! My time here so far could be described as unpredictable but pretty exciting. 3 weeks into my trip and the current epidemic of Dengue fever in this country found its way to me! I was out of action for 2 weeks in total, including 24 hours in a surprisingly nice Paraguayan hospital….anyway 2 months on and I am now back to full strength and am plastering myself with insect repellent every time I step outside!
One of the main projects I'm involved with here in Paraguay is teaching English in, El Colegio de San Andrés - Asuncion. Due to a complete dearth of English teachers at the school I really have been thrown in at the deep end. I am teaching 9 x 40 minute lessons a week to the secondary school age group; my elder class is mostly 17 year olds (only 2 years younger than me!!) and the younger class is 12 and 13 year olds. I have no qualifications or experience to teach English but that doesn't seem to matter here in Paraguay, even though this is one of the wealthier fee-paying schools. Another advantage of the laid back nature of Paraguayan schooling is that we have one day a week devoted to sport, giving me an opportunity to do some teaching outside the classroom aswell. My work in the school has so far been thoroughly enjoyable; it's a great experience although has proved to be stressful at times!
The other part of my work here is with the Cristo Salvador church. It's a relatively small church with very few young people. To try and encourage more of this age group to get involved, I have recently started leading a group on Saturday evenings. The group is basically an opportunity for young people to come, play sport, have some food and hear the gospel. The numbers are pretty low at the moment but from my time in France I know that sometimes less is more with a group like that, as it gives you the opportunity to get to know them more personally.
Asuncion itself is quite a remarkable place, never before have I seen a city in which extreme wealth and poverty live side by side as if it were completely the norm. The climate is also very different to anything I've experienced before, temperatures consistently around 40 degrees and high level humidity can make you feel quite uncomfortable. Thankfully the summer is now over, although being so close to the equator there is no guarantee the temperature will drop. Public transport in the city is another adventure all in itself! Having ended up in completely the wrong place various times in my first few weeks I am now getting used to the bus routes and am currently working on perfecting the art of not looking like a lost `gringo' as I negotiate my round Asuncion on these pretty dodgy looking city buses!
Thank you so much for your prayers and the get well messages that many of you sent when I was ill. I really feel God has been at work in this first stage of my trip. Below are a few things it would be great to pray for.
Prayer points
Thank the Lord for my quick recovery from Dengue fever and pray for protection from that and for good health in general.
The Saturday evening group that the group would grow and I could lead it in the right direction.
That the small age difference between pupil and teacher wouldn't be a problem (in terms of respect, authority etc), also thank the Lord that up to this point it hasn't.
Pray that my Spanish would continue improving, so that good relationships can be formed - thinking especially with the group on Saturdays.
Hope you're all well
Que Dios les bendiga.
Ed
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