You’ve been given a new job description and a transfer.  Not to the next floor up or the city down the road, but to a place where distance is not your only concern when it comes to getting there.  The only way to get there is by driving, and one hundred-mile stretch of dust, mud, and ruts looks just like the next.  And once you travel that distance over that exact terrain and arrive at your new residence, you won’t be in a city.  In fact, you’ll be 3-5 hours from the nearest town.  Yes, I said new residence, because you won’t just work there, you and your family will live there.  Of course, you’ll have to buy groceries and the only place to do that is in that nearest town, so you won’t be going grocery shopping every week, but every month—or two.  Plus, you’ll have periodic visitors to observe the work that you’ll be doing.

So let’s look at these factors again:

• The “road” on which you will have to drive is some of the worst terrain for driving with dust, mud, and ruts.
• It will be 3-5 hours of driving one way every time you need to go to town for any reason—groceries, mail and e-mail, emergencies, …car repairs.
• Your entire family will be with you living in those harsh surroundings hours from town.
• During your drives into town and back, along with your family you will be bringing one or two months-worth of groceries or some visitors.

What would you do?  Really.  Put yourself in that situation and think of what you would do.

This is the situation that we are expecting to find ourselves in as we move into a tribe upon finishing our Paraguayan culture and language study.  We have been putting some planning and prayer into this and have begun looking at vehicles to see what would fit our needs and address the factors listed above.

Because of the terrain, we are looking for something with 4-wheel drive.  Because of the dust and space, we are looking for an SUV, rather than an open-bed truck.  Because of the amount of cargo/visitors/family, we are looking for a larger one with three rows of seats.  Because of the distance from a doctor or mechanic, we are looking for something newer and more reliable.  Because of reliability and parts-availability here, we are considering probably either a Toyota or a Nissan.

From talking with other missionaries, we’ve found that we could get an older vehicle and still get a few years out of it, but it will probably require a lot more maintenance.  Maintenance here in Paraguay is quite pricey.  Another thing to consider here is the type of driving a used vehicle has had; many people use these types of vehicles for farming in the country.  So, our hope would be to find something with 5 or less years of city driving.

Purchasing an older vehicle would mean making maintenance payments for a less reliable vehicle, with more time in the shop.  Purchasing a newer vehicle, with less maintenance, would just mean making payments for a more reliable vehicle for driving across those long stretches of desert, with less time in the shop.  Unfortunately, even older vehicles are expensive here.

As for the timing, we have learned from Paraguayans that now through the next few months is the best time of year to shop for vehicles for finding lower prices.  So, even though we aren’t moving yet, we are hoping to be able to find something during this window of time.  I hope that you, as our supporters and encouragers, have mentally put yourself through this transition to the far side of the desert and can understand our desires for safety for our family and reliability for the work.  This work is of utmost importance and we want to be as prepared as possible for its challenges.  Would you please pray for wisdom as we look at different vehicles and want to be prudent with the resources God has given us?  If you have placed yourself in our car seat and would like to be a part of physically getting us in and out of our tribal home, please send us a note and we’ll let you know how you can do that.