Bryson and Mindy White Culture/Language Acquisition in Paraguay Aché Church
I’ve been invited on a trip to the interior of the country. The Aché tribe has had for many years now a building that they have used as a church and a school. It was built by the hands and urging of the first missionaries so they would have a place for their teaching.
Over the years, the first Aché believers were joined by others. They have grown into a fairly large group of believers with elders. They sing, study, and preach in their own language from their own translation of the Bible. They are the evangelical church of the Aché nation.
About a year ago, by their own accord, they recognized that they had outgrown their original meeting place and began building a new church building. With gifts of money and cement from other believers in the area and in Asunción, they were able to get all they needed to complete the church recently.
Tomorrow, February 12, they are having a special event to inaugurate this building as their church. I’m bringing a young man from our church with me as I go with another missionary to see this significant moment. We’re both looking forward to visiting this Aché tribe and meeting these brothers and sisters in Christ. You can visit it too via an upcoming video.
School Camp
![IMG_0650[1]](http://blogs.ntm.org/bryson-white/files/2010/11/IMG_06501-300x225.jpg)
We had been in the city since we left Oregon. Seven months and four days after driving and flying south, we finally left the city and headed for the countryside. We went to family camp, but it wasn’t at Fir Point, OR and it wasn’t with our church family. It was outside Capiatá, PY and it was with the kids’ school and the church that it’s a part of. We thought it would be a good chance to see what a church camp is like here in Paraguay. It was that, but it was not what we expected. Although this camp was advertized as a time of studying parenting, it was a little discouraging to see how many children came alone and how many mothers came without husbands. We are learning that families here definitely need prayer just like anywhere.
The camp area was an hour and half from town and we didn’t actually leave until 8 PM. Upon arriving, it took two hours to get everyone settled and go over the rules of the camp. They acted out a couple of the rules: no physical contact except for married couples and no smoking. Another rule was the enforcement of a curfew: kids had to be inside the cabañas after midnight. Somehow they had all the kids up and ready for breakfast at 7:00. We’re still trying to figure out how they stay up so late every night and still get up when they need to. When breakfast did come around, we were hungry and ready to find out what Paraguayan camp breakfast was like. It consisted of cocido (a hot tea) and plain bread (butter was optional). Needless to say, we were still quite hungry until lunch came around.
If any of this sounds strange to you, you’re not the only one. The strange thing to us was that we were the only ones at camp that thought it was strange. It was also difficult because we were with people that we are not normally with and did not know that well. What it felt like to me is that we were crashing someone else’s party. Kind of like if we went camping with the Assembly of God church in Rogue River just because our kids went to that school, even though we didn’t know any of the other people in the church. But it was more like we were crashing someone else’s country, culture, and life. I just hope we made it back to town without offending anyone too badly!
It was a good experience and a good view into another aspect of the Paraguayan culture, but now we’re looking forward to the next one. In a few weeks, our own church may be going on their own camping trip. We know most of them already, so that should help ease us through the cultural differences. We’ll let you know how it goes! Click here to see a short video of the weekend.
Hannah’s Homeschooling
Hannah in her classroom
What do you do with a child who desperately wants to excel in all she does yet cannot because she can’t understand the language in her new school? Well, at the beginning of our time here, we thought we could convince her she didn’t have to excel. Every day, we repeatedly told her, “It’s okay. You can’t do the work, and it’s okay. We aren’t sending you to school for the school part. We want you to learn Spanish.” Working through the tears of frustration, we kept pushing her through. She was learning Spanish, so she was succeeding in what our expectations were. However, in her mind, she was failing. So utterly frustrated with her inability, she began slipping backwards in her English abilities. The straw that broke the camel’s back was exams. Bryson painstakingly translated 3 exams for Hannah to be able to complete. He fought back tears as he sat and watched his daughter miss every question on the test. Wanting so desperately to help her, he resisted the temptation and just served as her translator. To top it off, Hannah asked him “Daddy, am I going to get a bad grade?” We prayed and asked for a ton of advice from those more experienced than us. Finally, we decided that school isn’t the best environment in which Hannah could learn Spanish. We agonized over the decision, but finally decided to return to homeschooling with Hannah.
Hannah is back to her old self. The pressure gone, she is joyful and even her step is a little lighter. She is thriving under homeschooling, although the Spanish has slowed down some. We are also giving her opportunities for hearing and practicing Spanish by having her in a dance class and bringing her with us to visit with Paraguayan friends. The pressure is off in these environments and she’s really enjoying it. The Spanish will come for her and we can definitely tell we have made the right decision.
Video Updates
Video Updates from Bryson White on Vimeo.
You’ve read letters. You’ve seen pictures. Now we’re going to be trying another form of update to give you a fuller idea of what it’s like here–and here’s the first. Any feedback would be appreciated. Once again, to see this video full screen, click on the title link or my name below the video and use the full screen icon there.
Thanks for watching!
Updated Prayer Requests – August 2010
The kids are immersed in Spanish at a Paraguayan school, and they are learning quite a bit. We have tried to make it clear to them and to the teachers that we are not concerned with their academics at this time. We really want them to have this opportunity to be surrounded by Spanish-speaking friends and learn the language and we will teach them from home later. Please pray that they are able to make good friends and that they will get a good hold of the language. Please pray that they will not be crushed by the reality of the difficult environment that they are in.
Our main ministry at this point is to learn the culture and language of Paraguay, to meld into the Christian culture of Paraguay, and to build lasting relationships with our Paraguayan friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. Please pray that we will find language helpers willing to help us out and that we will build relationships in the process with Paraguayans who can be coworkers down the road. Please pray for wisdom as we weigh what things will be the best to pursue.
Besides our culture and language study, we have had opportunities to minister in other ways as well. Please pray that God would work in the hearts of the unbelievers that we interact with and that we will gain the language proficiency necessary to share with them the good news of Jesus Christ. Please continue to pray for the tribal people of Paraguay that have yet to hear of this good news.
Juggling Schedules
Paraguayan Birthday Party
Rather than give you all the details of what we’ve done these last couple months, I thought I’d try to describe a typical day. Given that every day is so different, I scrapped that idea and decided to move out to the smallest time frame I could describe – a week. Keep in mind that at this WhiteHouse, we’re juggling at least three schedules: mine, Mindy’s, and the kids’.
I’ll start with the kids’, because it is the easiest to describe. All four are attending a Paraguayan private school only a block away from our house all morning. The difficulty in this is that they are fully immersed in Spanish during that time. Of course, that’s what makes it such a great opportunity, too. Added to their afternoon schedule – and influencing ours – is their homework. We can help them with that when it’s in Spanish, but it’s quite difficult when it’s in Guaraní! Another great opportunity for Elijah right now is that he is enrolled in a soccer program that practices twice a week outside of school hours. He’s having a great time and got to have his first game the other day. These are great opportunities for the kids, but it’s not always easy with the language barrier. Please pray for them. Click here to see specifically what you can pray for.
To give an overview of what we have been doing, let me say that we have been doing a lot of fishing – fishing for men and women – but not in the evangelistic sense yet. We have been striving to find people able and willing to help us with learning the Paraguayan culture and language. You might be surprised how tiring it is to engage in conversation with people in a language you don’t know well. The job, though, this work of missions, does not consist of just preaching the Gospel. It must be built upon relationships. So, we are doing a lot of visiting and we have to be the initiators because really it’s a lot of work for them to understand our poor language and try to communicate with us.
Macayla and Her Teachers
A high schooler has been coming to our house once a week pretty regularly. Pedro – sometimes called Pedrito to distinguish between the other Pedro in our church – has been helping me quite a bit with Spanish. He is studying English, so I get to reciprocate and help him with his homework. Throughout the week, I have met with several people for some language help. They haven’t been real regular, but they may be able to soon. If they do, I may end up meeting with a language helper 4 or 5 days out of the week. Another thing I’m doing is spending an hour or two per week in different stores—office supply store, hardware store, lumber yard, et cetera—learning several of the items they sell each time. This is all to try to “catch up” with the Paraguayans who grew up in this culture and speak this language.
Mindy also has one somewhat regular language helper, along with several other ladies that are willing to help. She has been able to get together with a mom of
one of the kids’ classmates. There is also a lonely old lady from church that she is beginning to visit with and practice what she’s learning. Helping the kids with their homework is also a source of learning.
Once a week, our missionary culture and language learning advisor comes to our house to help us in our endeavors. On Friday afternoons we then have a meeting with everyone else in the culture and language study. During this time, we discuss things like current events in Paraguay, the state of tribal church planting, and language learning strategies. Most people look forward to the weekend as a time off from work. For us, the weekend is when work really picks up, because that’s when the Paraguayans have more free time, and our work is very dependent on their schedules. Besides these weekly events, there have been several other things that we have been able to attend to get a glimpse into the Paraguayan culture and to practice speaking. We have attended the Paraguayan Expo—which is like a county fair, only on a larger scale. We’ve also been to a typical Paraguayan birthday party, wedding, and funeral.
Visiting Church Friends
It is with the people that we learn the most and solidify what we have learned through practice. Therefore, we try to never go blind into an experience or event. We plan in great detail what we expect to learn in each encounter. Then, upon leaving an encounter, we process the information that we have gathered in a way that can be easily recovered, studied, and practiced.
This is all working together to tie up about 45-60 hours for me and 20-30 hours for Mindy per week. Please pray for us in these endeavors. Click here to see specifically what you can pray for.
Outside of our culture and language study, we have had a couple other opportunities of ministry. One lady that Mindy is trying to get with regularly is our neighbor across the street. She and her family are Roman Catholics, and Mindy is hoping for an opportunity to share the Gospel with this lady when she knows the language much better and can do it out of a developed relationship. Down here, living in Ascunción, the capital of Paraguay, we had two non-christian “missionaries” from the U.S. come by our house. One is from Arizona and the other has family in Klamath Falls, OR. We have been able to share with them some and we are expecting one more opportunity. Of course, something else is on our minds as well: the tribes of Paraguay. Please pray for all of these. Click here to see specifically what you can pray for.
Our Asunción House
Our family in front of our house
Our plan was to land in Asunción, leave the airport, and go straight to our house—fully dependent on our Paraguayan host church to set up house. In that way, we would emphasize our role as learners, we would show our need of our local church, and we would foster friendships with our host families. This was not meant to be. A missionary here was trying to find a house for us six weeks before we came. For some reason, God saw fit to provide a house for us to move into 54 days after arriving in Paraguay. It wasn’t our plan, but it reassures us to know that God has a plan.
And we are so blessed to be in the house that He has provided. Come to our photos page to have a look around the place. It is a nice house and it seems so big for us. It also has a very nice front and back yard for the kids to play in and for having guests. This really is a wonderful house for this stage of our ministry as it will be our center of operation for our Paraguayan culture/language study. We have already been able to have an asado (Paraguayan barbeque) with several people from our host church. These same people were key in bringing us to the point that we are at now.
There are a few good places within walking distance of our house. Our church is six blocks. Two supermarkets are within three blocks. The barber shop is three blocks. A mini market is half a block. And several of the members of our church are six blocks or closer.
In the meantime, we have been able to enroll our kids in a Paraguayan Christian school that is only about a block away from our house. Hannah just finished homeschooling 2nd grade and is now in 2nd grade here. Elijah just finished homeschooling 1st grade and is now in 1st grade here. Macayla and Daniella are in Kindergarten and Preschool, which happen to be together in the same class. The school year here is from February to November, so they’re coming in about 1/3 through the school year. They are fully immersed in Spanish, as none of the teachers speak English. Hannah’s teacher even seems a little nervous about what she’s going to do with this non-Spanish speaking kid!
We’re not too worried though. We put them in the grade that they just completed so that they wouldn’t have to work too much about the academics and they
The kids in their school uniforms
could just soak in the Spanish, which they seem to be doing quite well. This is a wonderful opportunity for the kids to learn Spanish. Right now they’re listening really well and picking up on the sounds. I know that when they start speaking, it’s just going to come flowing out of them! Our hope in this also is that it will give us opportunities to get involved with the school and the other kids’ parents. These opportunities have already started popping up, and we’re just trying to take advantage of all that we can.
Thank you all so much for your prayers. We’ve been through a lot while we’ve been here, and we’re excited to be where we are at now learning the language and culture of Paraguay.
Video – Travels to Paraguay
Our Host Church
It’s been a long time coming, but we are very glad to be here in Paraguay. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We couldn’t be here without you. Come along with us through this video!
Unfortunately, I have not been able to get any videos to play full screen directly from this blog page. To see any of these full screen, click on the title link or my name below the video. This will redirect you to Vimeo where I have the videos stored. You can then watch any of them full screen by clicking the full-screen icon.
Travels to Paraguay from Bryson White on Vimeo.
First Week in PY
Our Host Church
Many, many months of training. Weeks and weeks of packing. Day after day of final preparations. Hour upon hour of traveling. All leading up to our entrance into Paraguayan culture and lifestyle. This time of studying the national culture and language is called Equipping 2—or E2. This has been some event out in front of us for so long, but now it is a reality. This first week has actually been rather relaxing as we ease into our Paraguayan E2.
Most new missionaries down to Paraguay will be given a host church and a host family from that church to help with adjusting to the culture and setting up a household along with any other questions that come up. Our host church is Iglesia Evangelica Bautista las Buenas Nuevas and we do not have a host family; we have six host families plus the pastor who have all eagerly volunteered to help us!
We were greeted at the airport by the missionary couple in charge of our E2 (Randy and Laurie Steel) and several people from our host church. It is so encouraging just to know that they are excited about us being here, as are we! That night we went straight to the NTM Guest House because we still don’t have a house. We got a taste of some Paraguayan food when we got some Lomito Árabe, which is kind of like a burrito with beef or chicken, but a thicker ‘tortilla’ and different seasonings.
The next day was the first time we ventured out by ourselves. We walked about twelve blocks to a hardware store and bought a llave francesa (crescent wrench) and some pinzas (pliers) to replace those that were confiscated in Santiago. On the way back we stopped in a market to get a look around and bought some water. From there we jumped on a bus (thinking it would take us back in front of the mission) but it ended up turning off the main road right away. So we just got off at the next stop and walked the rest of the way back. But at least I found out how much the bus cost, and that the kids are free (I found that out after having paid for them)!
Buying a grounding rod
On Friday, we met with one of the other missionaries in charge of culture and language study; she and her husband also just happen to be our missionary host couple (Steve and Ithie Jackson). Every Friday, everyone in E2 will be meeting together for some group training, so we joined in with that right away, also. That evening, all the New Tribes missionaries in Asunción came to the mission offices for a bienvenida (welcome party) for us. That way we got to meet them as well as the others that are in E2.
Saturday, Randy drove us out to the neighborhood where our church is to see a couple of the prospective houses for us to rent. We only saw the outsides though and got an idea of their sizes. The main purpose of the drive out there though was to meet the pastor and his wife at our church. They are Pastor Sergio and Josefina.
The next morning, Randy and Laurie drove us back out to our host church. We had a great time meeting many more from there. The church service was about an hour and 45 minutes, with the kids being at Sunday School for an hour and a half. They all went to their classes and did very well with it. Not that they understood anything, but none of them came back crying, so that was a good first step! Elijah said, “Well, I found out that whenever anybody says anything to me I don’t know what they’re saying.” At least he realized that. That evening we went on our first profitable bus trip when we rode back out to church. Someone from in the church gave us a ride back home, though.
The big accomplishment on Monday was getting a javelina, or grounding rod, since Paraguay does not generally have any grounds. I will use that once we’re in our house to ground our computer equipment. Through Saturday, we had been having meals with other missionaries, so we also had to do our first grocery shopping. On Tuesday we went to a fresh fruit and vegetable market where there were quite a few items unfamiliar to the US, but also quite of few things that we are used to. Since we have been living right here at the guest house instead of 45 minutes away by bus, we went ahead and did all our administrative orientation on Monday and Tuesday as well.
Avacados from outside the guest house
Wednesday brings us to the end of our first week. We’ve found that most of the missionaries communicate via cell phones and text messages down here, even some out in the tribal areas. So I went out and got a chip for my phone. I know that looks like an English word, but here it’s pronounced “cheep.” So I do have a cell number now if you ever want to venture into the world of international calling or texting. Go to our Contact page to see how to get a hold of me.
I’m sitting in front of a display board with all the missionaries currently working in Paraguay, those in E2, and those that will soon be coming. I am privileged and humbled to look up and see a picture of our family included. What the board doesn’t show is the large quantity of people and churches standing behind each of the 57 missionaries currently in the country. I know that there must be hundreds of churches represented by this group and thousands of prayers lifted daily, all together for a common purpose: to see the Gospel proclaimed among the tribal nations of Paraguay. It isn’t just a picture on a display board. Thank you for standing behind us and for lifting your prayers up on our behalf and for the sake of the Gospel reaching those without it!!!