Passion for Paraguay: My God Delivered Me

Passion for Paraguay: My God Delivered Me Please pray for Norberto and especially Julie in this tough time when they have been robbed. This is not the first time for them.

Daily Help

“Believer, do you remember that rapturous day when you first realized pardon through Jesus the sin-bearer? Can you not make glad confession, and say, “My soul recalls her day of deliverance with delight. Laden with guilt and full of fears, I saw my Saviour as my Substitute, and I laid my hand upon him; oh! how timidly at first, but courage grew, and confidence was confirmed, until I leaned my soul entirely upon him; and now it is my unceasing joy to know that my sins are no longer imputed to me, but laid upon him, and like the debts of the wounded traveller, Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of all my future sinfulness, ‘Set that to my account.’ “–Daily Help (September 24)

Three Most WOW Moments

I would not be honest with you if I said that my mission trip was all fun and games. I would compare it to being deployed to Iraq.

Now if you were deployed then you would be sure to see some "action" and you could say, "WOW that was a really stiff fight and I am glad I made it out alive." I am so thankful to God because through it all he taught me a great deal.

First WOW 

With that said, one of the wow's of the missionary experience was how much spiritual attack one can come under when on the missionary field. At one point it seemed that everything I believed was shaken except one thing. Job 19:25 "I know that my redeemer lives." That one statement kept me through the trials that I went through. It may be that you did not have to go to the mission field to experience this shaking. Everyone I talk to seems to agree that the last year has been a really tough year.


By Grizzli [CC-BY-SA-2.5, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons

Second WOW

One of my most wow moments was when I saw the living situation of some of the people in Paraguay. The poverty to me was beyond my ability to understand. One young family was living in a one room house that had no floor and was only a couple of feet larger than the double bed they had. They did have room for a TV (about a ten inch screen). I guess I knew about poverty but stepping foot in that house shocked me. Sorry I did not get a photo because the family was not comfortable with having their picture taken. But I have a representative photo of the houses built there.

The house shown here was actually moved to another property by the family who owned it because they could not afford the mortgage on the property.

Third WOW

I had a hard time deciding between this (the Iguazo falls)

Or this, a fresh kill

The Rats were pretty sweet.

I think that most of my readers would say that Iguazo was most WOW and I will be honest the other two are not that great. When I see things like this I say to myself WOW isn't God so good to give us so much beauty?

By Martin St-Amant (S23678) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
 

The Journey is Not Over

I thank the Lord for all of you and the blessings you have been to me. I want to thank you for encouraging me and supporting me this last year overseas from August 2009 – August 2010 God has been good to me this last year and He has worked to fulfill the great commission in and through my life. The missionary journey has only just begun. I have come back to the States from the "missionary field" but that does not change the calling. There are many exiting new plans and opportunities presenting themselves to us here in the USA. The main purpose for which we are here is to study and glorify God with our lives wherever we are. In case you were wondering, “Wait a sec why are you talking about 'us' and not 'I'?” That is because now I am living with my brothers Noah and Elisha in PA as we seek to earn our degrees.

In my most recent blog I mentioned that I was headed to New Hampshire. But there was a change of plans. I am now in Pennsylvania at the once vacant home of our parents. There are some things that need to be done here to help it sell. The least of these is mowing the lawn. There are lots of small things that are not quite right that can be fixed for little or no cost (like scrubbing).

Please pray for this house to sell before winter!

I am presently beginning again to study for collegeplus! www.collegeplus.org (college online) and hope to graduate in the spring or fall of next year, Lord willing. I am sitting right now at my study desk taking a break from study to write this letter. Please pray for me and my brothers in this goal to get the degree.

While we are here in PA we are helping in the Tobyhannah Army Chapel we are leading worship and a bible study. I did not think that the doors would open up like this in PA and I see this as a sign from God that we are supposed to be here. This is a working scholarship so thanks to God for helping with the education expense a little. There also is a part time job delivering furniture that will help pay expenses.

For my next few letters I will answer a series of questions about my time in Paraguay. The topics might change but here is the rough draft. They will be called “Reflections on Paraguay”. Please pray for me that God would enable me to take the proper time out of a busy schedule to write these letters or articles.

Three Most WOW Moments

Moments of Dispair

Hopless Moments Where God Came Through

Moments of Feeling Fulfilled in God's Work

Moments of Testimony

My Changes in Attitude Toward Family

Great Expectations?

Most Embarassing Moment

If you have any other areas that you feel I should cover please just send me a message.

The future looks brighter as Jesus is becoming more precious to me all the time. Lord willing I will finish my degree and then follow the Lords direction into more education and ministry.

I want to thank all of you for your support for the year that I was in South America. I could not have done it without your prayers, and your financial gifts, and words of encouragement along the way. Through you God gave me what I needed.

Contact Info:

Website: dbendele.blogspot.com

Send Mail to:

David Bendele

187 Lincoln Green Ln

Newfoundland PA 18445

P.S. Please go to this link http://www.mvi.org/child and consider helping the child of the month at missionary ventures go to Explorers Camp. I know Maria Mercedes Sedy from Paraguay and her family. They are truly a poor christian family and I can attest to the truth about their living conditions. And there are many others that are in the same or worse conditions at home. Mr. Sedi the father of this girl came to Jesus not long before I left Paraguay and I like to think that God may have used the times that I talked about Jesus and being saved by faith alone to bring him to Jesus. Please pray that he would continue to walk the Jesus path.

Jesus is Our High-Way

Jesus is our high-way the true-way and the only-way.
He is the holy-way our prayer-way the thruway.
He wiped sin-'way on that cross gave grace-'way,
Pulled us out of our low-way to his free-way.
He took all our cares-'way and our fears-'way.
He'll wipe all our tears-'way and the jeers-'way.

Are you on the wrong-way? Don't let sin take you-'way.
That dark-way is the death-way the down-way the hell-way,
turn from your-way and try God's-way because,
Jesus is the high-way the true-way and the only-way.

inspired by

Isaiah 35:8-10 (ESV)

 ⁸ And a highway shall be there,
   and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
   It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
   even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
⁹No lion shall be there,
   nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
   but the redeemed shall walk there.
¹⁰ And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
   and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
   they shall obtain gladness and joy,
   and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
This license that I have given this poem gives you the right to use this poem as long as you give credit to me for having written it in the first place. You can adapt it as you like and use it in a sermon, song or art as long as you still give me credit for the original creation and link to this website as follows. "cc by David Bendele dbendele.blogspot.com" 

I would greatly appreciate it if you would tell me how you use my work if you do. 

Last Few Days in Paraguay

I must regrettably leave Paraguay in two days. I have loved being here and I will miss you Paraguay. At first when thinking about soon leaving the "missionary field" to go back to study in the USA I thought that I might have to change the name of my blog, but in reality my missionary journey has only just begin. Anyone who has spent any time in the North East of the USA will tell you that it is a missionary field and a needy one at that. So my journey just is taking me on to greater things. I will say goodbye to my family in Argentina and head back to the USA in a couple of weeks from now.

Food for thought... How is saying goodbye to a country similar to death? Different?


Thanks Zach for the photos.

Milk or Meat?

“For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.” ~~ C. S. Lewis

Visit to Puerto Barra y Ypetemi Ache Continued

I was privileged to be present at the repatriation and burial ceremony for the bones of an Aché girl named Damiana who died in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. She was taken from her home to study her at the age of three. After she died at 13 She was cut up in pieces and parts of her went to Berlin and parts stayed in Argentina.... part of the head was taken to Germany and studied by a professor Juan Virtchow..... well enough of that. So the bones are now back in Paraguay and were given to the Aché and I watched the ceremony which included crying and singing from the men and women.

 These are the rib bones of the girl.

This picture is what the women do as they cry for the dead on the leg of their husband.

This is a sweet old man. In fact all the old men are very sweet and so loving. The "paint"is spit mixed with charcoal and sugar.

So here I am dressed in my Aché best. This black paint is like having your best suit on. (Back in the day paint was the only thing they wore).

So this guy is probably wearing an Aché tuxedo.

If you ever want to make some Aché face paint first get the charcoal from your fire. It has to be the hard dark charcoal and not the light colored ashes. Next take a big bag of sugar and grab handfuls of sugar and a lump of charcoal and chew it up together. The sugar helps you salivate and then spit it out into your hands and rub it around for a while then apply liberally to face.

And

Add feathers if you really want to dress up.

More Killing Chickens

This morning, more killing of chickens. We had a conversation about what life lessons we can learn from this. Zach said that he learned that he does not want to be a Chicken. And Norberto said that he learned that he does not want ZACH to kill him. Lask time Zach killed a chicken it took seven wacks to just get the head off and blood was everywere. Then we went in to see the US play in the World Cup but they were showing the England game instead! Will watch the game later. Please do not tell me the result of the game! 

P.S. I am glad I was not there at the time that Zach had his killing spree. I was in the Aché village eating Armadillo when Zach was killing that Chicken. Armadillo tastes a lot like chicken.

A Peek at Another Culture

This Monday I got back from visiting the Aché (ah CHEY) Indians of Paraguay. The picture above is a monkey peeking out of an Aché home.

The Aché are getting help to expand the farm. Among other things they have milk cows. They are working to become more self sufficient. With the milk they make cheese and yogurt.

My first impression of the Aché community was that it was a village and a farm at the same time. The missionaries are doing an almost impossible task of bringing a hunter/gatherer based culture into the 21'st century as an agricultural people. Teaching them to fish is not good enough, they have to be taught to run heavy agricultural machinery and modern milking methods. 

The next generation is already learning about this all from a young age. These boys will grow up farming while their parents grew up hunting and mid-life started farming. They still do go hunting once a month but as the rain-forest shrinks they rarely bring back anything. While I was there, they came back from their hunting empty handed.

This guy's Aché name is Loro, Parrot. He actively seeks opportunity to learn from foreigners. Everyone has a Spanish name and an Aché name. My Aché name is Jukugi which means Lion. I will be working on another blog post soon with more pictures. Until then God be with you.

The Good News

It has been so long since I have posted a blog that I am not sure where to pick up again. I feel like I have been around the back side of the moon. I lost signal for a while due to a mass of stuff in space.

Honestly I can tell you that this year has been the hardest in my christian life. I have not doubted God but I have doubted myself.

I want to talk about God and the gospel. In fact if I continue blogging I want this to be the main topic. I was reading in google reader the gospel blog http://gospelblog.net/ on the Perversion of the Gospel. As I was reading I was thinking about a friend that I have invested lots of time in telling him the truth and putting lots of effort into showing him the way but he seems to be going away from the purity of the gospel and with Paul I say, "I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you." (Galatians 4:11 NIV) But in some ways I am responsible. Some of his errors come originally from me. That is what this year has been all about. God has corrected me. God has made me see my own error. God has caused me to doubt in myself. That is a good place to be because that means that you can then trust in another. Anything else is legalism. I have begun to see that while I recognised the most obveous form of legalism I failed to see the more subtle form.

1. Legalism in its more obvious form is "The attempt to acquire merit before God through the performance of various rituals and practices"[1]

2. The more subtle version states that merit before God is by grace through faith maintained through the performance of various rituals and practices.

Biblical liberty states however, that merit before God is by grace through faith. (period) Nothing else added. No Law, Nothing.[2]

How does this work out in life? Well someone will point to some commandment and say that the bible says the people who break this one go to hell. Immediately you think, "Wow I have broken that one that must mean that I will go to hell unless I do not continue in that." The SDA's will use the fourth commandment to get Christians to turn from true biblical liberty to salvation maintained through works. They claim that God does not change and that sin is disobeying the commandments. We know that sinners do not go to heaven. So in order to go to heaven you have to have faith plus keep the commandments especially the fourth. But if salvation depends on works in any way then grace is not grace. "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." (Rom 11:6 ESV)

What then is sin? Sin is anything that does not proceed from faith. The New Covenant has given us a new command that is to believe the Gospel and anyone who does not is condemned already. "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."(Rom 14:23 ESV) see also John 16:8-9.


What then counts? Faith working itself in love. (Galatians 5:6 ESV)
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love."

[1] J. R. Wagner, Dictionary of New Testament Background, electronic edition, Editors: C. A. Evans, S. E. Porter IVP, 2000

[2] The Bible is clear in James that faith is not independent from works but that the proof of faith is works. This in no way makes salvation by works but only shows works as evidence of faith.  Some people would ask, "Is this grace of God an excuse to sin?" There is no way! Salvation is begun and finished by faith. And living faith produces works (James 2:26 ESV) "For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead." Be careful of the distinction between merit by faith maintained by works and merit by living faith producing good works. There is a world of difference between the two.

1 Tim 1:15

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst."

 Please write your thoughts on this verse. I had always thought that Paul the apostle was the only one who had the right to say things like "I am the worst of sinners," or "I am the least of all the believers." But this verse shook that idea and exposed my heart. What do you think of this verse? How does it apply to life? I have by no means grasped this one yet. How can I apply this to my life and attitudes? 


I like this quote on the same line of thought 


"To think nothing of one's self, and always to think well and highly of others, is great wisdom." Oh to be like Jesus who was a servant of all! Who wants "this" holiness?? For truly this is the depths of holiness and death to self to consider others better than ourselves. Where the love of Christ abounds in us to all men. - Words from Thomas A Kempis as quoted by Greg Gordon of sermonindex.net

Wow Everything is so Exciting!!!

After the initial, "Wow Everything is so Exiting and New".

Comes the mundane and the schedule and the same week in and week out.  It is not quite that bad but I begin my day in the Radio every morning where I am a DJ during the morning show. Then I go to lunch with a co-worker called Severiano. And then I take a little siesta and I have to then work on some aspect of the Chicken Project

I have been given little to start with because it is all I can handle and God knows that. I seek to be faithful in little and God will give me more.

The Chicken Project for those who are wondering involves house visits and financial accounting and the thinking of how to make this go forward and how to plan the future of the project. And buying food in bulk and guidance as to the way they plan their individual homes for the chickens. To tell you the truth as flashy as the homes we built were they had much to be desired so in the future we will do things some little bit different and help put more contextual coops in.

The Radio is a Christian radio here. My job is to choose good music and control the volume during the show with Cielo and Norberto as they talk about God, the news, and interesting things such as the benefits of green tea as opposed to black. But in the end the gospel and practical instruction on family and relationships are the most important things here.


What we have to do is build relationships and then the ordinary becomes very pleasing. The relationships build until eventually you can help someone by dealing with deeper issues.

The world is full of hurting people who desperately need to open up their lives to the light of God and we can help bring that light if indeed we walk in light.

I am not much of anything and every day I see myself as less and less as I see more and more of the Words of Christ. But I am what I am only by the grace of God.



David

Proverbs 28:13

Proverbs 28:13 (KJV) He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.



I am going to start posting verses on my blog and Facebook for comments to build conversation around the Word. We will see how this goes and if it goes well I will continue it. I am not going to teach anything but ask you to comment on the verse and tell me a couple things about it. Tell what your experience with this verse has been and how has this verse been internalized in your life. As well as any thoughts on it that you may have.

Recent Photos

 

This is me drinking Tereré Pronounced Te DeDe'. If you did not drink it here you would suffer from dehydration. The only down side is that it is shared liberally and germs are passed freely. At least with Mate the drink is hot and you hope that some of the germs die but this drink is iced and who knows what could pass between people.

 

This is me with my normal face.

I went to a christian camp this last week and had fun including playing soccer. Or they say football. 

Not the best photo but I have the red shirt on.

A Day in the Life of a Missionary

I want to let you know that I got an article published in the Missionary Ventures website. Go check it out!

7:00am I woke up to the Daily Audio Proverb which I set my computer to play automatically every morning to wake me up. When that was done, I had a time of prayer.  After this I ate a good big fiber breakfast with yogurt from the Colonia that is very very good. While eating, I listened to the main Daily Audio Bible podcast that goes through the whole Bible in a year.
8:15am I began my day’s work by checking my emails and working a little on the budget for the “Wings of Hope” chicken project and posted to the Daily Audio Bible prayer forum the news about the earthquake in Haiti.

Read more...

I have been busy! Well, I have been learning Spanish every day and I just learned that "rooster" is "gallo" in Spanish. At the same time I have been taking part in Church activities. Right now I am playing Cello in the music group and I have been blessed to be part of some really beautiful worship. I was the only person along with the pastor one day to play and the presence of God was in the Church like I have rarely known and God spoke to me about some ministry opportunities here in Paraguay that He wants me to do. I am going to be in Paraguay until the end of June, or mid July.

Please pray for me to grow in my training as an intern with Norberto and that God would continue to prepare me while I am in here in Paraguay. I have great ideas but please pray that I could have the ability to put them into practice.

I love you all and I could not be here without your help and prayers.  Please let me know how I can pray for you!



In Christ,