{"id":513,"date":"2014-09-08T10:49:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T15:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/?p=513"},"modified":"2014-09-08T10:49:32","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T15:49:32","slug":"youre-family-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/2014\/09\/08\/youre-family-now\/","title":{"rendered":"“You’re family now…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was another late night on the road with our host family. We had just finished playing volleyball at our church and eating a great big \u201cAsado\u201d (BBQ) with some of our friends. It felt like it was somewhere between 12:30 or 1:00 A.M. but the time was not important. I had purposely taken off my wrist watch to avoid both the pain from a spiked volleyball and to intentionally put time out of my mind so as to not worry about how late my kids were up. The rickety Nissan changed gears and we all jerked backwards. I stared out the window and saw dogs running wild on the city streets, posters and graffiti everywhere, and shirtless troubled teens on virtually every street corner with orange hair from malnutrition. My family was tired and sweaty. As I sat there contemplating the difficulties I am currently facing, not being able to express myself in this new context the way I wish I could, my very close Paraguayan friend, David, looked over at me and stared. I looked back at him and he said, \u201cYou’re family now.\u201d I looked at Leah in the back seat to see if I was understanding him correctly (Leah is much farther along in language from having lived in Paraguay for 12 years as a kid). Indeed, I was right! He did just say that. \u201cWow! This is huge!\u201d I thought to myself. \u201cWe\u2019ve been accepted by our \u2018host family.\u2019 They don\u2019t just look at us as foreigners, but as dearly loved ones, family even!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a>
Even though we’ve been here for roughly 61 days, we’re still settling in. Here’s a shot of our new house that is to be our home for the duration of our time in language study here in Asunci\u00f3n.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My heart was thrilled to hear these words. For over a year I had prayed for this family. Even though we had never met them, even though we didn’t know their language, we had prayed that God would give us people like this. For over a year I had prayed that God would give us what we need in order to work and live in Paraguay long term. From the time that we had decided that God was leading our family to serve in Paraguay I had been praying for good relationships with Paraguayans. And it seems as though God has answered that very specific prayer request. Sure, the language barrier is evident. Culturally, we are worlds apart from each other. But several things are the same. We\u2019re four believers who are learning to rely on each other as the universal church to see people reached with the Gospel i.e. the saving life of Christ. God goes beyond cultural barriers. He goes deeper than language and misunderstandings. This was a huge relief for us as we’ve been on this journey to lose a part of ourselves in order to become something that we are currently not. And it all starts off with God giving us a family, part of the Body of Christ us to help us in this journey.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our host family (seen above) has done a remarkable job making us feel welcomed and loved! Pray that we would continue to pursue deep relationships with many people here in Paraguay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since this time (4-5 weeks ago), our family has helped us immensely. Not only have they aided us in our language study, they\u2019ve given us some of their most precious commodities, time, money, relationships, and beyond. They dropped everything and left work early to take us to the hospital where Gabe received his first stitches (He ran into a door frame while he was looking backward and playing). They have driven us all over the city of Asunci\u00f3n in order to price things for our house. They\u2019ve left work several times when we were looking for a house to live in so that they could give us their opinion on price, quality, and security. They\u2019ve driven us to church every single Sunday that we\u2019ve been here. They\u2019ve looked at us in the eyes and said, \u201cAre you OK? Do you need anything? Are you feeling like this is home?\u201d They\u2019ve poured their lives into ours, and it\u2019s only been two months since our arrival in Paraguay. Even though we\u2019ve only been here a short while, things have occasionally gotten a little rough for us. Whether it\u2019s been stress, frustration, etc. there\u2019s one thing that has always encouraged me. That thing is our relationship with our \u201cnew\u201d family. What a blessing these dear fellow believers have been.<\/p>\n

Please continue to be in prayer for our family as we\u2019re still making this transition and attempting to become Paraguayans. Also, praise God for providing people like our host family to assist us in reaching the lost here in Paraguay. Thanks for reading and for reaching people by praying for us and supporting us in this endeavor.<\/p>\n

\"Continue<\/a>
Continue praying for the unreached in Paraguay who don’t have the Gospel. It’s the reason we moved to this country in the first place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was another late night on the road with our host family. We had just finished playing volleyball at our church and eating a great big \u201cAsado\u201d (BBQ) with some of our friends. It felt like it was somewhere between 12:30 or 1:00 A.M. but the time was not important. I had purposely taken off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448,637],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","tag-ethnos360","tag-new-tribes-mission","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}