Going off script

Some cool stuff this morning: a prayer of thanks led by Ojibway and Cheyenne people, including a big delegation from Kansas, facing the four directions, then to the sky and to the ground. Strange to watch 6000 people turn around in their seats, facing south, but even the skeptical Dutchmen took part. Claire Brenneman had just launched into telling the story of the Pax Boys who helped build the Trans-Chaco Highway with MCC in the 1950s when the sound system suddenly made an ominous noise and the lights went out!

Poor Brenneman continued without a mike for a few minutes, his translator falteringly following, until finally people in the back started shouting that he could be heard. Then Paul Dueck, bless him, brought his choir up and said, "How about we sing??" And we did! Singing, laughing and clapping, we joined in as he launched into a series of songs we could actually sing in the dark, with acoustic instruments - Halle Halle Halle, Alabare, etc. It felt like that moment that seems to happen every assembly when suddenly this big creaking machine starts to feel like a living organism - the spirit descends and we are finally starting to feel like family. We were just into Siyahumba, "we are walking in the light of God" when the lights started to come back up. I was almost sorry they did.

Later, we ended up at lunch with a leader of the Cheyenne group who recalled how they'd been told that everything must be strictly scripted and not go a bit overtime. "God," he said, "really does have a sense of humour."

In the afternoon, we visited the Mennonite Hospital Kilometre 81 with a tour group, and found it, as Rebecca had described it, to be quite "awesome." It took a long time to get there, with a chipas stop on the way, but the place was quite lovely, impeccably groomed grounds and low tropical buildings surrounded by trees, eucalyptus groves and cattle pastures.

A lot of the details on leprosy I'd learned long ago, but it was interesting to hear the story of how this place was established as a thank-you to the Paraguayan people for their welcoming arms in years gone by and the kinds of programs it's now involved with, including a mobile clinic that covers most of the country. It does a lot of work in the community, trying to erase the stigma of leprosy and flush out more people who are hiding the disease, to their ultimate misfortune. The hospital has treated more than 6000 people for leprosy and serves as a general clinic for the local community. The only inpatient services are to people who are suffering long-term complications from the disease, like the men who quite willingly let us take their picture as they sat outdoors, nursing wounds on their legs that won't heal.

The govt apparently doesn't contribute anything to the hospital; donations come mainly from paraguayan mennonites, with some outside help from MCC and IMO as well as free donations of medications from a European country. Volunteers come from the Mennonite colonies to work in the hospital and run the farm operation, which helps subsidize the hospital as well. Among the cool things to see was the shoe shop, where three people work at producing shoes that look normal on the outside but can comfortably be worn by people who have essentially lost their toes to the disease. And theres the simple and very Mennonite-looking chapel, where services alternate between Spanish, German and Guarani.

After a great tour around the hospital led by a woman who served as a nurse there (and was back to volunteer for the week to show MWC folk around), we headed back to the city in our comfortable coach (such a nice change from the usual Asuncion buses) and got back a bit late. ...

Singers from Congo led off the evening with some great African sound -- we were missing that at this assembly. There was a report from the Latin American Women Theologians, who have taken some inspiration from their African sisters and gotten together recently to plot the overthrow of ... oh, wait, nobody's supposed to know about that. As if to underscore the point, Ditrich Pana of Paraguay delivered a sermon on Acts 2 that meandered around for a long time until, it appeared, he got the red light and suddenly drifted off ... Ok, so it wasn't the best couple of hours so far, but the GREAT music from the wonderful "international choir" made it terrific anyway. Mandolin, guitars, drums of all kinds, pan flute, Paraguayan harp, violin, flute ... and terrifically chosen music sung well. What more could you ask for?

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