Beauty in the Ruins

    This weekend we celebrated two holidays: La Fundacion de Asuncion (the foundation of Asuncion) and El dia de los ninos (the day of the children (to celebrate the children who had to fight in the past wars of Paraguay when they ran out of enough men)). Because of this we had a 3 day weekend and I jumped at the opportunity to go to the southern part of France and see the Jesuit ruins near the city of Asuncion!

    The Jesuit missionaries were some of the first people to reach into the center of South America and current day Paraguay. Along with being some of the first European people to learn Guarani and make contact with these people, they also stood up for these indigenous people during the major land battle between the Spanish and Portuguese. With desires for the land and slavery, eventually the Spanish and Portuguese forced out the Jesuits one of the last supporters of the Guarani. While some of the Jesuits and guarani at the missions left regretfully, but without violence other missions stood their ground. The movie the Mission is a great representation of some of this history and I strongly recommend the film!!!

    Because of the removal of the Jesuits, their missions were destroyed, never completed, or left to age over time. The ruins that I was able to see were that of the ruins of Trinidad and the ruins of Jesús. The ruins at Trinidad are some of the largest in Paraguay as you can see from the numerous buildings that made up this mission. The Church and accompanying building at Jesús were never completed before the Jesuits had to leave. Recently these ruins have been remodeled and restored.


    I was so blessed to be able to see these ruins and get a look into the history, passion, and light of God shown in that time. The impressive sculpting and beautiful architecture is truly breath-taking and astounding for them to have been created during that time and with hand tools. They were definitely in the middle of nowhere and still are pretty far away from anything else.