Strawberry Festival and Cold Days!

     So as I am writing this, I just finished making my great great grandmother’s secret sugar cookie recipe! They are delicious. Yet it still struck me that tied for my favorite part were the cookies and the heat from opening up the oven every time! It has suddenly dropped back into our cold winter weather and with the humidity it gets you deep into the bone. Now for all of you northerners that are laughing at me right now… with Paraguay’s cold days usually in the low 40s and 50s, I have not forgotten about our winters. Here the cold really gets you as there is little if any insulation on the buildings and the humidity can truly pierce you to the bone. It feels like you are living in your garage and there isn’t really an escape from the cold. Often it is colder inside the buildings than outside. Especially like at church this Sunday as the cinder block walls and metal sheet roof served to keep the cold in like an icebox. Keeping this in mind, PLEASE pray for the people that live in the chacarita (one of the biggest slums in Asuncion), shacks, and on the streets. I am blessed to be able to layer lots of clothes, have hot water and a stove, and other ways to get warm, they do not.

     While this weekend was a cold one, I was able to go to the strawberry festival at Aregua! While it was much smaller than the Grove City strawberry festival (I know, hard to believe ; ) the strawberries were delicious and the time with friends was great! Paraguay had a fantastic strawberry crop this year and Aregua ( a town 30 minutes out from Asuncion (see a post from about a year ago for more on Aregua and its pottery) put strawberries in and on everything! There were chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry filled empanadas, little strawberry cakes, strawberry fruit salad, strawberries and crème, strawberry jam, strawberry juice, other strawberry drink (some alcoholic) and of course fresh picked strawberries! This was such a treat to be able to have some of these sweets as strawberries, really any berry, are rare and expensive here. I have to admit, I have almost finished the whole kilo I bought on Saturday!

Prayer Requests:
1. Please pray for all of the new teachers at ACA. They are starting teaching for the first time, which is overwhelming on top of moving around the world to a foreign country.
2. Please pray that we get the new teacher that we are looking for! (The position is middle school Social Studies and English if you know anyone who may be interested!)
3. Please pray for ACA and all of the new changes that it is going through!
4. Please pray for the people that cannot escape the cold and are suffering!

Firsts:
- First time going to the Aregua Strawberry Festival!