Joe, my partner on this trip, celebrated his 33rd birthday today! He actually didn't feel so well today, maybe the South American food got to him. He did, however, take some pills and he's feeling a little bit better now. It's a bummer to be sick on your birthday.
The photo above is the aftermath of some of our cohorts surprising Joe. When we got back from dinner, some others on the trip with us filled our room with balloons and jumped out when we turned on the lights. I have some videos, but those take a little too long to upload to the blog. I'll share later!
Joe and I spent the day at the Obligato church trying to update some of the equipment in their tech booth. It was difficult because the internet is sooo slow and the computers are outdated. Basically, we want to give them a Spanish version of some software, but it only runs on Windows 8 and above... they have windows 7 installed so we can only get the english version (which isn't any good for these people). By the end of the day a kid assured us he'll update the OS by tomorrow morning! We'll see.
A side note: Paraguay is a terrible place to find a latter. We've been asking and searching for a latter so we can adjust the church's projector. No one has a latter. Anywhere.
For 2 hours during the day today another group from First Church is doing a Vacation Bible School with some children. 83 kids showed up today, we got lots of pictures and video. It was really special for us to witness.
After our presentation on Monday night, a bunch of the musicians and tech folks invited us to a rehearsal tonight to help them work on some specific things. We showed them some techniques with the soundboard and computers. It didn't seem like much, but all the Paraguayans were very thankful that we came to help.
Overall, we've heard from so many people down here, leadership and laypeople, that our presence is so helpful.. they've never had any 'professionals' come down to this part of the world to help with technology. It's amazing to see how smart these people have been with the materials they have... but just a little advice and they can do so much!
Tomorrow is another early day! We'll be off to another church nearby to do some simmilar things to their technology!