TrewsNews

It was the funeral of Esmerelda today. First we went to the Memorial Funeral Home where her coffin had been since yesterday. Funerals here are the day after the death and many of her family and friends had not gone home at all. Then we followed the hearse on a 45 minute journey out of Asuncion to a large modern cemetery. Many of the families and students from our school where there along with students from another school she'd taught in. It was quite an emotional funeral, many of her family were in floods of tears and crying out or wailing. Being buried the next day the grief is short lived, but intense. They reckon she died of a pulmonary embolism - she'd had a broken foot and a blood clot caused a heart attack. It was totally unexpected. She was a faithful Christian and not married, so we all take comfort that she is now in heaven. The photo of her was taken at the Franklin Graham Children's festival 2005 at which she was a dancer.

When we arrived at school today we heard one of our teachers had died of a heart attack. Prof Esmerelda taught home economics, she was 37.

Here is a little video of the students' trip.

Here are some photos of the Chaco trip. This trip of final year students followed one of 1st year students (5th form) earlier in the week. They started digging the water storage well beside the church in Santa Fe community, the guys in our team carried on the digging to about 2 metres. The ground was very hard and digging was pretty hard work. We broke a pick axe and a shovel trying to remove the earth. Some of the local community will finish the digging to 3 metres and then line the inside walls with bricks. Guttering will direct rainwater from the church roof into the well. This water provides a clean source of water for the dry season - it will not evaporate and being covered reduces the risk from the Dengue mosquito that breads in open water. The girls painted the classrooms of the local school and it provides a really bright and stimulating environment for the children. The community was very appreciative of the help and it is good to think that the work the students did wi...

The school trip to the Chaco sets off early tomorrow morning. On this camp we are going to dig a well to store water during the dry season. This evening it's a trip to the supermarket to buy some toilet roll, mossie repellent, and batteries. There are lots if mossies, spiders and snakes at the minute! It's also a chance to encourage the young people to make real commitments to Christ, so please pray for us.

Yesterday was Labour Day, a day off, so we had a fun day at home filled with painting, dressing up, lego building, Horrid Henry books, Angelina Ballerina books, microwave popcorn (sen't from home!) and the new Wallace and Gromit movie! (cost: £9.50 in Asuncion). Elijah spent the day scared to go up the stairs in case the were-rabbit was there! Today was back to normal school with Stephen starting to prepare for a school trip to the Chaco next week. The weather has turned cold so the duvets and jumpers are bact out in force.