TrewsNews

Valetines Day! I had ordered perfume from the UK and had it was a wee surprise for Eileen today. Later I found it on sale in our local supermarket!! Bizzare. Also it is the first day of the school year today. Back to the fun of teaching IT and Maths in English to Spanish speaking students. Hannah starts the second year of preschool and Elijah starts 1st grade - the first year of primary. They seem happy to be back.

A few days ago we returned to Asuncion from Florianopolis via Foz do Iguacu. We had a nice time in Santa Catarina island - a top tourist resort island in southern Brazil. Excellent sea food especially. Fisherman landing their catch, Santa Catarina Eileen's parents return home tomorrow and it has been great having them here during January. It is the hottest time of the year at the moment but we have been spared with temperatures only in the high 30s. Apparently it had been well in the 40s the week we were in Brazil. in a few weeks time school starts again so until then we plan to enjoy spending some time getting the house and garden in shape.

4:06 am Travelling by coach can be a bummer sometimes. We had arranged the coach from Curitiba to Florlianopolis for Friday at 11:15 pm. We turned up at this time only to find we had been booked on the bus that left two days before. They let us on anyway when they checked there were enough seats. What we thought was going to be a 7 hour journey turned out to be only 4, so we are going to arrive in Florianopolis in the middle of the night. 8:27 pm We arrived in Flori at 3:30 am! We spend a dreary 3 hours sitting doing nothing - it added up to a full night without sleep. At 6:15 we taxied to our holiday apparments hoping someone would be there to let us in. We arrived only to be told it would not be ready until 2 pm - in 6 hours time, and we'd had no sleep all night, and were unwashed in 24 hours. The lesson I learnt? Call ahead a day or two before to check arrangements. There was nothing we could do but make the best of it, so we got the bus back to Flori, and spent a nice m...

We're on holiday. We arrived in Curitiba yesterday after a 17 hour bus journey from Asuncion. We came on the Pluma coach from Asuncion - Pluma is by far the best coach company we have used. It was the Cama (sleeping) service which was extremely comfortable and an easy way to cover the 17 hours. We're staying in the Hotel Del Rey which is a very nice hotel and reasonably priced for one dead in the centre of the city. We were blown away by the shopping in Brazil, it's just like a european city. You see how poor Paraguay is when you compare Asuncion to Curitiba. Curitiba apparently has one of the best public transport systems in the world the guide book says. There are these cylinder like bus shelters and super effecient various coloured buses everywhere. Curitiba centre

We're in the house two weeks now. There are only a few small leaks! The first time it rained we noticed a few drips, but nothing major, the and landlord said he will sort it out. The builder's rubble has been transformed into gardens front and rear after the purchase of grass and some plants. Christmas was spent with some friends of Eileen. We did have turkey and Christmas pudding, but 35 celsisus made it a different not so much in the bleak mid winter. For New Year we had Eileen's parents to visit and invited some friends for food and fireworks. We're going to Brazil for ten days holiday starting the 5th of January Lots of love, Stephen, Eileen, Elijah and Hannah

Hi all, Yesterday we moved in to the newly rented house. We woke at 6am and finished packing boxes and black bags, then had breakfast, delivered the children to their holiday club, then got the school maintenance team to start moving everything. This was painless but exhausting in the heat. By 5 pm we were done. So last night we spent our first night here. It was dreadfully hot. Even with fans at full pelt we still felt we were sleeping in a low oven. We didn't really sleep though, especially when the kids came in suffering from the heat as well. So we're pretty tired tonight. We put the Christmas tree up today which the kids loved. There are still boxes everywhere and much to do but we're getting there. Lots of love, The Trews

Well, we got the key of the house today. Here is a wee photo of where we are going to be living from next week. This is our 5th house in 5 years and our 9th move in the same time!

Dear all Just a quick message to say that school signed the contract this morning for the house around the corner and the keys will be delivered this afternoon. They made a few amendments to the contract which school were satisfied with and we have taken digital photos of some of the less than perfect conditions. In spite of that though we are very happy and hope it will be a blessed little family home for us all. It is secure and close to school and has a nice little area out the back that we are planning to grass. Please pray that it is a hassle free move next week and that there be no more hiccups, and that we can get an aircondiioner fitted by school ASAP - it is scorching hot at the minute!!! Well much love from a hot and steamy Paraguay. Stephen, Eileen, Elijah and Hannah

Tonight was the Guardaria (nursery class) Christmas performance. It was a great night and Eileen was happy with how it all went. Our Hannah is in the centre.

Dear all, Just a quick update on the house. It has continued to leak very badly, the landlady is uninterested in repairing it, so we are right now in the process of moving back to the school flat that we vacated only 6 weeks ago. So this will be the third move in 3 months. School is looking for another house for us, but it is an expensive area and not a lot of movement in rented houses. Unless a house is found probably within a couple of weeks we will be spending Christmas and until Feb in the flat in school. This is an extremely busy time of year for Eileen with 60 reports, 2 end of year plays and helping primary with music for their end of year services, so it has come at a bad time really. We are a little down about it all, but trying very hard to look on the positive side – perhaps God has the perfect house just waiting for us, and if we are to stay in the school flat then the kids will have a big playground! Please pray for a quick and perfect solution, we sense that the kids a...

Just a quick topic for prayer. This morning Eileen woke at 5 and said she felt water splash on her face. We looked up and water was dripping from the ceiling onto the bed. A heavy thunder storm had started a few minutes earlier and we had a leak. We checked out the rest of the house to find water pouring down the walls and dripping from the ceilings in virtually all the rooms. We moved the bed and furniture to avoid it getting soaked and a few moments afterwards in the kitchen a large part of plaster crashed to the floor and left the roof exposed to more of the flood. In the bathroom water started to pour down from the light fitting like someone had left a tap running. It began pooling on the floors and we mopped up as more poured in soaking almost entire ceilings and making them dangerously ready to collapse. At the moment all the furniture in the living room is covered with plastic in case the plaster board it caves in.This problem has occurred because of a botched repair in July-...

Here is the latest Trewsnews for your reading enjoyment! We suggest you print it out and stick it up on your prayer fridge. Today was the Cultural Olympics for the secondary end of school so we can hear loud rock music from across the street as the bands practice. Primary had their sports day this morning and this afternoon is preschool dressing up day! So Eileen has her enormous Ireland hat on, my green Rugby shirt and green pigtails. Hannah is going as a fairy princess and Elijah as Tigger! Life is not dull at the moment here in Asuncion! Lots of Love,

Link: BBC News report Video: BBC News Video Yesterday just after our church had finished we realized something serious was happening when lots of ambulances went flying along the road in front of school. Then police pickup trucks acting like makeshift ambulances went past with burn victims in the back. They were going to the nearby Emergency Hospital. Ycuá Bolaños supermarket This morning the shock of the full extent of yesterday's fire disaster sunk in. Parguayan colleagues came to school with news that our Domestic Science teacher is in intensive care with life threatening burns to her lungs. Also a cleaner's brother had been killed. Later we heard a pupil from the Annex School had died with her preschool sister and cousin. Also some of the maintainance team had nephews killed. Asuncion is small enough for us to know people with family members directly affected. Reports now say 350 killed and 500 injured, perhaps 50% under 13 years old. The supermarket is about 3 miles from s...

We're putting our address up in so you can email us.

Hi all, Hello from cool Asuncion, yes we are sitting with hot water bottles! The first cold snap of winter arrived last weekend and we are feeling the cold with temperatures of 20 Celsius. It's beautiful in the sun though, better than 40C!! We're all doing very well, but pretty busy, you can read more in the latest newsletter .

All is well here in Asuncion. The weather has been beautiful the last few days, mid 20s and sunny.  So we thought it was a good time to send you our latest news letter .  Print it out and decorate your fridge with it. Blessings, The Trews

Imagine the scene - an almost 2 year old toddler finds himself alone in the bedroom where the notebook computer is kept. The lid is open, 'I have a chance to play with it', he thinks! 'There is a glass of water sitting beside the bed, lets bring that over as well. Hummmm... how do you turn this on, this button here? It worked, it's coming on! I wonder what will happen if I pour this water over it....' This was the scene Eileen walked into yesterday. Eiljah was standing on a chair with an empty cup in his hand, he had just poured it over the computer he had turned on. Eileen saw the screen go blank and then it was dead. So our computer is broken. As a result it's unlikely you will receive a paper version of TrewNews this month. Its good we are still to be able to send and receive mail from one of the school computers, but we won't be able to talk to any of you over the computer. We are looking to shipping it home for repair, or buying a new one here - it'...

Attempted Coup Just after we sent out the last prayer letter there was an attempted coup here in Paraguay on May 19th. It started at around 9 p.m. and continued through the night. We knew absolutely nothing of it until a call from home at 6 a.m. the next morning to see if we were alright! The coup had been organised by some dissident military units and was quickly put down by the rest of the army and airforce. For thirty days afterwards there was a state of emergency where any gathering, including church services, were technically illegal. Like everyone else in the county we just lived life as usual except we carried our passports at all times. Teaching and Language Study Our involvement in school has increased over the last few months. Stephen has been helping with Soul Survivor, a regular meeting on Wednesday lunch times to encourage the young people in their faith. Term finished on the 8th of July for two weeks holiday. Almost all the other missionaries flew off to various ...

Currently in Asuncion there is a Dengue Fever epidemic. Things have gotten a lot worse in the last week, the government is now estimating that 50-70% of the population of Asuncion will catch this disease. We know of two other mission partners who have already suffered it. Several people in the city have died from a rarer form that causes haemorrhaging.