One Wedding and…

… simply too many funerals. The Office of the Attorney General found out that there were many duplicate entries in the list of casualties of the recent Ykua Bolaños fire. After pruning out duplicates, it seems that the official amount of deceased people is 369. There are a lot of injured ones and at least one suicide related to the tragedy. Please keep praying for our country and for all the bereaved.

While this sad event prompted many –both within and outside our borders– to an unprecedented outpouring of help, relief aid and generosity, there are also the not-so-bright spots. There are already a lot of scammers who would trick people into thinking they were making donations for the victims, when the money went to the scammer’s purse instead. Also there are many left-wing organizations who are trying to organize a march of protest, concealing their true identity and ideology in order to appear as non-radical.

But there’s one wedding! As I write this, my brother-in-law and her fiancée are getting married in the civil wedding. (Paraguayan weddings 101 for you English-speaking people: You “get married” actually twice; you have the civil wedding, officiated by a Justice of Peace or a Civil Registry officer, and this makes you married under the law; and the religious wedding, officiated by a pastor/priest and the one that makes you married in the eyes of the [Roman Catholic] Church and therefore the eyes of most of the people. The civil wedding is the preamble of the religious.)

Well, my wife had to go to my in-laws’ home to clean because her brother would get married and after the civil wedding, he wanted to have a small reception at his home. She has five other siblings, but no one was available to help!, so it was left to my wife the task of helping her aging and frail mom to clean out the living room and other partying quarters.

You can’t even begin to imagine how upset I am for all of this. My inlaws are a very large family, and yet, no one was willing to help. The bridegroom is in part guilty, since he wanted so much to have receptions after both the civil and religious ceremonies, and I don’t even begin to mention how deeply buried into debt he is because he wants to have a party and a big church wedding. I am deeply upset because my wife is not supposed to spend 12 hours cleaning the soiled rooms of my inlaws’ home. And I am forcing to stop now because I could go on and on and on rambling to no end in sight…

Now for more pleasant news. Josiah was very kind in sending me a Gmail invite. I’m delighted to have a Gmail account and I plan to do lots of nifty experimentation with it. Tomorrow I have to give a talk to InterVarsity Paraguay (local name is “Grupos Bíblicos Unidos del Paraguay”, GBUP, or United Bible Groups of Paraguay) about the inductive study of my favorite Bible book, the Book of Ecclesiastes. Even though is in “off-limits time” (Saturday morning) I really look forward to it. InterVarsity is the most enduring influence in my spiritual life and since now they are on rather difficult times, I am glad to help them in this way.

There are so many subjects I could blog on but there’s only so much time in your life. Perhaps I would add something else later. See you till then!

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