Ever wondered what a 300 year old religious statue would look like with a live human head? Me neither and before you start thinking along gory lines allow me direct your thoughts in the right direction. The 12^th of June in Paraguay is a national holiday known as ‘Paz del Chaco’ which celebrates the end of a war with neighboring country Bolivia. Knowing this ahead of time our group took advantage of the 3 day weekend and split to the south border of the country to a city named Encarnación. Within a half hour bus ride of this city lie 2 ancient Jesuit ruins which now make attractive tourist locations.

Upon arriving at the first site around 8 in the morning we were presented with a much more eerie side of the ruins than any of us had expected due to a dense fog that sat heavily on the site. We spent most of the morning at checking out the old stone structures of ‘Trinidad’ and referring to my opening line, found the location to be surprisingly unrestricted in the sense of supervision as one can see from the inserted photos. The second location, Jesús, was a half hour bus ride away if you take a local Paraguayan’s bus and is settled next to an appealing farm town with the same name. This site was noticeably smaller and I was told it was only an operational colony for a short period, something like 5-10 years.

While we are in the topic of short periods of time, the 27^th of June designates the one month mark of our disembarking. The following is a rough reference of the remaining time:

From now until July 3^rd – Normal schedule of teaching classes

July 4^th through the 10^th – Time to tie up loose ends and spend time with the group

10^th through the 19^th – Global Youth Summit and Mennonite World Conference

20^th through the 26^th – Last days to spend with the host family and group

27^th – Flight to Chicago from Asunción