John and Rachel McDonough News August 2026

News from Paraguay August 2026

Winter is over Spring is on the way

This winter has been a lovely time for us as a family. During the colder months: parades, shows and events that take place in school. Year-groups do presentation evenings with traditional (and some contemporary) dances. Each grade has a King and Queen, that a highly distinguished panel of judges, choose between to crown the overall King and Queen.

Well, would you believe it, Jesse and his Queen won! The celebration was spectacular. Cheering, whooping, and a very proud Jesse and Queen promenade around the room. It was a lot of fun.

Church is: a place, a community, the body of Christ

We are thoroughly enjoying having the children's Sunday School space. Over the last few months, the Sunday kids work has grown some 15%, with the core group now being around 65 children.

This is really encouraging and an exciting time as the church looks to reach more families in their area.

Boars, Gilts and Sows

Well, we are pleased with the pigs. Our male has been busy, growing and being all boar-like. The Gilts (a young female that has not yet given birth) are all growing and very healthy.

Over the last few months the church members have been bringing their offerings to look after them. Some giving of their time to help 'muck-out', some giving of their first harvests to help feed them, and some of the kids of the church popping by on their way to school to see how they are doing.

We have a new harvest tent to store corn and other pig related supplies. It has been a great project so far with the members, helping them to see how to run a budget, feed control and looking after animals with a different approach to quality of life and husbandry.

We should be having piglets by November.

We were blessed to have Joel, from the Northern Irish 'Cultivate' course, come and stay with us.

Joel was an absolute legend. He rolled with the rhythm of life here in Paraguay, he accommodated movements in schedule due to weather, but most importantly, he threw himself into loving upon those he met.

With little of the language and being in new surroundings, you can often find yourself shutting down and not knowing what to do. Well, Joel took all challenges in his stride. It was a blessing to us to have him here with us, and we know wherever he goes in life, he will be a blessing to those who get to know him.

Camping, cooking for a hundred and twenty-six people and encouraging our worship leader, Joel managed a lot in his time with us

Winter 2026

We had some extremely cold weather during late June and July. One of the ministry thrusts over this time has been to 'share the love' in practical ways into new communities. We have done this by buying blankets and distributing them to those most in need.

We decided to do our 'giving' differently. Often the whole community is called to a central point and things are handed out one-by-one. In the past, we have done this, but we wanted this to be more intimate. So with the permissions from the chiefs we went house to house.

This was brilliant as our team (and Joel) were able to share Jesus personally with each person. One of the team said "Today will be remembered as the day when that church came to my house."

We initially aimed to give out 300 blankets in 4 communities. But in came an invitation to a 5th community, and we couldn't turn down the opportunity. And so in the end we distributed 500 blankets, in 5 communities, meeting the need of 460+ families.

Our team prayed with over a quarter of those families, and we had about 10% of the families recognise Jesus, by name, on receiving their blanket.

We met in one community an elderly 90-year-old man who has gone to a family members house to be looked after in his frail state. He had given his life to the Lord a few years back but had come to be looked after in this community where he was the only believer. He said that he thought he would never meet a 'brother' in the Lord again before he dies and was so over the moon to have someone come and sit, share and pray with him. Not only that, but he invited us back to read the Bible and spend time in fellowship. When we told him that we will be back as the chief had given us permission to return and share more about Jesus, his eyes welled up, and he kept repeating 'well, now I am happy'.

We thank God that this opportunity was made possible by you, our supporters, through your giving. That the chief has opened the community up for Gospel work, and that an old faithful brother in Christ was blessed so greatly by the presence of other believers.

We are going back to those communities after spring start to do targeted evangelism.

The old faithful Land Cruiser (aka 'Blessing') is holding up well since we replaced the cabin supports and did some more front-frame welding. These roads are aging her quick, but she is a trooper.

We have been looking at a much needed second vehicle and after lots of talking to others, looking at the market and available models, we think a Toyota J70 series would our best option.

This vehicle adds volume carry capacity, up to 11 people, good internal and roof volume, as well as being rugged enough for the roads we travel.

Over the coming months we are praying for provision to buy a new vehicle. A J70 series.
Since May, we have been blessed by a few designated gifts towards this new vehicle, and this has encouraged us to pursue filling this need and getting a new vehicle.

If you would like to contribute towards this new vehicle and keep the ministry moving, please click the giving link below and write 'new vehicle' in the message section

Spring is fast approaching. As we go into this season, would you stand with us in prayer for the following: