C.C. No. 24078
Lambare, Paraguay 2420, South America
Items Needed by the New Horizon School and the Local Church in Lambaré ParaguayNEW!!
2004 School Brochure (front)From a dream to reality, an opportunity to share Christ and impact lives...
Why start a school in Paraguay?
Our school is in a town near Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. A needs assessment revealed over 5000 children were not attending school due to economic problems. Although "free" public education is available, many get turned away due to the lack of space or the families cannot afford the cost of tuition, books, uniforms, and supplies. The people in Paraguay face major problems such as drugs, alcoholism and poverty from unemployment or more under-employment. More than 70 % of the population lives below the level of poverty. In our school our richest parent makes approximately $450 a month. The majority of the parents of our school don't even make minimum wage, which is about $170 a month depending on the rate of exchange. Many families do not have a regular income. In Paraguay much of the population is under the age of 21, therefore, many children are forced into working or begging in the streets.
Vision of Our School
The vision of Escuela Nuevo Horizonte, a Christian school in Lambaré just outside of Asuncion, is to raise up a generation of youth who can serve as future leaders of this country. They will practice integrity and honesty guided by Biblical principles and the Holy Spirit. The school, opened in 2001, has earned an excellent reputation for its strong academics and Christian education.
"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
This project will be developed in three phases:
Phase I: Early Childhood
Methodist missionaries, church members and mission teams built a church and living quarters in one of the villages near Asuncion, called Barrio Zulma. Barrio Zulma is populated with very poor families whose children need an edcation but simply cannot afford to go to school without help from outside sources. Mark and Jo Waltz, Methodist missionaries from the United States have been instrumental in the work of the Methodist Church in Barrio Zulma. In 2000, they secured property across the road from the church with a partially finished bulding on it. They finished the bulding and built an additional room in the rear, enclosed the grounds with a protective wall and the pre-school and kindergarten had their 1st class of students in the 2001 school year. 
Phase II: Elementary (Grades 1-6)
Groundbreaking for the New Horizons Elementary/Secondary School began in August of 2001 with a prayer ceremony. Mark Waltz and a short-term missionary, Kevin Poe and his family from Georgia, finalized and correct the architectural plans that saved the school thousands of dollars and he was able to supervise the foundational part of construction. God's timing to send the Poe family was perfect and a real blessing. It took just over two years to complete and God provided all the funds as needed along with the workers. Another blessing was when Christian Dickson of Georgia, came and was able to help Mark supervise the final stages of construction when Mark was really busy with clinic work.
Many local church members along with American work teams completed the project. The American work teams were from KY, IL, IN., OH, PA, MS, VA, and PA. We moved into part of the building early in Jan 2003 as construction continued. The Grand Opening occured in February. We dedicated the building and all the Glory belongs to God.
The Elementary School is rapidly growing with 296 children enrolled in preschool(jardin, 4 year olds), kindergarten(pre-escolar, 5 year olds), first, second, third and fourth grade. The Methodist School of New Horizons is a private christian school and is not supported by the government so we will need to obtain 50-55 new sponsors each year. If you would like to sponsor a child, complete the Child Sponsorship Form . You can even visit your child. See photos of sponsors visiting children they sponsor.
Curriculum
We are using the Spanish version of the Abeka Book curriculum (used by home schooling families in the US). This program is well organized, provides in-depth advanced teachings at each grade level and shares God's words and commands in most lessons. The Ministerial of Education certifies all of our teachers and all the classroom teachers are Paraguayans or Latino now living in Paraguay.
Prayer is an important part of each day. It is impossible to share all the miracles we have witnessed due to the children's prayers: an alcoholic father who quit drinking, families restored, parents accepting the Lord, parents getting jobs, people being healed, and even a baby surviving an extremely difficult birth. Praise God for how the children are receiving God's word and sharing with their parents, grandparents and others. We have a special chapel service with the children and the parents once a month. The children receive Christian Education taught by our Pastor's wife, Felicia and another person studying in seminary. As mentioned before, we are not the poorest area and as part of our training, we want our families to reach out and help others. Thus we have adopted the Susana Wesley School in the San Pedro region. Our families collected used clothes and provided monthly offering along with hosting a special evening of folklore music, dancing, typical foods, and other activities to help raise funds. The children have many of the same type of classes as US students plus being a dual language country, they study both Spanish and Guarani. The children have 3 to 4 hours of instruction each day, and then they must study in their home. In addition, the children have English that is currently being taught by an American missionary. They also receive special classes such as physical education, music and computer education. As we grow we are expanding the children's horizons - a science fair; an all school physical, academic, Olympics, sports, music, clubs - all designed to educationally and spiritually help the children.
Photos of the school.Phase III: High School (Grades 7-12)
Phase III will be a future implementation of a High School into the current building.
On the Horizon in 2005 and beyond...
Community Programs
Each year their task becomes more challenging as we add more and more children our school will evidentially have over 700 students. Donations can be sent to our foundation:
Fairview United Methodist Church
Samaritan Hands Paraguay Schools
2508 Old Niles Ferry Rd.
Maryville, TN 37803