The group have raised money for a water tank, pump and pipes to be installed at Oasis del Norte, a learning centre in the small town of General Elizardo Aquino.
Church Street Bible Chapel undertook the fundraiser to give the centre a reliable water source.
Spokesman Julian Goodsir said while the country was rich in water, boasting one of the largest hydro dams in the world, there was low coverage of water supply to rural areas.
While there was a lot of wealth in the cities, the community was "relatively basic".
Locals spoke Guarani, the native language of the area.
Oasis del Norte taught the local children Spanish after school and at weekends, while they were playing and having fun.
While past governments had enforced learning Spanish, children were no longer expected to learn it.
The church had come to know the couple in charge of the centre after they were stuck in Timaru during "Covid time".
They had stayed with a local family, and had kept in touch with church members afterwards.
The water tank was the second donation this year.
In January, some of the church members had headed over with tiling gear and tiled the centre’s meeting area.
Mr Goodsir said in the eight days in Paraguay they had planned to "blaze in and blaze out", but had become nervous that might be impossible.
"To start with we didn’t know if we would get there in time."
Delayed flights required changing their stopover destinations and times, which ended in them arriving half a day late.
Mr Goodsir said they were very thankful for their bags arriving, as the airport was "notorious" for bags going missing.
Packed in those bags — between tiling gear and a tile levelling system donated by DTA — were gifts of sports gear to the children from South Canterbury Cricket and South Canterbury Rugby, which included spike ball kits.
Despite power outages, no water and a major heatwave (with days reaching 42°C and nights sitting at 28°C), they finished on schedule.
"It was awesome."
"We are now thinking about raising some money for one of the four self-contained cabins.
"And even thinking we might go again at some stage — we already have some interest for this and some prospective people who have said that they’d like to be involved."
