This week

I have a few quick updates regarding prayer requests for this week. First is that, as tomorrow is Monday, we will be having house church with Douglas and his friends in the morning. It is going well as he and Diana come consistently and he regularly invites some new people each week. We are taking them through a long process of discipleship that we began two weeks ago. One great thing is that Diana got baptized in a river today as she had never gone through with that step after being saved.

There is a small village by the name of Huangra that we are planning on taking a medical team to in November. However, in order to do that we must go there first to take care of some paperwork that the government now requires for medical teams. Huangra is about a 6 hour hike from where we will leave the truck so we will need prayer for that trip. Our plan is to hike in on Thursday, spend the night, and return on Friday. Pray for positive contact with the people of Huangra as we have been invited in but have never actually made the trip before. Pray for good weather as rain could make the trip difficult or force it to be postponed yet again.

Update

It's time for another update and I apologize that it's been so long since the last one. In the last update I mentioned a young man named Douglas who recently accepted Christ. Since that time we have had our first house church in his apartment. He invited 4 people, a couple that lives next door and the cousin of a friend from work. The names of the couple are Jorge and Maribel, the friend from work is Wasington, and the cousin is Diana. Pray for the salvation of Jorge and Maribel and possibly Washington as well. From conversations so far it's difficult to tell if Washington is saved or not. If he's not then he's definitely seeking...if he is then he'll need a lot of discipleship in the future. The couple is from Peru and is struggling with working here in Cuenca and having left their children in Peru. After our first meeting they seemed very interested in the things we talked about but not ready to make a decision. Pray that these people will continue to attend our house church meetings, which take place every Monday around 11am. Pray that as they here the Word they will see the Truth. Pray that they along with Douglas will invite more and more people.
Also pray for church leaders from several communities in an area called Chunchi. We have talked the church leaders about going through a program of therapy with the eventual goal of helping them become mature Christians who can lead their churches in a change from traditional church to house church. This therapy will cover all aspects of the Christian life as we have found that many believers accept Christ but are carrying baggage from their past with them. Pray that they would take it seriously and apply it fully in their personal lives. Thanks for the prayers and I'll update again when there's more news!

Update

Here's a brief update on what's been going on for the last week or so. As I mentioned in the last post, we've had a volunteer team in from Wellford, SC. They have adopted two communities that we work with, Zhud and Tambo, and send teams down about 3-4 times a year. The focus of this trip was donating school and sports supplies with the goal of being accepted to return in the future. We donated lots of toys and basketballs and soccer balls and were able to do some quick sports and craft activities to share the Gospel. After 3 days we were able to open many doors in these communities that we are praying the nationals can exploit in the coming months.

I also have a praise and prayer request in the form of a young man named Douglas. Here is his story. While the first volunteer team was here a few weeks ago we went out to eat one night. Douglas was our waiter and overheard us praying for our meal in Spanish. When we were finished and going out to the car to leave he came out and asked what church we were from. He seemed very interested although he wasn't a Christian. We met with him a few days later for an in-depth conversation. He still wasn't ready to make a decision so we left and told him that we would talk more. In the meantime he left town to visit family and we had the volunteer team. Yesterday my boss and I had to go out to a pastors/leader meeting with the nationals and invited Douglas to tag along. While we were in the car he asked a lot more questions and after an hour or so decided to accept Christ. It was a simple prayer and you can always tell when someone is sincerely seeking. Pray for him as he has been reading the Word a lot and will need discipleship in the future.

Prayer Updates

This is the same family I asked prayer for last week. This week the number of people at our house church there grew dramatically. Currently the only Christians in this picture are two sisters and their parents. However, this week they invited a number of other relatives. I took the kids outside for a craft and games while the adults had Bible study. Nobody was saved but hopefully they've heard enough that they'll come back when we return in a few weeks. Pray for the salvation of these relatives and friends in this community called Ayaloma. Also pray that once there are more believers in this little community we would find a way into the larger city Nabon, which is just down the road.








Yesterday we visited a very remote area southwest of Cuenca. We call this area Santa Isabel, although it's a least an hour's drive by dirt road from the city itself. The man in the photo above, Angel Leon, is in his 80's and his sons and daughters and their families constitute the majority of the only evangelical church in his area that sits way back in the mountains. Pray that more families would come to know Christ and that some who have left the church would return. Pray for encouragement as it is clear that these amazing people are getting discouraged. We are going to try to return at the end of this month to visit them again and show the movie "Fireproof". Pray also for the salvation of one of his daughters and a renewed spirit for one of his sons who is attending seminary and persevering but is getting discouraged.

Finally, there is a volunteer team coming in this week from Wellford, SC...almost home. They fly into Cuenca on Saturday. They will be doing sports ministry among many other things. Pray that their time here would open hearts in some communities where people have not been very receptive. Pray that many children would come to the workshops and parents would see the love of Christ.

First Week In Cuenca

I've been in Cuenca almost a week now and I apologize for no updates and for this one being so brief. The reason for this is that I've been working with a volunteer team from the second I got here and have hardly had time to do anything but work and sleep. Most of what we've been doing this week is going around to the churches and encouraging, exhorting, and prayer walking. I've gotten to see the different areas where work is going on and where new work is starting. I've been able to meet so many new people and most of the pastors we work with. I could tell lots of stories if only there was time...but instead I'll just show a few pictures and a short story behind each one that you can be praying for.




This is me and another of the volunteers with a Cichua family about an hour and a half north of Cuenca. The two women in the picture are sisters. They listened to a Christian radio station for about a year and decided to make a decision to accept Christ. They have encountered strong hostility from the Catholic church. Pray that they would not long remain the only Christians in their community. Pray that they would be strong in the face of the persecution.




This is the site of a future church building. The church currently rotates between houses and has between 30 to 70 people attending. They are slowly but surely making progress on an actual church building. They want to do it slowly so they will not fall into debt. Pray that God will provide the funds in their timing and continue to show them how to rely on Him and not missionaries or other churches.










The church in the previous picture is trying to plant a new one in this community. This site overlooks the communities in the second picture. On top is where we prayed for open doors and below is the valley between the two ridges of the Andes where we're hoping to plant new churches. Pray for open doors here as there are currently no Christians that we know of.


Thanks so much for your prayers. I'm just getting set up here in Cuenca and this week has been a complete blur. Keep praying as I start to form relationships with the people I'll be working with for the next couple of years.

Bureacracy in South America

So there's not been a whole lot going on since I got here in Ecuador. Mostly just taking care of boring government stuff. Yesterday we went to get our "censos" which are our Ecuadorian ID's. I won't go into details but mainly this will keep us out of trouble with the cops without having to carry around our passport everywhere. It was quite a fiasco to get this done. I'll start at the beginning. We (us 5 missionaries and an Ecuadorian who works for the IMB and does this stuff all the time) get out the cab at the migration office. First we went next door to get little photos taken. I don't know what for, as they're smaller than passport size (which we already had) and we never actually used them. But hey, there's Latin American bureacracy for you already...you never know what they'll want you to have with you. Then we go next door into the migration office and take a number and sit in the waiting room. After a bit it's our turn and I go up to the desk and hand him my papers. It all seems to be going well and unexpectedly smoothly until we notice that he's only giving me my censo validity for one year. Which makes no sense because our visas are valid for two years. He explains that our visas were only registered at the Ecuadorian embassy for one year and so there's nothing he can do. I don't really know what that meant since someone else took our visas to be registered when we arrived in-country, but apparently he wasn't going to budge. So we all got up and took a cab over to the other migration office. Our Ecuadorian friend exlained that we would have to re-register our visas, this time for two years, and apply for the censos again. However the good news was that we could do both at this one office. So...we took a number and sat in the waiting room again. Our friend got our visas registered correctly and then waited in line a very long time only to find out that they would not process our censos at this office. So...we left and took a cab back to the first office. We took a number and sat in the waiting room. Finally it was our turn again...back at the exact same person as an hour and a half before...and this time it worked. A proccess that was very easy and should have taken approximately thirty minutes took about three hours. So there's a taste of what simple government issues are like here in Ecuador. And from what I hear that was pretty mild...

Arrival in Ecuador

Last night I arrived here in Quito, Ecuador at around 10:30pm. We were met at the airport by some of the missionaries that live in the city. We piled up our luggage and were dropped off at different apartments where we will be living for the next week or so. This week or so will be partly orientation to our jobs and partly a time to take care of paperwork. We will have to verify our visas, obtain our censos (national ID's), and take the driver's test. Once that is through we'll be able to move down to where we'll actually be living and working. So hopefully the time of living out of a suitcase will soon come to an end. You can pray that all these things get taken care of smoothly and easily. Mainly the driver's test as it's, of course, all in Spanish....and the study guide is quite long at 367 questions. I find that very ironic as very few of the driving laws are obeyed here and the cops don't seem to care. Thanks for everyone who was praying as I went through language school...that stage is now done and I'm about to embark on the real work!

Late video tour...

OK. So a couple of days ago I started to think about packing and was going through my suitcases to get ready. Guess what I found? My small digital point-and-shoot was hiding for 3 months. I thought I had left it at home. Since it can take videos I can now give yall a video tour of my home for the past 3 months in Guatemala. Which is rather ironic since I left today for the capital to fly out next week. Well...better late than never right?

Update

A few things have happened since the last update so I'll let yall in on what's current.

1. On Monday the 21st we received the papers we'd been waiting on so we could apply for our visas. So that afternoon we went to the city to spend the night and get up early the next morning to apply at the consulate. We were at the consulate office before it even opened and the whole process went fairly smoothly. The hardest part was actually paying for the visas since they cannot accept ripped or torn bills. It's quite hard to get untarnished money here so we did some trading around hahaha. In the end, we can't actually get the visas until we bring plane tickets. Then we can retrieve our passports which they're holding and get our visas. The big fiasco was that nobody knew who was actually supposed to buy the tickets. Because of this, a process that could have been completed all in one day is delayed until Jan 4th because the consulate office is closed until then for the holidays. It was quite funny actually. First we were told that the tickets couldn't be bought until we had our visas...then we explained that this just wouldn't work since that put us in a bit of a catch 22...then after deciding to buy "dummy" tickets, the person in Richmond that was supposedly going to buy our tickets suddenly decided that they couldn't...it was the job of our "language director". This was interesting to hear since we don't really have a language director and the person closest to that job has a budget of $0 for us. So we had to quickly get on the phone with our logistics coordinator in Ecuador to find out who exactly was going to pay for us to get out of the country. This was all very rushed because we were trying to get the tickets the same day so we could go back to the consulate and get our visas and be done. Oh...and did I mention the consulate office is only open from 9am-1pm? So eventually it became clear that there was just no way we were going to get the tickets that day so we gave up and went home. The good news is we have visas but we just can't pick them up until we come back with our tickets. So we will return to the consulate on the 4th when they reopen and fly out the next day. All this has proved to me what I had heard...that the simplest government/bureaucratic matters are incredibly complicated overseas. Also that while we have been here we have disappeared mysteriously into the Twilight Zone or Bermuda Triangle and nobody knows what to do with us if they even happen to know we're here.

2. Last night (Tuesday, Dec 22) we showed the film "La Esperanza". Against all odds it went great. I was expecting trouble because 5 of us had been in the capital for 2 days applying for visas and so we had no time to test things or prepare. We got to the school an hour early to set up and at 7, when we were supposed to start, nobody had arrived. Not to worry...that's par for course for Latin America. So around 7:20-30 people started to pour in. We had invited all our host families and teachers and their friends and family and anyone we happened to walk by on the street that night. In all, we had about 60 people not including the 10 of us. We projected the film onto the wall outside of the school and about froze to death due to the extraordinarily cold weather that night. But we took a break halfway through for an intermission to eat chuchitos (I don't know how to describe this food) and drink ponche (basically a cider of mixed fruits with the fruit still in it). The movie went very well and people actually stayed for the whole thing and seemed to enjoy it. It clearly presented the Gospel from creation to Christ and gave a personal invitation at the end. All without out being cheesy and hokey which is quite an accomplishment based on some of the films I've seen. We don't know if any decisions were made but I suspect it gave them a lot to think about especially as they go about their celebrations the next few days.

3. Christmas here is nuts. First off they don't really get started until midnight Christmas Eve. In fact, nobody eats all day and they have dinner at 12am. Then it gets rolling with fireworks and music and food and lots and lots of booze. So between all that I don't expect to get a whole lot of sleep. The next day there will be dancing in the streets. The theme this year is pirates....and don't ask why because I don't know. But lots of people will be in the streets dancing dressed in pirate costumes. After that I will be heading to a missionaries' house in Antigua to spend the day there where it will be more quiet and hopefully grab a nap, eat American-style food, watch Christmas movies, relax, and call home. The festivities will then be over...until New Year's of course where I'm sure there's lots more craziness to come.

Prayer request update

I'm now only 4 short weeks away from finishing up language school and moving on to Ecuador. I'm hoping and praying that these last weeks will prove to bear fruit of all the work we've put in in the past 8 weeks here.

1. There is a girl named Cecilie, a Norweigian language student who has been studying with us, who is definitely seeking. I and others have had the opportunity to share testimonies, salvation, and just about every major or controversial subject in Christianity and the Bible. She still clings to the humanist European view that's very trendy these days that inspires the false hope that humanity is good at heart and can accomplish good things if you really put your mind to it. However, I think after seeing the way our beliefs are not just a tradition but a way of life for us has caused her to rethink the traditional, liturgical, forced Christianity she experienced as a child. But with only 4 weeks left there's not too much time for us to see the fruit of all our conversations. It doesn't have to happen while we're still here...but it'd be real nice to see a salvation experience before leaving.

2. Our Wednesday night Bible study has been going quite well. I haven't been in several weeks but they tell me that our national leader (the father of the host family one of the fellow missionaries here is staying with) is really stepping up and leading it. He's starting to see the possibility of the group continuing after we leave and even turning into a church. He's slowly been letting go of one Catholic tradition after another and just reading the Bible and doing what it says. Pray that this would not fall apart after we leave and that he would truly step up to the plate and accept the role of shepherd that God has clearly put him in the unique postition to fulfill. He's not 100% doctrinally sound...but I think when we reach Heaven we'll all have some corrections made too. The most important part is that he's making steady progress and has the big things right and is clearly experiencing God moving in his life.

3. The IMB has a film they produced called "La Esperanza", or "The Hope". It's mainly narrated with CGI graphics in the background, so there's no hokey, low-budget actors to interfere with the message. I'm hoping that we could show it here in our town just before Christmas. At the very least we would invite our host families and teachers and all their friends and family...at best we could promote it to the entire town and show it in the town square. I found out yesterday that we have access to a projector and screen and one of the Guatemala missionaries is gonna come up from the City to talk and see what we can do. Pray that we could get him and some of the other career missionaries behind it as it will be tough to pull off on our own. It's hard to get them out of the work they're already busy enough with and into things that must seem like them to be quite small in the scheme of things. So pray that this would all work out logistically and that many Catholics where we live would here the true Gospel that isn't preached by the Catholic church. As an ironic side not, the town square where we would show the film happens to be right in front of the Catholic church...hahaha what irony.

Thanks so much for your prayers and if I don't update this sooner then I will once I reach Ecuador!