Praise

In the past several posts I've been giving updates about the house church we have here in our apartment building every Monday that started with Douglas. This week Douglas celebrated two big events with us: his 22nd birthday and his baptism. He was very excited about both and we baptized him in the bathtub.

You can also be praying for me as I begin to organize a ESL class that I want to teach once a week. There are enough people here who have asked me about this that I think it would be beneficial. I intend to ask all the Christians who participate to bring a non-Christian friend whenever possible. I already know of one couple who aren't believers that are interested. Please pray that the logistics of it all would work out so the right people will come and we can use this as an opportunity to connect them to a house church. Please also pray for me as I learn how to teach English, as at this point, ironically, I am much better at teaching Spanish.

Thank you everyone for your prayers!

More updates

Please pray for the youth from the church in Cuenca in the above picture. Last weekend I had about a dozen of them over to my apartment for a BBQ. My goal with them is to get them to move beyond one hour a week Bible studies and social events to real ministry. One option I'm praying about and close to implementing is ESL lessons. Many people in the church we work with in Cuenca, including the youth, have not yet grasped that lost people must be reached and loved from outside of the church. They must take ministry and love to the places where lost people are, which is generally not in a church building or even a house church on Sunday morning. I would like to use ESL lessons one day a week as an opportunity for the youth to bring their lost friends to someplace where they can hear about the Bible and Christ in a very open and inviting way. Pray that if this is something God truly wants to happen that the scheduling would work out and the youth would commit to their involvement.

Continue to pray for the house church we have here every Monday. Douglas and Diana are still very consistent and passionate in following the Lord. However, Washington, Diana's cousin and also friend and co-worker of Douglas, has fallen away and back into some of his old habits. He knows he is living in sin and needs help so pray that love and faithful friendship on the part of Douglas and Diana will bring him back around.

Pray for the community of Guangra. I mentioned this previously as a community we were planning to hike to so that we could make arrangements for a medical team in November. Several times our plans have been cancelled but we recently made progress. A few weeks ago we met the villagers from Guangra at a small town in the mountains that they hike to once a week for supplies at the market. We gave them the letters they need to fill out so we can have a approval from the government and they will also be presenting our request to the entire community. In the meantime we are going to be in contact with them so that we can arrange a date to meet again. They will bring horses and we'll ride in with them and have a look at the community and be introduced. Pray that all these arrangements work out and that we would experience good weather when the time comes to go in as we are in the middle of the rainy season now. I will update when I know for sure when we'll make that trip.

Finally, pray for our efforts in pastoral and leadership training/discipleship in the area of Chunchi. I previously mentioned that there are about 5 communities sending their pastors/leaders to train with us for 3 hours once a month. This is going well but it is evident that many of the people in attendance have great need of growth in their lives. Pray for the community of Tolte as their leaders and pastors are experiencing a very trying time. The teenage daughter of a respected church leader (who attends our training) had premarital sex with another young man in the church and the consequences of that to everyone are being felt. The father, despite being one of the church leaders, handled the situation very poorly and we can now see just how fractured the relationships of that church are beneath pious talk. Pray for healing and conviction on all sides and wisdom for us and the pastor as we try to deal with this tense situation as God desires.

Thanks so much for your prayers! I know updates are sometimes a long time coming but I try to update when there's real news about definite needs. And I really do thank you for your prayers! They mean so much to me!

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?