Ecuador 2018

I think I forgot to post this:

LeRoy Lerwick               Guayaquil, Olón, Catazacón, Machala, Huaquillas

Jordan Lewis                                                        (Llega de Canadá en enero.)

Henry Arias                     Manabí, Quevedo         (en Galápagos el mes de diciembre)

Juan León                                                              (Llega de Perú en enero.)

Ricardo Harbor                Quito, Santo Domingo, Esmeraldas

Alberto Basurto

Eli Reque                          Ipiales, Ibarra                (Llega de Bolivia el 19 de enero.)

Ookyoung Jung                                                       (fuera del pais 21 enero - 13 abril)

Kamela LiaBraaten

Karen Morton                   Southeast Amazon, Cuenca, Loja 

Linda Ogden                                                           (a Venezuela y Colombia 2 enero - 13 febrero)

Jill Yule                            Galápagos   (a partir de 13 febrero)

Dani Robert                                                            (a Cuba hasta el 9 de enero)

Luz González                   Lago Agrio, Tena, Tarapoa, Sacha          (a Perú en diciembre)

Ingrid Mendoza

Brett Hammett - To Bolivia

Robbin Petersen - Home visit to Canada

Lois Pelchen - Home visit to Australia

Who'da thunk?!

Greek yogurt in Ipiales, Colombia!

Happy birthday, Rebekah

Yesterday was Rebekah M's birthday, so we celebrated with cake and ice cream after the midweek Bible study.

With Vanessa and Celia

Gotta love it when your hosts own a pizzeria!

Can't complain about this supper!

Good-bye

We finally got a picture at the airport just before Barry left for Chile.  

Ambato convention - Dec. 2-3, 2017

• Sometimes we are inclined to respond to God's pruning as if it were an enemy attack.  All that God is doing is so that we would bear more fruit.

• God continues to work with us because He has hope!

• We want to see beyond our own thinking.

• Humility is our friend.

• Habakkuk had a tower in his life.  From the tower, he could see much further.  How far ahead are we looking?  God can help us see right to the end - not every experience between now and the end but how things will come out if we keep walking in the direction we're going now.  Prayer is like a tower.  An old brother worker once said, "I can see better with my eyes closed, and I can think better on my knees."

• We live in a world that will not encourage us to watch.

• God's project, from the beginning of time, is to have a people for Himself.  

• God has often been disappointed, but He has never been discouraged.

• In Noah's day, men were so hard that God couldn't speak to them.  They were so dead, all He could do was bury them with the flood.

• Faith is the invisible link between man and God.

• God doesn't want His people to be held in by a fence (the law). He wants them to have a relationship with the Shepherd.  Then there's no need for a fence.

• We were created to be a dwelling place for God.  When we fill our lives with other things, we cannot have peace.

• A lady told her elderly mother for whom she was caring, "If your clothes are stained, people will think I'm not taking care of you."  In some work settings, everyone is dirty by the end of the day.  We could feel just comfortable in our dirty clothes because everyone around us has dirty clothes as well.  Many people are comfortable just living close to this earth.  When we come into the presence of Jesus, we recognize our need to be clean.  We have found a "stain remover" that can take away every stain of sin - the blood of Jesus.

• What if all our thoughts and actions over the course of a week were written down and hung on the wall for everyone to see?  We'd want some things to be erased!  God, in His mercy, allows us to repent so that our sins can be blotted out.

• No matter from what angle we look at the life of Christ, we can find no spot.  That gives us confidence in His life and sacrifice.

• All the lambs that gave their life in sacrifice in the Old Testament didn't choose to die.  Jesus, the Lamb of God, did.

• What we think about and what we have in our heart will bring forth a fruit.  We want to think about things that would produce in us the virtues of Jesus.

•   God's dealings with us cause us to want to serve Him.

• All that the world lifts up is vain and temporary.

• What we look at is an important part of keeping/guarding our heart.

• We can choose to feed on things that will increase our anxieties and sorrows or on things that will increase our joy.

A happy birthday

December 2 in Ambato dawned chilly and rainy.  Luz and I breakfasted with our hostess, Sra. Blanca, before heading into town.  On our way to our next home, we stopped at a café for a celebratory slice of cheesecake with hot tea for me and cappuccino for Luz. 

She even got me a candle and sang to me!

Mr. Samuel is the center of attention in this home! 

 He's 3+ months old and has enormous blue eyes.

After lunch, we made our way to the Hotel Dubai, the location of our convention meetings in Ambato.  There were two meetings on Saturday, and I spoke in the second.

My friend, Rebekah M, had this for me when I arrived.

After the meetings were over, April Pierce and I returned to the home of Marcelo and Sofía.  I don't know who snitched, but there was a cake served after supper.  It was quite tasty.

April, Kamela and Samuel, don Sergio, Eduardo & Bethania Pizarro (Marcelo's parents)

Since there was no cake candle, we made do with the rather large decorative one.

And I got to put Baby Samuel to sleep - a nice conclusion to the day.

Oh, wait.  The actual conclusion was getting ready for Sunday's meetings!  Two of them.  I translated in the first one and spoke in the second one.  That made for a bit of homework.  But, as always, it was quite worth it.

Passing by Chimborazo

On our way from Quito to San Miguel on Monday, November 27, we passed by the volcano, Chimborazo.  This time I had a window seat so was able to get a few decent picture.  This isn't the most beautiful part of Ecuador perhaps.  It certainly isn't the most colorful.  But there's something kind of majestic about it.  It's also the best place in the country for seeing llamas, alpacas and vicuñas.

Barren landscape

But somehow the vicuñas find just what they need to sustain them

Huts typical of the region

I believe this was a restaurant.

Lots of sheep!

Happy Birthday, Little Sis!

I can't remember what life was like before you were born, but it couldn't have been as lovely!

Quito convention - Nov. 24-26, 2017

• We don't need to know from which direction the adversary's roar is coming; we just need to know where our refuge is.

• Rest in our soul is a priceless gift.

• God loves to feel His children trusting in Him.

• There are many yokes that we can bear in this world - trying to do our own will, bearing our own sin - that become very heavy.  We can go to Jesus and trade burdens.

• Many entered into the Promised Land but not into the promised rest.  Moses didn't enter into the Promised Land, but he did enter into the promised rest of God.

• We want to be filled with grace so that we can fulfill the purpose of God within us.

• Now is the time to cry out to God, the day of our salvation.

• We could do what is right with a spirit that is wrong.

• When Ruth left Moab, she left everything of Moab in Moab.  As a result, she had a good testimony.

• Jesus' thoughts always caused Him to do the will of the Father.

• When the Lord passed over Egypt on the night of the Passover, He wasn't looking for good people; He was looking for the blood on the doorpost.  Nobody would have put their hope in anything else.

• Being different in this world is not an embarrassment; it's an opportunity to manifest Christ.

• God is not the only potter.  Every potter has a different design in mind.  God wants to give us depth so that we can contain more of the treasures that are in Christ.

• At a wedding, it's very evident who the bride is.  Is it evident that we are a part of the bride of Christ?

• Jesus never used anything for His help that wasn't/isn't available to His disciples: the Holy Spirit, the fellowship of faithful brethren, the word of God.

• There are many kingdoms: the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, the heavenly kingdom.  The mineral kingdom supports the plant kingdom, but a mineral never becomes a plant.  The plant kingdom supports the animal kingdom, but a plant never becomes an animal.  The animal kingdom supports the human kingdom, but an animal never becomes a human.  Think of the generosity of God to enable humans to enter into the eternal kingdom!

• God's messengers can tell about new life, but God alone can give it.

• The deepest expression of faith is submission to God.

• The wrath of God is not just because man sins but because God has provided a remedy and man has not accepted it.

• Jesus' prayer, "May they all be one" is a prayer that we can have a part in answering.  It means first being united with Jesus.  Then we can be united with each other.  

Friday's supper: Spaghetti

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our day of preps at the rented convention grounds in Quito often falls on Thanksgiving day, as was the case again this year.  We enjoyed our lunch of Hungarian barley soup after a morning of sweeping, scrubbing and washing dishes.

Here's my only photograph of the day:

I think we'll use a little extra clorox on this cooking pot!

Puppy dog eyes

Pizza Chicago style

Tuesday supper

It's cold in Quito!

Ingrid and I shared a room in a home in the south of Quito on Monday night.  That part of the city is especially chilly, and this evening proved to be no exception.  After a shower with barely tepid water, Ingrid was in search of as many layers as possible to get warmed up.

The road from El Cristal to Quito

On the morning of Monday, Nov. 20, several of us traveled by bus from El Cristal to Quito.  I started off in a window seat and then moved to the aisle, so all of these pictures are from the first part of said trip.