VBS-EBV

Well, almost had you caught up and then I went MIA again. Sorry.

So, in July I got to help with VBS at church. It was lots of fun just like last year. I had the older kids again, 9-13. We used the Lifeway Big Apple material more or less. On Sunday each class presented a skit or song in front of the church. My group sang and did motions from 2 of the songs on the Lifeway CD.

Little Kids…

 

 

Middle Group…

 

My class…

Guano Prayer Team!

The second week of July a team come down to work with us from Alabama. I got to work with this team last year and knew a few people on the team that came last year. Another member of the team was the Jr. High Youth Minister at my church for a few years. There were also a mother/daughter pair and mother/father/daughter family. So, it was a fun team to work with.

We spent the mornings and afternoons walking around Guano, a small town about 15 minutes from Riobamba, and praying over the city. We also stopped, shared and prayed with people we encountered as we walked. In the evenings we projected movies in the city hall. We showed “The Climb,” “Fireproof,”  and “Narnia:The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”

My favorite part of the week was one afternoon when I took one of the men on the team and the 2 younger girls to pray in Riobamba. We went to the university where Language for the Nations was going to be held and prayer walked there. Then we went to visit a member of the church who was dealing with some of the same issues as the man who I took to visit him. It was a great picture of how the body of Christ should work together encouraging one another and building each other up.

Continue to pray for the city of Guano. Pray that those who have attended the Bible study there will be faithful to attend and that they will have a desire to grow and be used by God. Pray for the forces that are present in Guano to release their hold on the city so that it can become a city that glorifies our heavenly father.

Thank you prayer team!

Peru, Peru, How were you?

The last week of June I got to go to mission meeting in Ica, Peru. It was good to go back to Peru after more than 3 years. I got eat some of my favorite Peruvian foods and buy my favorite cookies! It was so different thought because I didn’t get to go back to the same places and see the people I had ministered to in Peru, but it was a still a great week.

I got to meet missionaries from all over South America and hear tons of stories of how God is moving and using people in different places. We had some wonderful prayer times praying for unreached people groups.

I was also refreshing to get to spend time with other single missionaries. We spent tons of time talking and playing Liverpool Rummy. We also got to do things like go sand boarding, dune buggying, and get massages!

Lifeway team!

In June I also got to translate for a team from Lifeway. The team was an evangelism team that spent the week in Latacunga. There were 16 people on the team and  about 14 translators. Each day we split up and went to different parts of the city looking for people to share with. The church in Latacunga had also made some appointments for us during the week to meet with people. Another big part of the week was short discipleship lessons. After someone had made a decision the same people went back to do the discipleship lesson with them the next day.

One of my favorite parts of this week was seeing the translators from Riobamba work. Two of the translators had been my students where I teach English  and had attend my English Bible Studies. It was so encouraging to see how much English they have learned in the past year and to get to work alongside them.

My group for the week spent most of our time on the university campuses sharing with students between classes and speaking in English class. I made a friend with one of the girls who was in one of the classes where we spoke. Her name is Estefania. She has lots of questions, but has not made a decision yet. Please pray for her. We got together last month to visit and I plan to see her at least once more time before I leave Ecuador.

*Sorry I forgot to take pictures with this group.

Beginning of a lot of post…

It has been awhile since May and a lot has happened as well. So, this week I am going to try and catch you up! Get ready for a lot of post!

In June I got to go translate for a team that came to work with my friends Corey McCombs, and Rocky and Dorothy Black. They work in southern Ecuador with the Shaur people.  The team did some community relationship building nights, VBS, and a medical clinic. We had a great time encouraging the believers in those communities and planting lots of seeds.

It was a great week for me because I really got to use my Spanish and I realized what a gift God has blessed me with. He has given it to me and I must use it to bring Him glory!

This was also a really neat team to work with because it was such a diverse team. We had about 10 missionaries, 10 people from Georgia, and about 6 Ecuadorians all working together. Everything from morning devotional, to instructions for the day, to share time at night was translated in some form. It was wonderful to see the body of Christ working together!

Back from the retreat!

We had a great time at the retreat this weekend! We had a total of 13 people go on the trip. It was a smaller group than we had hoped, but I think it worked out! It was a great opportunities for everyone to grow closer together and deepen their relationship with God.

We had five different sessions….

On Saturday morning we played some crazy games on the beach!

We also had free time Saturday afternoon to walk along the coast and visit another beach town. On Saturday night we had a bonfire!! Yay for a great retreat!

Youth Retreat!

Hey guy!

We are taking about 15 youth on a retreat this weekend to a camp on the beach! We are leaving Friday at 5am. The trip will be about 8 hours. We are hoping to get there around 2pm. The theme for the weekend is Romans 12:1-2 .

“¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

We will have a few session discussing quiet times, relationships, purity, and temptation. Please pray for this time of discipling the core youth in our church. Pray for our travels to and from. Pray they will not be distracted, they will learn, they will grow, and that they will bond.

We will return late Sunday night!

Viligia

On Good Friday we had a vigilia at church, a vigil. The verb “Vigilar” in Spanish translates to “keep watch” in our English Bible. But it means so much more when we really think about it. In Mark 14:32-42 we find the story of Jesus praying in the garden before he was arrested it. It was at the time he told Peter, James, and John to keep watch and pray.  What He was saying was, “Stay away guys! You don’t realize what is about to happen, but it is going to be big and you are going to need to pray a lot. Pray now and prepare yourselves for what is about to happen.” They had trouble doing this. It was past their bedtime. So, Jesus came back later and woke them up again and reminded them, “Stay away, keep praying. You are going to need lots of prayer so that you do stray during the things that are about to happen.

So, on Good Friday our church got together to do just that. My friend Silvi who you can see on the right of this photo with a microphone and I planned out the events of the night. We started at 7pm with a movie open to the community. Then the worship team from church lead us in a few songs. After, Johnny shared a message. Then we had a feet washing ceremony. After that we needed some activities to wake us up. So, we played some crazy panty hose tennis ball game that I learned at the Ladies’ Retreat. We also played a newspaper game and talked about the importance of working together within the church.

Later there were a few people who presented some solos and duets. Silvi and I sang “Supe Que Me Amabas” by Marcela Gandara. It was my first time singing like this in public.

To end the night we sat up 6 different prayer station around the church. It was a different way to pray for many, but I think everyone enjoyed it and learned through it. We had stations on thankfulness, offering, praying for others, burdens, God working in our lives and fruits of the spirit. Around 1:30am we served a sandwich and coffee and everyone went home.

It was a great night!

Ole!

April is the month of festivals in Riobamba. It is one of my favorite times of the year here. There are tons of people, tons of events, and everyone seems to be in a better mood.

So, I embraced the opportunities around me this month and stayed busy here in Riobamba! Here are some of the exciting things from this month…

• I went to the first ballet performance of the first classic dance studio in Riobamba. It was a children’s ballet of Alice in Wonderland. The little girls were so cute in their tutus with faces painted like bunnies, flowers, and all..
• I led youth one night where we played Apples to Apples and then had a little chat about fruits of the spirits.
• We finished up the English Bible Study we started in January. We began the study with Creation in January and ended the week before Easter with the Resurrection.  On Easter we had a cookie and game night at my place.
• I helped lots of people with different English stuff.
• I went to a few different museums to look at some the art that was in town with a friend.
• I sang my first ever solo/duet… and it was in Spanish. (I will try to get a video up for you this weekend.)
• I helped plan and lead a Good Friday Event at church.(More on this in another post.)
• I went to a bull fight. It was a very interesting experience. See….
• I spent the day at the fair eating good food, looking at all the booth, seeing giant cows, and marveling guinea pig hot dogs.
• Started planning for a new English Bible Study and a Youth Beach retreat!

Weddings

 

A few weeks ago I attended a wedding. Two friends from church got married! It was a great celebration of not only their love for one another, but also their love for God. Everyone there had a great time. It was also another great opportunity for me to observe some cultural differences which I would now like to share with you!

Ecuadorian Weddings

• Begin after the time on the invitation. Most events here begin 10 to 30 minutes after the announced time. So, people usually do not arrive at the appointed time. They get there when they get there. No big deal. So, a wedding begins a lot later than the invitation time because it is a big event. This wedding began 1 hour and 45 minutes later than the time on the invitation.
• The ceremony and reception are in the same room. As guest arrive they pick their seat at a table. They sit there during the ceremony and reception. After the ceremony there is a time for guest to greet the happy couple and take pictures with them. After this time the guest return to their seats and are served a meal.
• There is an emcee or two. At the wedding I attended another young couple from the church were the emcees of the event. They greeted us at the beginning, read verses between different parts of the ceremony, introduced the couple, introduced the officiates, introduced as others sang and prayed. They kept us informed of what was happening as the night progressed.
• Moving is accepted and encouraged. If you have a camera or want a better view of the couple then, just walk up there so you can see. Many of my friends without cameras asked me to walk around and get pictures of their children and I was not the only one up. I would say have of the guest were moving around during the ceremony. I have a picture to illustrate this which I like. I felt like part of the paparazzi.

• The Wedding Party includes the family, a maid of honor, a flower girl, a ring bearer, a couple who are like role models for the bride and groom, and children from ages 6 to 18 in pairs who are relatives or friends of the couple. The children walk-in in pairs and line the aisle that the bride later walks down.
• The maid if honor always wears a red dress and sits at a table at the front of the ceremony with the rest of the brides family.
• The ceremony last about an hour and a half. The reception time was about an hour and a half as well.

U.S. Weddings

• The bride walks through the doors shortly after the invitation time. You should be there minimum 15 minutes before the time on your invitation.
• The ceremony is normally in one location: a chapel, church sanctuary, outside in a designated area. During the ceremony chairs are lined up facing the area where the bride and groom will stand. The reception is normally in a different place: a reception hall, a gym, a big room, conference center of a hotel. Depending on the time of the wedding the reception can either be a formal sit down meal or a casual buffet of snacks with people up and mingling.
• No emcee. Some one officiates the wedding and announces the couple at the reception. That is all.
• No moving around during the ceremony. It would be a major faux pas to get up in the middle of the ceremony and walk up to where the bride and groom are in order to get a good picture of the ceremony. This is only permitted if you are the photographer which the couple has hired.
• The Wedding Party includes family, a ring bearer(s), a flower girl(s), a maid of honor, a best man, and other bridesmaids and groomsmen. The family sit in the front seats during the ceremony and the bridesmaids and groomsmen stand alongside the couple at the front.
• The maid of honor stand with the rest of the party and normally wears the same color scheme as the rest of the bridesmaids.
• The ceremony is about 20 to 30 minutes tops. The reception is about an hour sometimes longer depending on what kind of reception it is.

I could probably go on with more differences, but I will spare you. I think they are some interesting differences and I hope you enjoy reading about them.

*This example was from an Ecuadorian Christian wedding, a Catholic or non-religious is most likely has some differences.