Ministry in Process

I was going to ask for your prayers as the Lord has put on my heart and mind a new ministry for our whole family to do to help the street children of Quito, Ecuador. Pray that I would think through all that it would entail, for the future school and kids partners the Lord will have us work with from the states, that many street children would be blessed. More detailed info. will come but for now please pray as we get all the logistics together.

Mari is wondering if anyone reads these updates!

As I write this I wonder is my time spent updating in vain? does anyone read this? I hope and pray that people are informed, encouraged and blessed by these updates. I think I would write them anyways even if I knew that noone read them.

Spiritual Emphasis Week!

Every year the school has 2 Spiritual Emphasis weeks. Usually they have some special speaker come and share Christ to the students in a fun interactive way. They do this everyday for one week. This past week we had a couple do Power Lab which was this past summers VBS curriculum for a lot of churches in the stats. It was great b/c most of our kids never saw it before b/c they weren't in the states. The kids loved it! And over 30 kids accepted Christ! Praise God! Pray that these seeds planted this past week will be firmly planted. Alot of our students don't have Christian parents some are holiday church goers, others are buddihst, others atheist etc... So school is the only place they can get fed and encouraged in His word. Pray that the staff will make time to follow up with these little ones.
Ethan got picked to go up on stage for this also, unfortunatly, we missed seeing his response to the person behind the sheet.

learning the culture is very important when doing ministry

I have been trying to figure out ways to minister to the mothers here. So I decided it would be fun to have a party and have the kids play with Ethan and I can chat with the moms from Ethans class. Little did I know that in the culture of this group of people at the school it is customary to just drop off the kids at a party and parents don't show up. I realized this yesterday as parents called me to ask when they can pick up their kids. I was shocked because it never crossed my mind that they would not accompany their child. So today I had a group of nine 4yr olds join us for Ethans Fall dress up jungle party. Actually one mom did show up. It was great fun for the kids but I was wiped out by the end of it.
So now I know for next time that I need to specifically request for parents to come if my goal is to reach out to the moms. I am sure I have many lessons to learn about the Ecuadorian culture but also the culture within the school.

Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me

Give the world the best you have

And it may just not be enough;

Give the world the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,

It is all between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa

As I walked up the flight of stairs of the childrens hospital I stared at the chipped, dirty walls. I had no idea what would be waiting for us when we got to our assigned floor- broken bones and trauma. We had been warned that it may wreak, that the conditions may be horrible, that kids stayed there for weeks until their parents could pay the bill, that some kids lay there all alone b/c parents had to go out and work to pay the bill, that it would break our hearts to see these little patients.


That is exactly what happened it broke my heart to see this little girl lying in bed in a cast from her waist down b/c she was just operated in hopes that she would finally be able sit up. She had been living her whole little life on her back unable to sit up. As I walked over with a balloon in my hand she gave me a croocked smile. I tried to be cheery for her though it hurt to see her like that. She was also mentally challenged so she couldn't talk she just grunted with her little lopsided smile. I was glad that a balloon would bring such joy to her. I walked away holding back the tears and reminding myself what Mother Teresa said trying to be content with having given her the best I had and that was a green balloon with red ribbon.

We have a team about 30 kids. We split up onto different floors and go share the gospel, pray, listen, color and bring balloons and cookies to the kids. It's neat to watch our high schoolers in action! I pray that God would use us in a big way to be love, light and hope to these hurting families. We will do this once a week.

Here is a large room with 8 kids and their families. As you can see the beds are very old though I was glad to see an old chipped cheery murals on the wall.

The Game of Love!

That was the name of our marriage seminar that Mari's counseling dept. put on this past weekend for parents of students at our school. We had a wonderful turnout and great interaction during the 6hr seminar. At one point in the seminar parents went around and shared a little bit about their children. It was really interesting for me to hear almost every couple share that their children were teaching them good values, prayer and about the Bible as a result of attending this school. I was fascinated to see how touching the lives of these little ones is an awesome opportunity for us to reach the whole family. It was also neat to hear what great a reputation this school has in the community. It made me glad to be a part of such a neat movement that God is orchestrating here in Quito through Alliance.

Learning about shipping things to Ecuador

So we are learning as we go. We had to pay $60 to get a small size box. The reason b/c the sender put a large amount for the value of the items in the box. Mark it as a gift and for a $1 value (since its a gift) b/c they charge us a % of the amount of the value that you write on it. Another suggestion is to use those flat rate boxes. Those are cheap and you can fill them up as much as you want and the price doesn't change for shipping. More tips below in a previous blog. Thanks so much to you all for going out of your way to send us some loving via mail!