Oh Snap!! So this is a summary of what happened this past
month in El Reten, Ecuador; a small village off a dirt road, with a population
of about 100. We painted the walls and gate of the church and did two weeks of
vacation Bible school, along with house visits. At vacation Bible school, I did
some skits and sang some songs. In the picture below, they put some hot sauce
on my arms and covered them in glue; then I came in, and acted like a leper and
tore of my “leprosy,” it was amazing! That’s seems easy to explain, but it was
so much more than that. Also, we played in the pouring rain, which was soooo
much fun!!!
Our ministry was actually outside of ministry. As you can
see, I have a niece and nephew now, along with many other children that we
interacted with. We went to their plantations and sometimes went to the river
to swim and occasionally a waterfall. Building relationships with the community
was a huge part of what we did. We also prayed over a lot of families. This is
some pictures at the church:
One in particular was a boy named Victor. We were told he
was sick, so we went there with some of the other church members. We were
praying for healing, but it was much deeper than that. Through discernment,
there was something in his past that was holding him back from experiencing freedom.
We prayed over him for deliverance and freedom for about 5 hours. The
church had left about 4 hours before us; so needless to say, we made an impact
by staying so long. Long story short, people asked questions about why we
stayed so long, and the reply was, “because we are Christians.” And that
changed lives, literally! The one lady now wants to restore her relationship,
another lady was healed from breast cancer, and who else know what happened! So
that was a crazy night!
Also it was amazing to just stop by people’s houses to say
hi. The parents of my new niece and nephew said that they never had any North
Americans stop by their house before; we were the first ones to visit houses. It
was great to have an impact on the community; yet sad to hear that all the
previous North American groups didn’t interact much with the community. (We
were the first World Race team to El Reten, and also the first World Race Squad
in Ecuador!) This picture is my Niece and Nephew…I had a lot of fun with them!!
Hmmmm….what else to say…well we really impacted the
community. We had a couple fasts and they were really good! We gave testimonies
and shared what God was doing in our lives. It was amazing, because through
those, our last Sunday at the village, they preached about exactly what we
talked about during the fast, which was about loving others, like they loved
us. It’s hard to explain, but it was so cool to see the impact we had on this
small community! Wow!
God was really working on me this month, I wasn’t broken
like I was in the DR, but considered this month to be a time that the “cast”
went over my brokenness. I started noticing my actions and thinking before
talking or doing. It was really good, out team definitely opened up and we were
a lot more honest with each other.
I don’t know what else to write! Ahhh! If you got any
questions, just ask away! Thanks again for all you support and your prayers! They
mean sooooo much!
