New Year, New Goals

The Christmas and New Year’s holidays were incredibly busy and incredibly blessed times for us.  Our team presented four Christmas programs this year.  Two in day-care centers, one in the plantation where Pablo works, and our regular church presentation for the community of Primero de Mayo. It was a very different Christmas this year.  Since the 25th fell on Sunday, we decided to move our service to the afternoon.  That gave our families some time together before coming to celebrate Jesus’ birth as a church family.

New Year’s Eve was by far our biggest event during the holiday season.  In general culturally, New Year’s Eve is a much bigger event than Christmas here, and this year was no different. Our church in Primero de Mayo sponsored a contest for the best “old year” display.  The people here build elaborate figures representing the old year to be burned at midnight.  The figures are similar in material to scarecrows and are usually made to represent someone important to the family.  To draw attention to the event, our church built a 16′ tall Papa Smurf.  Under our ministry partner, Pablo’s direction, it took us four days to complete the build out of wood, cardboard and paper maché. The evening was a total success.  We estimated that there were about 350 people in attendance, many of whom have never participated in one of our church’s events before.  The night culminated with a fireworks display and the burning of the “old year” together.  We enjoyed a special time as a church family sharing hugs and words of appreciation for each other as we rung in 2012 together.
If you would like to see more pictures from our Christmas programs, click here.
If you would like to see more pictures from our New Year’s Eve event, click here.

Building Bricks

One of the most exciting things we can see God doing this year is providing for the construction of a meeting place on our new church property.  The congregation of Primero de Mayo has rallied together to build this year.  On January 7, we had an all-church work day during which we cleaned up the property and organized the building materials that had been scattered about. The church leadership is planning on early February for the pour of the cement slab that will serve as the roof on existing construction toward the back of the property.  Once the roof is on, it will be a matter of windows, doors and wiring for lights, and we’ll be able to move out of the community center. After that, we will begin work on bathrooms and the enclosure of the property. In addition to the labor of our local congregation, God has provided us with some teams from the US to help us in various stages throughout 2012. In the next couple of months we will be developing the plans for a three-phase building project. We’ll try to keep you in touch with the progress as it happens.
To see more pictures from our work day, click here.

Building Lives

We believe God has been preparing His people to go out into the harvest fields in Cayambe.  We feel a real sense of revival happening in the congregation.  Our numbers on Sundays have continued to increase, the youth group is growing and on a personal level we are seeing greater commitments to the ministry.  Our prayer is that 2012 will be the year that our disciples make disciples.  It’s already been happening individually, but we believe God is moving among the congregation with the desire to reproduce itself.  The groundwork has been laid for expansion of Bible studies in the downtown Cayambe area and interest has renewed and the doors are opening for ministry in the mountain community of Cangahuapungo.  Please pray with us also for the mountain communities of Santa Monica and Chaupiloma.  We have really struggled to get a response from the people there, but we are continuing to work with the contacts we have.

Building Together

This year we have been more aware of our dependence on our support team than ever before.  God has used your prayers and financial support in some amazing ways during the past year.  We have also seen a deeper level of relationship growing between the ministry here and the ministries of many of your ministries in the US.  We believe that a true sense of brotherhood is being cultivated between Ecuadorians and Americans that began with our international leadership team and is now translating to the members of our congregation and the members of many congregations in the USA. 2012 will be a year of unprecedented partnership and we pray that it will be also be a year of deepened relationships.  Thank you for being a part of it with us.