Yesterday the Lord showed me just how little faith I really have. Manta has been having quite a bit of rain, which is very unusual for us. I mean this is the time of you when we do usually get a little rain, if we are going to get any, but we have had downpours now for a little over a week. Everything is pretty much a muddy mess.
Yesterday was to be a pretty big day for us. Not just a normal service in the morning, but we had an important "business meeting" planned for 6:00pm. Tony has been announcing it for a couple weeks, emphasizing that it was really important for people to be there, if they were concerned and committed to our church.
Well, this past Wednesday at our prayer meeting at the church, we had a young lady visiting, who is hoping to go to Thailand as a missionary. She brought along a presentation, and we had been looking forward to the opportunity to view it and to get the church excited about supporting her ministry. Well, it poured down rain again, and we ended up having 10 present... what a disappointment!
On Thursday, as I wrote to our girls about the prayer meeting the other events going on... I asked them to please be praying for Sunday and especially for the meeting Sunday evening. I asked them to pray that we have nice weather and a good turnout...
Sunday morning dawned, gray and wet as the last few days... about 8:45, we had a huge downpour... As we got in the car(about 9:00) and was pulling out of our garage, Tony said, well, I'm preparing myself for a really low day. We discussed, how no one here would go out in the rain... they act like they will surely "catch their death" if they get wet, never mind that we live at the equator and the temperatures are in the 80's even with the rain!
We pulled up to the church about 15 minutes later and the rain had stopped. by 10:00 the sun was shining! There ended up being 28 ladies in my class and Tony had one of the highest attendances he has had in the men's class with 20, with a total of 72 in Sunday School. By the 10:30 service we had 93!
We returned for the meeting at 6:00 and had 35 adults present! It did start to rain again... at 7:00! :-) It has rained all night and is still raining this morning.
On the way home last night, Tony and I were talking how we had prayed and asked others to pray about the services and meeting, yet we had both been "surprised" by the sunny weather and the great attendances!
I am so thankful that the Lord, didn't look at our lack of faith and give us what we were expecting! It was great reminder to both of us that we serve a great God, who is in control of all circumstances, even the weather. There is NOTHING too hard for Him!
Blessing on you as you serve Him this week!
Joy
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Hello Everyone! I trust that you had great week. We are still trying to get adjusted to being back home. I haven't completely gotten back on schedule but we are progressing. We started school Monday morning with Teddy and for the most part that went really well. Especially considering that he had 3 weeks of vacation! :-) We are right on schedule with school though and I am thankful for that.
Tony made the 6 hour trip to the town of Buena Fe to preach at the Ecuadorian Fellowship meeting. He took Wilson and his son Julio from our church with him. They left Friday afternoon and drove to Santo Domingo, where they spent the night with Joe and Sylvia Wells and then drove the hour from there Saturday morning into Buena Fe. Tony said things went well and they made excellent time on the trip home yesterday afternoon arriving back around 6:15 or so.
We had great services this morning. There were 100 in attendance for our Worship service! The terrace was very full. We had 72 adults! We had several first time visitors. Some of course are from other areas, just visiting our city, but we had several that live here in Manta. That was a blessing.
This Saturday the ladies are having a fellowship time in honor of those who have birthdays in January. Please pray that there is a good turnout for this. I am excited as this is something that they have taken the imitative in and are doing all the planning for.
We will be starting up our weekly small group meetings again this week. Usually we meet in different homes, but this month, we are just going to have one meeting at the church on Wednesday. We hope to start back up in at least a couple different homes the next time around. Please pray that people will take advantage of this opportunity for fellowship, prayer and baby study.
I would also ask you to be praying for me this week. I really need to get the next semester of Sunday School material organized and ready to hand out. We start a new semester the middle of February, and since Tony, Teddy and I will be taking a short 4 month furlough this spring, I need to get the whole semesters worth of material done, instead of the usual 13 week quarter.
We are thrilled to see how full our calendar is for the planned furlough in the US. We are thankful that the Lord has given us the opportunity to not only visit many of our faithful supporters but has also opened the door for us to be in several new churches. Please be praying with us that the Lord would prepare the hearts of those we will come in contact with and that we will be able to raise the money necessary to begin construction on our new church building. We are excited because we just about have enough money raised at present to pay for the plans and permits we will need!
Thank you so much for your prayers for the work here in Ecuador and for our Family around the world! :-) I had the opportunity to "chat" with Mandie a couple times this week and they are doing well. She and Ioan both had check-ups last week and they are both doing great! Ioan is over 11 pounds now and has already grown an inch! Ashley and Lexi are both doing fine. They are both getting ready to start classes again. They are both excited about their upcoming weddings and both spending a lot of time making plans! In case I didn't mention it before, Lexi and Jonathan got engaged right before Christmas and they are planning to get married on Jan. 1, 2009! So we will have 2 weddings in the not to distant future.
God Bless you as you serve him this week!
Joy
Tony made the 6 hour trip to the town of Buena Fe to preach at the Ecuadorian Fellowship meeting. He took Wilson and his son Julio from our church with him. They left Friday afternoon and drove to Santo Domingo, where they spent the night with Joe and Sylvia Wells and then drove the hour from there Saturday morning into Buena Fe. Tony said things went well and they made excellent time on the trip home yesterday afternoon arriving back around 6:15 or so.
We had great services this morning. There were 100 in attendance for our Worship service! The terrace was very full. We had 72 adults! We had several first time visitors. Some of course are from other areas, just visiting our city, but we had several that live here in Manta. That was a blessing.
This Saturday the ladies are having a fellowship time in honor of those who have birthdays in January. Please pray that there is a good turnout for this. I am excited as this is something that they have taken the imitative in and are doing all the planning for.
We will be starting up our weekly small group meetings again this week. Usually we meet in different homes, but this month, we are just going to have one meeting at the church on Wednesday. We hope to start back up in at least a couple different homes the next time around. Please pray that people will take advantage of this opportunity for fellowship, prayer and baby study.
I would also ask you to be praying for me this week. I really need to get the next semester of Sunday School material organized and ready to hand out. We start a new semester the middle of February, and since Tony, Teddy and I will be taking a short 4 month furlough this spring, I need to get the whole semesters worth of material done, instead of the usual 13 week quarter.
We are thrilled to see how full our calendar is for the planned furlough in the US. We are thankful that the Lord has given us the opportunity to not only visit many of our faithful supporters but has also opened the door for us to be in several new churches. Please be praying with us that the Lord would prepare the hearts of those we will come in contact with and that we will be able to raise the money necessary to begin construction on our new church building. We are excited because we just about have enough money raised at present to pay for the plans and permits we will need!
Thank you so much for your prayers for the work here in Ecuador and for our Family around the world! :-) I had the opportunity to "chat" with Mandie a couple times this week and they are doing well. She and Ioan both had check-ups last week and they are both doing great! Ioan is over 11 pounds now and has already grown an inch! Ashley and Lexi are both doing fine. They are both getting ready to start classes again. They are both excited about their upcoming weddings and both spending a lot of time making plans! In case I didn't mention it before, Lexi and Jonathan got engaged right before Christmas and they are planning to get married on Jan. 1, 2009! So we will have 2 weddings in the not to distant future.
God Bless you as you serve him this week!
Joy
Monday, January 7, 2008
Happy New Year!
Well, I'm only a week late! :-) I hope that each of you had a wonderful Christmas and that you enjoy a Happy New Year! I flew back to the US from Korea on Christmas Eve. Mandie, Mike and Ioan took me to the airport in Seoul and my flight left at 2:00pm... I arrived in San Antonio, TX the "same day" about 7:00pm! I am thankful that I didn't suffer very much from jet-lag. Friends had told me to try to sleep at the beginning of both flights, (going and coming) and I have to say that it worked pretty well.
Tony and Teddy were waiting for me in San Antonio, with flowers! What a great welcome home! We enjoyed Christmas Day with Tony's mom and then on the 26th we all drove up to Hutchinson, KS and met up with Ashley and Lexi and both of their fiancees and both of Tony's sisters and their families! We had a great time with 18 people in the house. I doubt the house will ever be the same, but we had a wonderful time!
We left Hutchinson on the 31st and drove back to San Antonio and then caught an 8:00am flight on the 1st to head back to Ecuador! We know that New Year's was in there somewhere, but feel like we kind of skipped it! We flew into Quito and enjoyed spending a couple days with our friends, Glenn and Sherri McGhee. Flew into Manta on Thursday evening, the 3rd.
It was so great to be back at church yesterday! Everyone seemed so excited to see us and welcome us home! We had 80 in the church service, with a few visitors. Please continue to pray for our church here. We are in the process of raising money to build on the new property. Please pray that God's people would respond and that we could make this a reality this year.
Pray too, for Teddy and I, both of us are a little under the weather with colds.
God Bless you!
Joy
Baby Ioan is 1 month old today!
Tony and Teddy were waiting for me in San Antonio, with flowers! What a great welcome home! We enjoyed Christmas Day with Tony's mom and then on the 26th we all drove up to Hutchinson, KS and met up with Ashley and Lexi and both of their fiancees and both of Tony's sisters and their families! We had a great time with 18 people in the house. I doubt the house will ever be the same, but we had a wonderful time!
We left Hutchinson on the 31st and drove back to San Antonio and then caught an 8:00am flight on the 1st to head back to Ecuador! We know that New Year's was in there somewhere, but feel like we kind of skipped it! We flew into Quito and enjoyed spending a couple days with our friends, Glenn and Sherri McGhee. Flew into Manta on Thursday evening, the 3rd.
It was so great to be back at church yesterday! Everyone seemed so excited to see us and welcome us home! We had 80 in the church service, with a few visitors. Please continue to pray for our church here. We are in the process of raising money to build on the new property. Please pray that God's people would respond and that we could make this a reality this year.
Pray too, for Teddy and I, both of us are a little under the weather with colds.
God Bless you!
Joy
Baby Ioan is 1 month old today!
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