Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!

I pray that each of you have enjoyed your Christmas with friends and family! We had many exciting things happening around here.

The Christmas party at church on the 2oth was a big success! We had over 170 there. Everyone had a great time. Lots of people helped out with the preparation, the set-up and the cooking. We had a great time of fun, food and fellowship.

Tony, Teddy and I enjoyed a great Christmas together. Christmas eve we tried our hand at making candy canes. I can hear you now, why would you try to make candy canes when you can buy them? Well, you can't buy them here, at least not in Manta, so we decided to try our hand at it. It was quite an experience...having never done anything like it before. We had a huge mess, some burnt fingers and a really fun time. Our candy canes were some of the funniest looking things you have ever seen, but they were made with love and they taste great! :-)

We enjoyed a "Birthday Party for Jesus" on Thursday evening. Playing games, and reading the Christmas Story, and eating "Pizza Fondue", it was really yummy. Christmas day was also a good day for us. We enjoyed talking to each of your daughters and my parents. We were able to use the web cam with my parents, and with Ashley, Shane and Curtis and that was fun.

Today has been a great day of just resting...a little cleaning up and a lot of just enjoying one another. Tony is going out to the village ministry in La Travesia this afternoon. We are looking forward to a great day at church tomorrow.

God has blessed us so much! Thank you for your prayers for the ministry here in Manta and for our family!

God Bless you!
Joy

We had a great day worshiping the Lord! The attendance was down, but we are so thankful that God is working in the hearts of his people. Please remember to keep this work in your prayers.

Upcoming events...on Friday the Leadership team and their wives will be coming over to our house for a small Christmas party. Then on Sunday morning, the kids at church will be receiving their Christmas treats and Sunday evening we will be having a "Family Christmas Party" at church...We are going to be having a "Birthday Party for Jesus!" The church will be providing the meat, which we are grilling...and everyone else is helping by either bringing rice, menestra (lentils), salad, colas, plates, cups, napkins, forks.... This is all a "new" idea for the culture here, so we will see how it works. "Potluck dinners" are not a normal thing in Ecuador! :-) But everyone seems really excited about it and is looking forward to a great time. We will be exchanging ornaments...each family that wants to participate has been bringing ornaments and putting them on the trees at church...The ornament has their family's name on it. The idea is that we will exchange them and then each family will pray for the family whose ornament they receive, during the coming year. We have also asked those that would like to participate to bring a wrapped "birthday gift for Jesus". These are to be toys that we will be giving out to the 2 children's homes in our area. We are looking forward to a great time of fun and fellowship!

We are excited and looking forward to Christmas at the Anzalone house! We have been baking and decorating. This week we are planning to do some shopping. I pray that each of you has a wonderful week as you prepare for this most precious time of you!

God Bless you!
Joy

Some pictures....

Just about finished decorating for our Ladies program, "Fantasia de nieve"(Winter Wonderland) Saturday morning. I have to say it was pretty strange to have "snow" in Manta! :-)


Some of the ladies that attended Saturday's program. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Here they are listening intently to my lesson...They are really trying to figure out what in the world I'm trying to say in Spanish! :-)

These are the 9 people that were baptized a couple weeks ago, with Tony. We are so thankful for the work the Lord is doing here! Many lives are being changed!

The Ecuador, BBFI missionary family on Thanksgiving Day at Joe and Sylvia Wells. We had a great time! (we missed you Jenny!)

Christmas is coming!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe that Christmas is just 16 days away?!?!?! Yes we are counting down here at the Anzalone house. Teddy would have us counting the hours and the minutes too, but we will just stick to days. :-)

We have had a very busy few weeks here in Manta. We were able to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving with our friends Joe and Sylvia Wells in Santo Domingo. We joined all the other BBFI missionary family for a wonderful day of fun, fellowship and thanksgiving.

Two weeks ago, we had 9 precious baby believers follow their Lord in Baptism! What a wonderful day.

Last Saturday was our special Ladies Christmas program. We had 39 ladies attend and had a wonderful time.

Our church attendance the last few weeks has been very good. God is working and changing lives. Of course anytime the Lord is working, Satan doesn't like it! Please pray for the work here, and especially for the leaders, as Satan is attacking big time. Pray too for the new baby Christian that sometimes get caught up in the "crossfire" for the attack.

I pray that God richly blesses you as you serve him in the place he has put you.
Blessings!
Joy