Life is certainly never boring, is it?  This we I had the opportunity of having the deacon's wives over for a Tea on Friday afternoon.  That was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed preparing for it and hosting it.  It was also a great time to just share and get them to start thinking and dreaming about ministry opportunities that we have.  Please keep this a matter of prayer as we work together to get some new ministries off the ground.   You know it is always easy to dream, but it becomes more difficult to put you feet to your dreams. ;-)

Yesterday afternoon was our monthly Ladies meeting.  We had about 24 attend and had a wonderful time of fellowship and prayer together.   It was encouraging to see one of our ladies give the devotion for the first time.  Nelly was very nervous, but she did a good job.   It was also neat to hear all the ladies praying when broke off into groups of 2 and shared our concerns and hearts with one another and took those to the throne of grace. 

It always amazes me how God can take imperfect people and use them to bring and honor and glory to him if they are just willing to surrender to him.   This morning we had about 30 ladies attend the morning Bible Study.  We were studying lesson 4 in our series of Biblical Principals of Discipline.   We ended up with 121 in church this morning.  We are looking forward to moving down to the auditorium space soon!

I have a special request for you this week.  It has come to our attention that the behavior and attitude of the wife of our "care taker" at the church, has not been what it should be.  Tony talked with her yesterday and her response was not one of repentance and acceptance of responsibility for any of the words or actions.  This evening Tony has a deacon's meeting and afterward  will be talking to both the caretaker and his wife.  I would ask you to be praying for wisdom and discernment on Tony's part and on the part of our leaders.  Also that God would soften her heart.  Above all please pray with us, that this would not harm God's work here. 

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and for the ministry here in Manta!  We are so thankful that we have the opportunity to serve God here. 

Blessings,
Joy

"I just want to thank you for coming to Manta!"

Little Dominica was playing around an exercise machine at her house, and somehow got a metal rod stuck in her foot.   She yelled for her Mom and said, "Mommy pray for me, that I would have faith that Jesus would save me from this!  I don't want to have a little faith like Peter!" (Dominica had been to our VBS a week ago, where we studied Peter) Dominica's Daddy is not a believer.  He was very worried and scared about what to do for his daughter.  He told his wife, if I cut the rod, it is going to hurt her foot and she'll move it.  But Dominica responded to her Daddy, to just cut the rod, Jesus was going to save her and he would give her the strength to not move her foot.  So he did, but it took him over an hour to cut through the metal rod.  The whole time, he kept saying to his wife, pray for me, to have strength to do this!  

Once they had cut the rod and got her foot loose, they took her to the hospital.  Her mother said, they were sure there was damage to the tendons and nerves.   At the hospital, the doctor said, you'll have to hold her down, I'll have to give her a shot and then sew it up.  But little Dominica replied, you can do whatever you have to do doctor, because Jesus is with me and he will give me the strength I need!   The doctor looked at her mother and said, you are Christians.  

This morning as Alexander was telling me this, tears were rolling down her face.  She said, "Thank you, so much for coming to Manta, and for starting this church!  Thank you so much for teaching the Word of God to my daughter in the Sunday School!  God is using her to strengthen my faith, and God is using her to soften the heart of my husband.   She said, "this week, my husband said, I need to start going to church!"   He also told Alexander that they would get legally married, so that she could get baptized!   They have an appointment to do that on Tuesday!

While she was talking to me, little Dominica ran up.  She was wearing some cute little sandals and she had a small bandage in the middle of her foot.   We are praising the Lord that there was no serious damage done to her foot!   Please pray for John that he would come to know Christ as his personal Savior! 

Praise the Lord with Us!

This week 14 teens gathered at a local camp for our youth retreat.  It went Thursday afternoon - Saturday afternoon.  It was a great time of growing for them.  We are so thankful the young people that God has brought to our church and for those that have been willing to work with them. 

This morning we continued our Sunday School lessons on Biblical Principals of Discipline.   It has been exciting to see how well the ladies are receiving these lessons.  Pray with us that they will be able to apply these principals in their homes.

We had a great attendance of 140 this morning for our church service and 2 precious young people accepted Christ!  We also had several 1st time visitors.  It is so exciting to see Christ working in people's lives!

Thank you so much for your prayers for the ministry here in Manta!  Thank you for your prayers for our family!

Blessings!
Joy

Let the Little Children Come....

We've had an incredibly full week, but then most weeks are, right?!  On Wednesday night we started our VBS.  We had a good number of kids turn out and more adults to help than we knew what to do with.  What an awesome problem to have.  I had helped organize it and get the material, etc.  but when it came to running the program, my only job was taking pictures!  It's really neat to see the people take ownership of things and put them into action!    We averaged about 50 children each evening.   Our main Sunday School teachers took the responsibility of teaching their classes, with some extra help.  Tony handled the opening, which included a song, and usually a little game or something that involved the kids.  Then after their classes they came back upstairs and for the closing time, about 6 men in the church had worked the class time, with Tony to put together a skit that dramatized the story they had that night.  The guys did a great job.  They had a lot of fun and the kids remembered the lessons! 

We had word that a few children accepted Christ.  On a personal note Matthew prayed to ask Jesus to forgive him of his sins and save him, in his class, Wednesday night!   We have talked to him about it a few different times, and he always tells us the same thing, so I think he really did understand what he was doing.  I would ask you to pray with us that Carla would come to know Jesus as her Savior.  I asked her when I was putting her to bed, if she had ever prayed and asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins and be her Savior and she told me, No.  She wasn't ready to do it yet.  So just pray with us, that as she keeps learning more and more, that she would understand her need for Christ.  

We had a great day yesterday!  All the Children were in the service, for the opening.  Each class presented a song and a verse for the parents.  Then we sang all the songs we had song during our VBS week.  It was fun. The guys who had helped with the skits and music all week,  helped with the music. 

Thank you for your prayers for our ministry and for our family.  It is exciting to see what the Lord is doing here in Manta, Ecuador! 

God Bless!
Joy