Sunday Services

Today I awoke to a rainy Sunday morning.  A couple weeks ago, when we had rain, our attendance took a nose dive, so we were expecting about the same this morning, but were surprised to end up with a great attendance of 148!  The ladies class was full, in fact we ran out of lesson hand outs.

2 sweet little girls were baptized after the morning service.  It is exciting to see God working in the lives of our families!!

This evening we are having our annual meeting.  Tony will be introducing Darwin as our new assistant pastor!  We are so excited to be taking this step.  Please be praying with us for Darwin, Jessica and their 2 sweet kids as they make the adjustment to full time ministry.  Also be praying for the church as they take on the responsibility of a Pastor and his family.

This coming week, we would appreciate your prayers for the group from Battlefield Baptist Church in VA.  They will be arriving in Ecuador on Tuesday evening, and in Manta Wednesday.  We have lots of things planned.  Pray for open doors.  Good health for all of them.  

Blessings to each of you as you start your new week!

Joy

--
Joy Anzalone
Manta, Ecuador

Starting the new year is always exciting!  The kids and I have been back in school for a couple weeks now.  They are doing really well.  Both Carla and Matthew are reading short vowel words and Teddy is moved on to bar-graphs from fractions. :-) Many days it often feels like that my whole life is tied up in homeschooling these little ones. 

We are preparing for the church's 7th anniversary, which will be Feb. 5.  This coming week a group from Battlefield Baptist Church, in VA. will be visiting us.  We are looking forward to having them here!  On Saturday the 4th, the ladies are having a special tea, and we are excited that Mrs. Skinner will be speaking.  I know that she will be a real blessing.  On Sunday, Pastor Skinner will be preaching in the morning service.  That evening we will have our annual dinner and program reviewing the history of the church.  This year we are preparing for 200!  So happy that several of the ladies have stepped up to help organize and cook for this special event.

This coming Sunday, Tony will be introducing Darwin and Jessica as our first Assistant Pastor!  This is a huge step for the church, but we are so happy about it!  We appreciate your prayers for them as they step into this role, and as the church learns what it means to take care of a pastor and his family.

It is always exciting to see God working and to be a part of it!

Blessings to you and yours,

Joy

Christmas and New Years!

I love the holidays!  We have been so blessed as a family.  This last month has been a special gift of time with family.  We have enjoyed my parents being here for the whole month.  They have had the opportunity to get to know Carla and Matthew and spend time with Teddy.  My Mom baked us many special treats, and helped me figure out some decorating ideas.  She also did some painting for me and my Dad did some little "fix-it" jobs, that have been needing to be done for awhile, but we just never seem to have the time to get around to them.:-)  We will be heading to Guayaquil with them tomorrow, as they fly back home on Thursday.  We are all going to miss them!

We have enjoyed the Christmas Season with the Children.  Spending time each evening during the month of Dec. reading verses and discussing different parts of the Christmas story.  It is has been so much fun to watch Carla and Matthew become more and more familiar with the story, and not just the story of Jesus but understanding that he was born so that he could die on the cross, so that we could be saved!  Teddy has also grown in his understanding of many different aspects of the Christmas Story.  On Christmas Eve we enjoyed our own Birthday Party for Jesus.  

We also had a great month at our church with high attendances of 155, 151 and 161!  The ladies enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Tea on Sunday afternoon, the 18th.  It was such a blessing to have the ladies take responsibility for so much of the tea, and follow through with it.  49 Ladies participated and had a wonderful time. We also had our children's Christmas program on the 18th.  Teddy was Joseph this year, Carla was one of the angels and Matthew was part of the "Multitude of Angels"  along with the rest of his class. :-)

On Christmas Day we had a "Birthday Party" for Jesus.  Each of the classes started out in their class rooms, playing games, doing a Christmas craft, having a snack.  (Even the adults and young people, we skipped the craft! :-)  Then we all went to the auditorium, and enjoyed singing Christmas carols, watching a puppet skit and a message from God's word.  We took a special offering for 2 of our missionaries and also collected toys, clothes and non-perishable items for a Children's Home in our area.  It was such a blessing to see our church being generous with others!

As this year comes to a close, I can't help but count all the many blessings the Lord has poured out on us and look with excitement at the coming year. I don't know what 2012 holds for the Anzalone Family, but I know the one who does and I am so glad that I can trust him to guide our family each step of the way!

Blessings and Happy New Year!

Joy

Celebrations and Blessings!

The last 2 months have been ones of celebration in the Anzalone house!   We have celebrated 3 birthdays and the kids enjoyed Halloween, and we also enjoyed celebrating the Ecuadorian Holiday, "Dia de los Muertos".  Then we had a wonderful Thanksgiving here with just our family this year.  Teddy was a little concerned at first when he realized we weren't having company, because he thought if there weren't a lot of people here we wouldn't have a "feast" as he likes to refer to it.  But we put that notion to rest! :-)  We had all of the classic dishes, and everyone was stuffed when dinner was over!  

What fun we've had celebrating the joys of life and marking special days as a family.  It is neat to see how the kids have grown and how God is continuing to mold us into a family.  A tradition of ours is to start decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.  It has been a joy to see the kids faces light up as we pull out things that they remember from last year.  Carla mentioned the other day, that this was her 2nd Christmas.  Tonight we started our Advent Celebration.  One of the things we talked about was the giving aspect of Christmas, and that we wanted to think of people that we could give to this year.  Each of the kids thought of someone that they wanted to do something for.  It is so good to see them want to be generous to others.

The church is growing.  We had another evangelistic outreach in Jaramijo yesterday.  This one focused on the children.  There were about 40 kids that came to the program.  People from the church went and invited people and handed out about 300 tracks and invitations.  Our 4 puppet teams from the church, each presented a small skit.  In between the skits we had fun activities and music.  At the close Tony presented the plan of salvation.  At the end 12 boys and girls accepted Christ as their Savior!!  What a blessing!  Today, we had a great service.  134 attended the worship service and one man accepted Christ as his Savior at the end of the service.  

Tony has 2 Bible Institute classes going now.  Appreciate your prayers for him and for the students.  Also we are ready to get more things done on the building.  Work on the walls of the auditorium should be continuing soon and we are getting tile put in the large class on the main floor of the Education Building.  Exciting times!!

The Ladies are planning a Christmas Tea for Sunday afternoon, Dec. 18.  Appreciate your prayers for the planning and that this would be a great outreach opportunity for the Ladies Ministry.  I am very thankful for the ladies helping with the planning and organization of this program!

One more very special blessing for our family, is that my parents will be traveling down to Ecuador on Tuesday and staying for a month!  We are so excited to have them here for Christmas!  Carla and Matthew are very excited about meeting Grandpa and Grandma, and of course Teddy is excited to have them here for a visit!  Please pray for safety as they travel.

Blessings to you and yours!
Joy