What's Been Happening in our Life?

It’s been a long time since I posted on here.  Life has thrown us a lot of curve balls during the last 6 months.  I am planning to write a series of posts to catch everyone up on what has been going on in our lives… I hope you will pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea and enjoy the “visit.”   

On August 8, 2013, we arrived in Washington, DC, at Reagan National.  As we exited the gate area, and passed the security lines, we were surprised to see 2 of our daughters and 4 of our 7 grandkids waiting for us!!  We were thrilled to have them greet us.  I was quite impressed that they had braved the 7 hour trip without their husbands and with 4 children, ages, 4, 3, 2 and 9 months!!  Not long after getting lots of hugs from them, we were met by Pastor Tim, his daughter Megan and one of the men on their leadership team, Tom.  

We gathered luggage, got to the cars, decided how everyone would travel, and then headed out of the airport for the trip to Ruckersville.  I will admit to being very excited BUT also exhausted, as we had traveled on one of the overnight flights out of Ecuador.  

We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A. That was a nice treat for us.  The rest of the trip went really slow.  I will admit to a little bit of impatience, as I was really tired and I was just hoping to get to the house we would be staying at and being able to rest…  What I didn’t know, is that people from the church were planning to gather at the house around 5:00pm, to welcome us and so the trip was being “delayed” to give everyone time to get in place. :)

When we pulled into the house, it was AMAZING!!  There were balloons on the mailbox.  People were holding balloons and pom-poms.  There were signs welcoming us “home”.   Lots of hugs and laughter.  They showed us through a house, totally furnished, even with toys and books on the shelves.  The kitchen was stocked the refrigerator full, and there was a deep freeze in the garage full of hamburger and beef!  Before everyone left, Pastor Tim gathered everyone in the “family room” and we held hands and prayed together.  

That first week-end is pretty much a blur in my mind.  In fact, Tony and I had lost a day, as we were going around on Saturday, thinking it was Friday! Thankfully we realized our confusion before we actually missed Church on Sunday. :)  

We spent the week-end hugging on our girls and grandbabies.  Settling in to the house.  We were blessed to be able to be at Sunday Services at Mountain View Chapel.  They loved on us and prayed for us.  Everyone was so excited that we were finally here!!  

I have to say at this point, that we were also very blessed and relieved to just finally be in the States.  It had been a long time in the coming and it was just a relief to have finally gotten the visas and to have made the trip “home”.   

   

Busy times!

We have so many answered prayers to share!!  The very biggest at the moment is that WE HAVE THE VISAS!!!!!

I have written a detailed narrative of what we have been doing and how this has all unfolded on my Journey of Waiting blog.  You can check it out here:

http://manabita.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/visa-update/

Have a blessed day!
Joy

Sunday Evening...

Well, I just noticed that it's been over a month since I posted on here!  I just can't seem to keep up with everything.   It seems that the older I get the faster time flies by! ;)

We had expected that we would be heading to the US, this month...well actually when we started the whole visa process for Carla and Matthew, we expected to be heading to the US in May or June, but that was not God's plan! We are learning every day through this process, that God's timing is not our timing and that His ways are not ours!  He is NEVER late, and his plans are ALWAYS perfect!  We have received news that our visa process has passed all the steps needed in the US.  The next step is to be assigned a date for our interview at the consulate here.  We have been told that we should be assigned a date in August.  So we are prayerful that we will be heading to the US by the end of August/first of September.  We would really appreciate your prayers about this, as our first scheduled meeting is at a church in VA. Sept. 21-22.  This is a new church for us, and it is really important for us to add to our support base.

This month we have enjoyed celebrating the 4th together as a family.  We "officially" finished up our school year, the first week in July and the kids have been enjoying their vacation.  I have been working on organizing our school plans for the coming year, and figuring out what we will need to take with us to the States.  I have also been working on compiling a reading program that will meet Matthew's needs.  I think that is just about finished, and I'm quite happy with how it has turned out.  It is always neat, when you can "re-cycle" and re-use things that you already own! ;)

Friday, we celebrated Tony's birthday.  The kids and I enjoyed taking him out for supper and trying to spoil him a little bit.

Our church is doing well.  The leaders are doing a great job, stepping in and getting ready to carry the work during our furlough.  This week-end we enjoyed having our Missionaries, David and Monica Proano here, with a group from the US.  They did an "Evangelistic Seminar" Saturday morning, and then Saturday afternoon, people went out passing out tracks and invitations to a program this coming Saturday evening at the church.  This morning we had a guest speaker from the group, and it was a great challenge to our church. This afternoon, we went with this group and several people from our church to the Malecon here at the beach, and shared the gospel through a couple dramas and painting.   We know that 1 young lady accepted Christ, and several people took the gospel of John that was passed out and followed along attentively has David showed how to do the little Bible Study in the front of the book.  People from our church took time to talk with those that stayed around til the end of the presentation, and lots of invitations and tracts were handed out.  Please pray with us, that there will be fruit from this outreach.  

This morning as Tony and I were sitting on the front row, getting ready for the morning service to start, a man that had accepted Christ 2 weeks ago, came up with a huge smile on his face to shake our hands!  He was so happy to be there.  It is so neat to see the joy now radiating from him!

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and for the ministry here in Manta!  God is working and we are so excited to be a part of his work!

Blessings,
Joy

Celebrating Father's Day...

Here are a few photos of what we did with Tony, to celebrate Father's Day this year...

 

This family photo was taken after services Sunday.

We took Tony to a Mexican Resturant for supper, Sunday. We went about 5:00, and were the only people in there... Most people go out a lot later for supper around here. 

After we ordered our food, the kids gave Tony his gift and the cards they had made.

Everyone loved their dinner! ;)

Carla and Matthew had "Flautas de Pollo"...

Tony had the "El Coyote" 

Teddy had a beef burrito and I had tostados.  It was all delicious!

Today, we went to San Lorenzo, to climb up to the light house. 

You can just barely see it on the top of the  hill.

And we're off...

At the half way point.

This is where I stayed...

but the kids were ready to move on...

"Victory is ours!" is what Matthew said, when they reached the top! ;)

had to take a photo of the "stairs".  There were "only" 650 some...

There were also sea turtle nest marked off.  That was neat.  The kids came home and checked it out on the computer to see photos of the turtles.  

on the way back out of the little town, we came across a bunch of baby pigs crossing the road...