Last few months in a nutshell

  The last few months have been incredibly jammed packed.  We had our special assembly day in June.  Then, Stephanie, Amanda and I went with our friend Jenny to a jungle town 5 hours from Cuenca.  Her family has a cacao plantation there and we went to help harvest!  Fifteen of us stayed in her grandparents’ house, without water, for three days.  It was quite the experience J  To harvest, we had to snip each pod from the tree, collect them all, and cut them open to take out each of the seeds with the flesh around them.  

I had never tried the fruity flesh before and it was so delicious.  In the end, we harvested over 500 pounds of cacao seeds and baba (the fruity flesh, which also means drool in Spanish!).  After harvesting, we went to the pool to play around and wash off a bit. 

  On their land, they can pretty much grow anything.  Seriously, if you just toss a seed on the ground, the plants grow…  it’s crazy!  So, we went to pick some fresh papayas and sugar cane.  We also got natural sponges from one of the trees and tried some other fruits.  It really made me excited for life in the paradise when we will just walk outside and pick our fruits and veggies!  So cool!

  Also, in Mendez, the congregation is super tiny.  They meet in a brother’s house and just use stackable plastic chairs as the seats.  There were a ton of cute kids that answered multiple times… when the group is small, they get used to answering every paragraph!

  In July, my mom and sister came to visit for a few weeks.  We did some travelling and they got to see a bit of my everyday life.  They got to meet some of the people I always talk about and really got to see first hand how the brothers really take care of me here. 

 

  The last weekend in July, we travelled to Guayaquil for the “Let God’s Kingdom Come” English District Convention.  This is, I believe, the only English District Convention in all of South America, so people travel from all over the continent to attend.  Normally, the only baptisms at that convention, since it is rather small and is mainly all missionaries and need-greaters, are the children of the need-greaters.  This year, we had two people from the field get baptized!  One man was from Nigeria and one was from California.  Even in the small groups here, there is growth!

  We returned from the convention on Monday, August 1, and left Tuesday at 3:30AM for Peru to Peru to invite the Chinese people there to the Chinese District Convention that will be in Lima at the end of the month.  BUSY!  Our supposedly 14 hour drive ended up taking 29 hours.  That is with 12 people in a 12 passenger van with only a luggage rack and no cargo space in the back.  It was a first for me in many capacities…  sleeping in a Peruvian gas station, 

spending 29 consecutive hours in a van, being pulled over by the police 20 times in a few days, busking at a Peruvian mall, etc.  

On the way, we heard a noise.  An hour later, when we stopped, we realized that the noise must have been my luggage falling off the luggage rack.  Oh the joys of South American travel J  So, we drove the hour backwards to look for it at 1:00AM and, thankfully, we found it.  It was so late that probably not many people had passed it and nothing had been stolen.  Still, the bag and anything breakable, including my camera, makeup, etc., that was inside, was broken and my clothes were scattered across the road.  At least I had 

clothes though!

  While in Peru, we traveled to a few different areas to invite the Chinese to the district convention and had some really good response. 

There isn’t actually a Chinese group or congregation anywhere nearby, so the Chinese haven’t really received much of a witness.  It was crazy because we didn't even have an invitation for the convention, so Damaris and Ivan worked to create one!

A few young people in the city have recently started learning Chinese and preaching on their own, so they got to join us and help us locate all of the Chinese restaurants in the area.  I think that our trip really helped encourage them to continue with confidence.  Overall, we placed 229 magazines, 12 brochures,  and 18 books. 

  The friends in Peru were AMAZING and cared for our every need.  We got to taste typical Peruvian dishes and... man…  they’re good!  They also had a few parties for us.  At one of the parties, we played guitars and sang.  We ended up singing many of the kingdom songs and it was incredible.  It felt like a mini-paradise.  Since we were quite a mix of people, we even sang a few songs switching languages for each verse from English to Chinese and last Spanish.  So cool!

  After preaching for several days, we took our last afternoon to play at the beach and enjoy time with the friends there. 

It was really an amazing experience overall and one that I will never forget!  Jehovah has blessed me immensely with the opportunity to participate in this work!

Lost Sheep – Another Update

 Last week, I was studying with the “lost sheep” family that I’ve been studying with since January and I asked at the end of the study if they had any questions.  To my surprise, the 20 year old girl asked, “What do I need to do to get baptized?”  So I brought back some articles to consider this week.  We discussed setting goals and steps like attending all of the meetings and working toward preaching.  The family has currently been attending Sunday meetings and Vanessa and Jonathan even pre-study the Watchtower article.  They have not been attending our Thursday night meetings, so Vanessa asked, “So, I need to attend both meetings every week if I want to get baptized?...  What time is the meeting Thursday?”  Awesome!  We’ll see how it goes.  She is an awesome student… she’s read the Daniel, Isaiah, Revelation, Jeremiah and Young People Ask books on her own time for fun!  They’re a real joy J

Two Chinese talks...

Okay, so my Chinese is still terrible, but I have now given two Chinese talks!  The first one was a substitute talk and the second one was mine... and I wrote it... by myself!  Scary.  Our group is so small that it's perfect for forcing me to give a lot of comments in meetings.  Slowly, but surely, I will learn this language!

Traveling to Loja for Chinese service

This weekend five of us gals traveled by bus five hours south of Cuenca to preach to the Chinese in Loja.  Chinese people are often VERY skeptical of anyone coming to talk to them in Chinese and especially about the Bible as the majority of them are Buddhists.  Since I've been here, we've been trying to travel to Loja every three months or so to try to break down some barriers and gain some trust.  We're starting to notice a difference!  The people are starting to listen to us and to just converse...  Our goal is to get their telephone numbers so we can do phone witnessing with our new Chinese publisher to really get them to open up more talking to her.  We shall see how it progresses :o)

Anything can be fixed in Ecuador!

Okay, so this isn't service related, but it's yet another reason why I love it here.  I had COMPLETELY ruined two pairs of shoes because I walk so much here.  I had some crocs that I wore through... you could put your finger through the hole.  Also, I had a pair of dress shoes and the heel had separated from the sole.  I figured, it's impossible to find shoes in my size here, so I'll try to get them fixed.  I also took three skirts with broken zippers, three skirts that needed to be hemmed, and the buckle on my leather service bag had busted due to the weight of the Chinese Pinyin Bible and needed to be fixed.  Guess how much it cost me to get them all fixed like new? $20!!!  I feel like I have a new wardrobe :o)  It's the little joys in life, right?

Family update :o)

The family of 5 kids all studied last week and we have plans to study again tomorrow.  They are adorable and they have some interesting questions.  The youngest two have read ahead in the Bible Teach book and the middle girl had already read a good portion of the Young People Ask book I left for her.  I can't wait for tomorrow!

How could I forget?!

We have a new Chinese publisher :o)  Yan XiaoMei is quite possibly the cutest and friendliest person ever.  We're all so happy to have a native speaker to help us break some barriers with some of the more stubborn Chinese people in Cuenca!

May highlights in a nutshell

I haven’t updated in SOOO long.  Here are a few noteworthy experiences I’ve had recently :o)

The family mentioned in the “lost sheep” entry has been attending the meetings every Sunday.  After their study, they invite me to have “cafecito” or bread and coffee and we continue the conversations about their spiritual questions and, of course, their curiosity about my life and my family.  The girl, Vanessa, that I originally found, has even been preparing for the Watchtower and they bring me so much joy!  I told them that we’d watch a video this week for the study because we’re talking about how Jehovah’s organization, so they told me that they’d have popcorn waiting for me when I come.  Haha.  I love it!

Another woman, Fanny, I met shortly after I arrived is a single mother with five children ages 20, 16, 12, 10 and 8.  I began studying with her and she confided in me her concerns about her children.  Of course, I came back with the Young People Ask book and addressed her concerns with the children.  After mentioning the study arrangement and offering to return to consider with each of them individually, I told them that they could make a list of any questions they had and we’d make sure to answer them.  The 10 year old then spoke up and said, “I have a question!...  Where did God come from?”  So, I read Psalm 90:2, asked her some questions to help her reason and she seemed satisfied.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the 5 studies will go:o)

I began studying with a woman, Laura, in the local market the first week I returned.  She is always there, so it’s perfect.  That’s one thing about Ecuador, the people at places of business are much more willing to have a conversation or even study.  So, now, I go there two or three times a week and we sit on little stools in front of the fruits and veggies and study.  After every study, she “pays” me with an apple or an orange.  Yum :o)

Troubles in Jadan

Last week the group that goes to Jadan got stopped on their way out of the town.  A group of 30 people surrounded their cars and told them that they were not welcome there.  The priest had gathered all them together to threaten the brothers and sisters.  They informed them that they were only going to warn them once...  what a great Christian attitude, eh?  The brothers said that they didn't want to cause any problems and that they were going to continue coming in peace to teach those that wanted to study the Bible... we'll see how it goes.

Oh the joys of Carnaval

So, it's Carnaval time here in Ecuador... What is Carnaval?  Well, is is essentially is the Ecuadorian Mardi Gras.  It leads up to lent and is celebrated by lots of drinking, throwing water balloons at passersby, squirting them with water guns, spraying them with foam, pulling them in to fountains, or, my personal favorite, dumping buckets of water on them from balconies.  Yep, last Saturday I got a BUCKET of water dumped on me in service.  I was dripping wet and my literature was soaked, but I laughed hysterically because it caught me off guard.  Every day this week I've been ballooned or squirted and I also got all out attacked with foam, guns and balloons on Friday.  The Ecuadorians that were with me insisted I walk apart from them so as not to attract attention to them :o)  Everyone wants to get the gringa!  The water tradition has something to do with washing away evil spirits... needless to say, I cannot retaliate... otherwise those kids would have no hope!  Haha.

Preaching in Jadan

Our congregation is assigned to a rural Spanish territory, Jadan, about an hour from Cuenca.  The brothers and sisters that support the Jadan service group have experienced so much success that they are starting to have monthly public discourses in Jadan since the people can't travel to Cuenca Sunday mornings for meetings.  I went last week for the second public talk ever.  We were supposed to be inside of a student's house for the discourse, but he had an emergency and we were left outside... so we all sat in the field beside his house and listened while my friend, Fausto, gave the talk.  I really wish I'd gotten a picture while he was giving the talk because it was so incredibly surreal.  I helped a cute 13 year old girl that attended find the scriptures and follow along.  Before the talk, one of the students that attended said that when the Witnesses first started preaching in Jadan, the priest banded everyone together to chase them out with sticks and rocks.  Very Christian, eh?  It just goes to show that nothing will stop Jehovah from making sure his good news gets preached to all the inhabited earth!

The view from one of the houses.

 Taking FIELD ministry to a whole new level!

The hillside where we sat to listen to the talk :o)

Publish Post

Dancing for the Lord

How, you may ask, do I dance for the Lord?  Well, Damaris and I go to dance workout classes weekly.  As you very well know, I am a very tall blonde...  not exactly inconspicuous here in Ecuador.  Everywhere I go, I attract attention.  So, last week, before class started, a girl extended her hand and introduced herself to me in English, assuming I spoke English due to my tall blondness.  She caught me off guard because I'm not used to hearing English from strangers.  It turns out she is from California and is here in Cuenca studying abroad.  I explained that Damaris and I are here doing missionary work preaching to the Chinese people and that our Ecuadorian friend that was with us preaches to the English speakers.  After class, I introduced her to the other girls and she asked us what we normally do daily.  "Conduct Bible studies." I responded.  Much to my surprise, she said, "I want to attend a Bible study.  Can I?"  Although she couldn't make it this weekend, Damaris ran in to her again tonight and set up a time to start a study.  Ariel, the girl, said she doesn't think it's a coincidence that she found us again.  Cool, huh?  So, in the end, I am dancing for the Lord :o)

Zhongwen Class

The majority of our group has started a Chinese class with real Chinese professor!  We've completed a month of class and it has been challenging writing the characters and remembering all of the tones, but I think it is really going to help us newbies have the necessary confidence to keep progressing.

As for my Chinese, since that seems to be a common question... well, it's a really stinking hard language.  I find myself understanding more and more in the meetings and on studies, even auxiliary questions!  I am still no where near conversational, but I'm trying to be patient and acquire vocab, etc...  slowly but surely I will be able to speak.  

My Spanish, on the other hand, is improving :o)  It's funny because I used to feel like attending an English meeting was a breath of fresh air every once in a while... now, Spanish is my English!

Jungle preaching, Spanish class graduation, circuit assembly & you!

This month has been super busy and I've been terrible at updating this...  I will try harder!

A few weeks ago, we travelled seven hours to a small jungle town to preach to the Chinese there.  While there, I had the opportunity to hike a lot and relax in the rainforest a bit. It was unforgettable. I think that hanging out under a waterfall in the amazon is retroactively being added to my bucket list :o) Check out the photos:  http://travel.webshots.com/album/579660714PYYvIT

Damaris graduated from the Spanish school a few weeks ago and I attended to support. After all of the students were given their certificates, one of the brothers from Cuenca talked about how happy he was to have all of the foreigners here. He referred to us as the flowers in the field. Apparently, while Ecuador always has a significant growth each year, in the past years, Cuenca has had yearly increases of up to 18%!  CRAZY!

Recently we had our circuit assembly.  I just want to share a few statistics of our circuit... We have about 1,700 publishers in the circuit.  In the past year, we’ve had 166 new publishers and 46 baptized.  Of course, the number of publishers doesn’t include the rather large crowd of others that attend meetings and are not publishers. For example, last year, my congregation had to have two separate memorials to accommodate everyone. That being said, guess how many elders we have in the entire circuit... A whopping 37!  Can you even imagine the responsibilities that these poor brothers have!?  The entire circuit has 94 servants, but many are new to the truth and are not yet qualified. So… consider this your invitation to step over into Macedonia because we need you!  There are plans for another Spanish class in Cuenca in September. Can you be here for it?  There are now three apartments available in my complex :o)

We were preaching in the block closest to my house (we live outside of our Spanish territory).  I talked to a ton of people, almost all of which listened very attentively and asked questions.  One exceptional call I had was a very happy and smiley woman named Jenny.  Although she was working, she stopped to listen.  She accepted the magazines and told me that her 11 year old daughter had studied when they lived on the coast, but they moved to Cuenca recently when Jenny's mom died.  I asked her if her daughter still had the book, but she wasn't sure, so I told her I would return with a copy in case she didn't have the book.

The next day, her daughter, Andrea, greeted me at the door.  I asked her if she still had the book, but she didn't.  I showed her the Bible Teach book, but she said that she'd been studying the Great Teacher book.  I told her we'd start the Bible Teach book the next day.  

When I arrived, Andrea went right to the desk to study and told me that she was interested in knowing about death, since her grandma had recently died.  While we studied, I knew her mom and uncle were listening, even though they were working.  Andrea, although young, knows her Bible and is very impressive.  I couldn't help but smile throughout the entire study because she is precious and so smart!  When we finished studying, I asked Andrea when I could come back.  After thinking for a moment, she said, "Monday... Wednesday... and Thursday."  How adorable!  

Then, her uncle started asking me questions for over an hour.  He didn't understand why bad things happen to good people.  He said he had lots of Bible questions, including questions about prophecy in Revelation about the beast with the seven heads and diadems, but he didn't know where that was...  Andrea took the Bible and found the chapter!  

I went back that Monday and she immediately went to the desk to study.  Jenny was listening in and answering along with Andrea, even though she was on the other side of the room working.  Andrea and I read James 1:13 and talked about how Jehovah never puts us under trial.  From the other side of the room, Jenny turned around and said, "Well then why do we suffer!?"  She, like her brother, wanted to know why bad things happen to good people.  Jenny explained that her mom and Andrea both had been studying the Bible and that she didn't think it was fair that her mom suffered and that she was now suffering with the pain of losing her.  We talked about how Satan is the ruler of the world and I told her I'd come back and talk with her about suffering.

Here is a picture of Andrea so you can see how incredibly cute she is! 

Everyone that has met her falls in love with her because there is nothing not to love!  I'm really excited to continue her study because it is not uncommon here in Ecuador for young children to pave the way for their family in learning the truth.  We have several young kids that attend our congregation without their parents.  Plus, her example is already getting her mom and uncle started with awesome Bible questions... and as many of you know, I am very persistent and it's only a matter of time :o)

Also, another gal with whom I'm studying asked me about the cross two weeks ago because we were finishing chapter 4 and she'd seen it in the appendix. She was pretty upset that she'd been lied to her whole life about the cross, but, after considering the information and what her own Bible said, she decided that she would have to change because she didn't want to venerate an image with pagan roots!

Lost sheep!

I have had a plethora of awesome experiences the past two weeks, but, alas, I only have time to share a few right now.  I will try to post more when I get time and pictures!

Monday, I met a 20 year old girl that said she used to study the Bible.  I asked her where she had stopped in the Bible Teach book and she told me she had finished the book and was in chapter four of the God's Love book!  Apparently, her teacher had moved and no one has studied with her for four months!  We made plans to study the next day.  

When I returned, Vanessa's brother let me inside and she came downstairs with her books. Shortly behind her were her brother and her mother, all with their books in hand!  They had studied as a family and all of them want to continue!

Also, as for the little old woman that asked me about idols and saint, when we studied on Monday, her idols were all gone!

The bus is never a bust!

The Ybarras and I were on the bus and we saw a guy very intently reading the January Watchtower about the Garden of Eden, so Sara got his attention and asked him if he was a Witness.  He said that he was not, but that he’d found the magazine on the floor and picked it up because it looked interesting.  The man said he’d never actually talked to Witnesses before!  Then, he pulled another brochure from his jacket and said he was excited to read it too... we never know who will end up getting the literature!

What about saints and idols?...

I finally found this cute little old lady, Leonor, at home again after a month of trying.  She invited us in and we chatted for a bit about her health.  I shared Isaiah 33:24 with her about a time when there will be no more sickness then turned to chapter three of the Bible Teach book and asked her if she thought Jehovah wanted her to live with sickness. 

Leonor stopped me and said, “Someone told me that it’s not good to pray to saints or use idols because Jehovah God exacts exclusive devotion.  What do you think?”

I asked what she believed and when she said she didn’t know, I insisted we use the Bible to see what Jehovah says.  We read Exodus 20:4, 5 Psalms 115:4-8, and Isaiah 42:8.  She still wasn’t getting the point…  Her husband walked in and introduced himself and we chatted with him for a bit.  When he left the room, I asked her, “You love your husband, right?”

Leonor, of course, said yes. 

“Would you like to share him with another woman?” 

She very emphatically said “NO!  That would be terrible and I'd be so jealous!”

I explained that Jehovah feels the same way.  He doesn’t want to share the devotion that only he deserves with saints or idols. 

Her mouth dropped and she said, “I am NEVER going to use an idol or pray to a saint again!”

We made plans for the next week and when I went, she wasn’t there, but her daughter invited me to their family dinner the next day because, she said, her mom loves me a lot and wants me to come.  I’ve talked to her twice in my life!  People here are so nice!  That same day, Damaris got invited by a stranger sitting next to her on the bus to come to her house for coffee….  That’s why there I love Cuenca!