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)