Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Las Cholas

I was going through my pictures today and this one caught my eye. I
think it does such a good job catching the facial expressions and
culture.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Youth cell group

Every Monday I've been helping lead a cell group for the youth from the church.  It's always such an encouragement to get together with these youth and see their hunger for the Word.  Usually we meet at the church, but this past week we had a special outing. 

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Back from the Bible Institute



Today was the final day of the Summer Bible Institute.  Overall, I was very thankful for how the 2 weeks went.  It was an intense time of study focused on helping the youth defend their faith.  Along with the teaching, there were times of swimming in the pool, going on walks and playing volleyball.  I greatly enjoyed the time with the youth.  It was such a blessing to see their hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Praise the Lord for His grace!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Bible School

Hi...

I just have a few minutes online here... but here´s an update of the
last few days...


So there's a total of 11 students here at the Bible school not
including the 3 cooks. The cooks are Cristina Gomezcoello and Paola
Peralta along with another gal. They do the cooking but sit in the
classes when they aren't busy. In total, there's really about 14 kids
here.
The house where we're staying is quite impressive. I'll try to send
you a picture. It's a large two-story house built on a hill…. or
should I say mountain. It has an impressive view of the valley on
three sides. The room we meet in has a glass roof and the view of the
valley on two sides. The house has three bedrooms on the main floor
with 2 bunk beds in each room. Upstairs there's a few big rooms with
a queen size bed, a few single beds, and a few bunk beds. The girls
are upstairs and the guys downstairs. In the house, there's also a
large dining room and a nice kitchen. Oh… and I almost forgot…
there's a very nice swimming pool outdoors overlooking the valley.
The only thing that is missing is internet and cell phone coverage.
:-( I guess that's a good thing too…. less distractions.
We left Cuenca at around 4:30pm and arrived here at around 6:15. On
arriving everyone ate the sack lunch they had brought along.
Afterwards, we had a time of welcome, laying down the rules and a
praise time. Then we played some group games and got to bed at around
10:30.
This morning I got up at 6:00am and had devotions. At 7:15 we had
breakfast and started with group devotions at 8:15 I lead the group
devotions and shared on Ps. 19 and general revelation and special
revelation. The first seen in the description of creation in verses
1-6 and the second being seen in Scripture or the law. The verses
were so appropriate as we begin 2 weeks of study in the Word.
This morning Darwin Paccha shared for two hrs on the book of John and
right now Santiago is sharing on Romans. I believe there are 5 hrs of
teaching on each book….. hardly enough to scratch the surface, but
excellent teaching none-the-less.
(7-13-10)
Well, German is sharing on "Who is Jesus" right now. Earlier I shared
on Bible versions. I felt it went well. I felt a little bad that I
had to simplify the material as much as I did but on the other hand,
it was complicated enough that I think I may have lost some of the
kids. I showed a video put out by Wycliffe on the history of the
Bible for about half the time. That means I basically only had an
hour to share myself.
Yesterday afternoon we had some free time. We played a rather
uncompetitive game of volleyball with a bunch of the girls and then
German, Darwin, Santiago and I played another more competitive game of
volleyball. Once we were hot, we jumped into the pool. There we
played a game similar to water football. Basically there were two
teams and the goal was to move the ball to the other goal in whatever
way possible. It was a rather rough game. I was kinda sore when I
got out. I think I must have broken a rib playing football with the
Global Encounters team two weeks ago. It didn't hurt that much then,
but it continues to bother me…. and the games yesterday didn't help.
It was very sore when I was trying to fall asleep. :-P
In the evening we had a time of praise and prayer and then a time of
games. Curfew is at 10:30.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Esmeraldas




Some may be wondering where I disappeared for the last week.  I was in Esmeraldas helping Global Encounters with children's ministry.  So many things occurred during the week, I don't know where to begin.  Almost every day we had children's ministry in the mornings and evenings and my main responsibility was to help with the translation.  It was a very busy week, but so much fun and such an encouragement.  For more details, you can read the team blog here and look at more pictures here.