Last day for Geneva Team

We made it back from the jungle yesterday evening, had a great rest last night, an early morning hike to 11,000 feet this morning and the team has solo time, high ropes adventure and a visit to the Equator today before they get ready to leave at 2:40 am tomorrow morning.

Let me share with you a little of what took place on our jungle trip:

 Our ministry team sharing the story of salvation with the elementary kids in Rio Negro

 Playing games with the 76 elementary students.  They loved the parachute games!

We then broke up into smaller groups in the classrooms for crafts, lesson review and time to get to know the students better.  I had the privilege of being the interpreter for the 4th and 5th grade class.

At about 12:30 on Tuesday the team was ready to head into the jungle to work on a jungle trail.

The trail work went well and was very muddy, which is VERY normal for the jungle

 As you can see, the cleanliness of our group changed between 12:30 and 4:00.

 A highlight of our time was yesterday morning, at a beautiful jungle river.

Pastor Sterling baptized 15 students from the team. It was great to hear their testimonies and see what God has been doing in the whole teams lives while they have been here in Ecuador.

This morning, most of the team was up hiking by 4:30 am.  We reached the highest point of 11,000 feet on the El Refugio property around 6:00 am.  We prayed for the ministry of El Refugio before heading down to breakfast.

Pray for team Geneva as they leave early tomorrow and go back to their "normal" routines, that they will allow God's work in their hearts to continue, and that the seeds they planted here will grow to fruit for the Kingdom of God.

Tour day

Yesterday ended very well, with a great day of finishing up many of our work projects and then having VBS with about 160 community kids.  It was so good to have so many kids show up and to be able to share with them about God's grace to us and his salvation.

 Some of the 160 kids at the VBS program yesterday

Today we had a tour day.  The team enjoyed a much needed break by going to a village market called Otavalo and shopping for gifts. I think everyone is rejuvenated and ready for our next assignment.

Please remember us in prayer as we head for Rio Verde and Rio Negro tomorrow.  We will be spending time in the Rio Negro elementary school on Tuesday and doing a work project working on a trail through the jungle.
Thank you for your prayers!

First day of VBS

We had a wonderful and very full day today.  We started off like we have the past two days, beginning our work at about 8:00am. Today we worked on the work projects until noon and then began to prepare for our VBS program.
Kids started coming at about 2:45 and by 3:30 there were about 100 kids in attendance.  We divided them in three groups and rotated them between Bible story, craft and games. They will be coming again tomorrow afternoon and we are expecting more.

In the evening we attended the Friday night service of the nearby towns church.  It was a great time and one of the young people preached a message that was very touching to all of us.  He spoke about how our groups from the US had impacted his life through the VBS programs and how El Refugio has continued to impact his life for Christ.  He challenged us to keep planting the seeds because God is using us the spread His love and reach people for Him.

VBS Time

Games on the El Refugio soccer field

Bible story time in front of the Casa Grande

Craft time in the El Refugio dinning area

Me enjoying time with my son Greg, who is serving here until late July

Thank you for your prayers, God is working in our lives and giving us opportunities to plant seeds for him.

Thursday

We've had two great full days of work on the projects here. We praise the Lord for the beautiful weather we've been having, which has been very needed for all the outdoor painting, concrete work and wood sealing that we have been doing.

 The casa Grande is looking real good with fresh paint

 The new laundry room floor being finished

 The storage room wall started out pretty slow

 but, as you can see the students are getting to be good block layers

Removing stumps from in front of our dinning and dorm room area. Stump removal is HARD work

Please remember us in prayer:

• We've had a few people with stomach sickness, this is always a big prayer as we eat new foods, and live in close quarters with everyone.
• Tomorrow afternoon will be our first VBS program with the neighborhood children.  Youth from the church in town will be coming alongside us as we share Christ with these kids.
• That God would be working in each one of our lives.

Team Geneva at El Refugio

We had a great first day at El Refugio with the Geneva team. The team consists of Junior and Senior high school students from Geneva Illinois. 34 students and 8 sponsors are on the team.
We began the day with an orientation time, explaining the ministry of El Refugio, then we had an adventure race.  After lunch we began our work projects and ended the day with a great time of praise and worship around the fire and a great devotional on:
Romans 12:1-2 (NIV) 
¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.
² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

These verses will be the theme of our devotions for this trip.  

                                                       The great adventure race

                               
                                             Work project on the climbing wall program area

                                                  Laundry room project foundation

                                                                           Fire time 

Please remember us in prayer as we have 4 work days ahead of us.