LIFT heads home today

We have had a great time with the LIFT team and were sad to see them go today.
We had a very busy two weeks with church and "in-school" ministry in El Chaco and Oyacachi, work projects at El Refugio and time with our facilitators.

                    The climbing wall was our main work project and will be officially in use on April 4th

       Ministry in El Chaco included preaching, testimonies and drama in two churches, Scouts program, and a lot of time spent with the youth and young adults.

   Our time in Oyacachi was mostly spent with the village children.  We did dramas in their schools, played for many hours with them, while sharing the gospel to them individually and had a kids church service on Wednesday night with over 70 kids singing as loud as you can imagine.

   For LIFT's last day in Ecuador we took them on a high country adventure on Illiniza Norte, a 16,890 foot Andean volcano.

They have been a great encouragement to all of us at El Refugio and poured themselves into all they did.
Thank you LIFT!!!!

Today was a very productive day.  We began with a morning hike in God's beautiful creation and then spent the rest of our day on work projects.  Some of us went up to the tree house, to do some needed maintenance and the rest worked on the climbing wall.
It's nice to have both Greg and Rachelle here.  Greg is here for 5 months and Rachelle is with the LIFT group.

                                                 Morning hike on El Refugio property

                                                     Tree house maintenance

                                                       Work on the climbing wall

Please remember us in prayer as we head out tomorrow for ministry in Quito and then our travels to El Chaco where we will be doing ministry for 3 days.

LIFT team arrives

The LIFT team arrived safely today at about 1:45 pm.  I met them at the airport and we arrived at El Refugio to have a time of orientation with our El Refguio staff, a short time to walk around and then a great supper of llapincachos and lomo!

                                                     Orientation in Casa Grande

                                                          Climbing wall

                                      Llapingachos (potatoe paties) and Lomo (thin sliced beef)

We will be doing a short hike tomorrow morning at 6:00am and then getting to work on our work projects which will include working on the climbing wall.

Please pray for our team as everyone acclimatizes to new food, high altitude and new surroundings.

last day

Today was our last day at El Refugio with the Geneva team for this year.

We had a great day with devotions, solo time an equator visit and a great time of wrapping up our trip around the fire tonight.

It is great to re-cap the trip and hear what God has done through this trip in the lives of each of the team members.

Thank you for praying for us and please pray that our trips home will go well, and that we won't forget the things God has taught us.

VBS at El Refugio

Yesterday and today have been two, busy, good days.  We worked all day yesterday and this morning on the climbing wall and prayer garden.

We poured a concrete apron around the base of the climbing wall that will later be filled with ground up rubber.

In the prayer garden we are doing major landscaping, which meant we wheel barreled about 4 to 5 truck loads of top soil to different areas of the garden.

After lunch we prepared for VBS.  About 10 young people and youth leaders from the Cala Cali church joined us in this effort to reach out to the community children.  27 kids that attend the AWANA children's program at the Cala Cali  church attended and about 85 other kids showed up as well.  It was a great time of games, bible story, verse memorization, and crafts.  At the end all were invited to the AWANA program at the local church.

We thank God for the opportunity to partner together with the local church in this area and plant seeds for Christ.

Please pray for these community children and their families that they might know Christ as their Savior.

Back at El Refugio

We made it back to El Refugio last night at 7:30 pm after a great trip of work and ministry in the high jungles of Ecuador.

This is a little recap of our time there.

On Tuesday we split in 3 teams and worked on different projects to help in the missionary work in the local area.  The jungle did not disappoint us in regards to rain.  We had some major rain storms, and did take a couple breaks from the worst of it, but for the most part we just got wet and kept working.

On Wednesday we went to the nearby town of Rio Negro and had a wonderful time of ministry with the local elementary school.  There are no Evangelical churches in this town.  The young people shared some about their lives, did a drama on the topic of God creating the earth and everything in it and played games. The children and teachers enjoyed the time very much.
We spent the afternoon in the town's park and gymnasium playing with the kids.
At 5:00pm we returned to where we were staying and did an hour jungle hike.  I enjoyed this very much of course, and everyone returned muddy, wet and with a great experience.

Thursday morning was a very special time.  We went to a beautiful spot on a jungle river where 14 of the students on the trip were baptized.  It was wonderful to hear their testimonies.  A number of them referred to their last years trip to El Refugio as a time that God used greatly in developing their faith in Him.

Then for me, the highlight, was when Juan Carlos (our program director) and I had the privilege of baptizing Esteban Santos.  He is a young man from the nearby town of Cala Cali.  He became a Christian when he was young, but attested to the fact that teams that came through El Refugio from the US and ministered in his church to him as a child and the relationship he has with our camp, is a big part of what has strengthened his faith and encouraged him to turn away from the temptations of this world and serve Christ.

  Thank you for your prayers.  Please continue to pray for us as we will be working hard on projects all day at El Refugio.

Adventure race and travels

We began today with the adventure race, to give the group a taste of the different programs at El Refugio, to get to know one another better and to invite kids to our VBS on Saturday.

We are now getting ready to leave by bus to the jungle for 4 days.  The bus will be here in a few minutes.
I'm including one picture of some of the group on the work day yesterday.

Pray for us as we travel and for our group as we minister to the village of Rio Verde.

Thank you,

Rick