On June 27, the auditorium at SEMISUD was filled beyond capacity and then some as the proud parents, friends, pastors, and church members of graduating students watched on. Out of the eight different programs of study that SEMISUD offers, more than 70 students graduated.
We are especially proud of our students from the Transcultural Studies Program (the one Bobby directs) who graduated. Jeanneth of Ecuador graduated with honors and also received the prestigious Missionary of the Year award.
Jeanneth served her four month practicum in Mozambique last year where she worked with a local church in a desperately poor community in benevolence outreach ministries. Her heart and passion is to return to this community and poor out God’s love in visible and tangible ways for the remainder of her life. Please pray for her as she tries to raise her support to return.
A couple from Guatemala graduated with honors as well. They have studied and worked hard in preparation for their future work with the Muslims in Istanbul, Turkey. They have answered the call to go and labor for Jesus in one of the hardest mission fields imaginable. Please pray for God’s grace and mercy to be with them and their ministry as they go into the enemy’s territory to proclaim the lovely name of Jesus to those who have never heard the Gospel. (Due to the dangerous work they face in their future, we chose not to publish their names.)
Karina of Ecuador graduated and left immediately after graduation to return to Ethiopia. All I can say is that working with the women and children in a refugee camp Ethiopia “messed her up!” … but in a good way. Her heart has burned with passion to return and continue her ministry unto the least of these ever since she returned to Ecuador. Praise God, she was able to raise her support in short order and will be serving the King of Kings in a place as close to hell as one can get on earth. Please pray for God’s guidance and protections as she ministers to the women and children who have been displaced and who suffer violence, rape and other horrors on a daily basis.
Every June, SEMISUD hosts a week-long intensive study on a particular topic. This event is for SEMISUD students, but it is also for pastors and other interested persons from everywhere. This year, the focus was on celebrating 100 years of Pentecostalism in Latin America. Many professors and pastors came from the US to speak along with leaders from all over Latin America. There were about 300 people in attendance seeking to learn more and grow their ministries. Many people rode in buses for several days just to attend this event.
The cost for attendance is $35. While this isn’t much, for the Indigenous pastors, that amount often prevents them from participating. Thanks to our faithful donors, we were able to purchase entry fees for representatives from each of the 8 Indigenous churches in Quito that we work with. After many of the training sessions, Bobby would meet with these representatives to discuss how they could implement these ideas into their local churches. It was a great time of fellowship and growth and we are anxious to see how God uses this experience for the expansion of His Kingdom
We also enjoyed spending time with some of our close friends and family members who came for the event. These included Terry and Marie Johns, Rick and Janice Waldrop, Cheryl Johns, Grant and Janice McClung and others.
May was a blessed month, filled with lots of teaching opportunities for both Bobby & me along with many ministry outreach events. A couple of the best highlights include:
A visiting group of students
Three college students from Alabama came for a short mission trip. We had a blast traveling to various places in the country. They brought many gifts for the orphanage and for other ministries.
In visiting the orphanage, they gave new toothbrushes and toothpaste to the children along with crayons and other special items. We played soccer with the boys using their ball that had not one stitch of the cover remaining, leaving only a ball of strings. Needless to say, we went and bought them a new soccer ball.
We visited many of the shoeshine boys, hung out with SEMISUD students and even climbed to the snowline of the Cotopaxi volcano.
On Saturday, we held a kids service with the children from the FACES ministry who work shining shoes, selling candy, etc. This was so much fun as we were able to help them make a photo frame and printed out a photo of each child. They rarely get photos of themselves so this was a big treat!
The whole week was a great experience for us and the visiting students. We welcome any of you who want to come for a missions experience – no matter what size group – come visit!
Dia del Niño
Ecuador has a holiday like Mother’s Day/Father’s Day called Children’s Day. Every year, the ministry we help with, FACES, hosts a special event to allow the children who normally work in the streets each day to experience a playful day free from work. To accomplish this, volunteers from local churches (upper class) take the place of the kids. They shine shoes and sell candy in the streets to earn the money that child needs for the day while the children get to have a day of fun.
This year, we took over 100 children to have a day of fun at an amusement park. It was a wild and crazy day as we stuffed into a bus for 60 passengers but no one complained. They were able to ride several rides and then we took the cable cars to the top of a nearby volcano. Spike & Sparkle (our clown kids) entertained them with balloon animals and face painting.
We ended the day with a worship service with both the volunteers who worked that day and the children. It was a beautiful expression of how God’s love breaks down the barriers between classes.
** As you read this story, you have to put into perspective the fact that we still don’t fully understand Spanish so the language barrier made this situation more difficult to discern. **
This morning, Bobby & I left the kids to play at a friend’s house and we headed to Quito to teach a children’s ministry workshop. On a busy street not far from our house, several different people on different sides of the road – different blocks kept pointing fervently at our tire and trying to tell us something was wrong. We pulled over and were looking at the car when a man approached us dressed in mechanic’s clothes and said he saw the tire wobbling badly. He began to look at the interior side of the tire and pulled out a plastic part that was broken. He told us he was a mechanic and could fix this for only $2 but that it was a very urgent and serious problem.
So he got into the truck with us to take us to his shop. All the way he kept telling Bobby to drive slowly and carefully (furthering our panic over how “dangerous” this problem was with the car). He took us to a place about 4 blocks away from where we started out but it wasn’t a business, just a spot on the side of the road that wasn’t so busy. He ran to the corner to get his tools and another person to help.
They lifted the truck with our jack and the new guy started working under the truck. He had Bobby turn the engine on and keep turning the steering wheel different directions, etc. After a couple minutes, he had Bobby get out and look at the problem. One of the bars for the steering system (connecting the tire to the main bar) was loose. They kept asking us if we’d hit a pothole or something. Well of course, you can’t drive 2 feet here without hitting a pothole so that was a rhetorical question. The new guy said the whole bar needed to be replaced and showed us the problems, etc. He said it should cost $20 and he would go buy the part and show us the receipt, etc. Now we were sitting without any ability to drive away because that bar had been removed – so we agreed.
The man returned with an “engineer” from the parts store who was dressed REALLY nice – his coveralls had all the appropriate logo patches, etc. This man had with him a box with the new part we needed. He showed us every little part … the bolts, the washers, the whachmacalits… all had the stamp showing they were made in Japan, etc. He gave those to the guy who was doing all the work and that guy began putting the new parts on our truck. During this time, they kept telling Bobby to keep the brakes pressed and told me to sit in the car also to balance the weight. The “engineer” began talking to us and writing up the receipt. He wrote down each little part of the apparatus and then began saying each little piece was like $80 … totaling up to $800!!!!
Well, of course, we knew that was insane so we began fighting with the man (all the while the other guy is finishing the repair work). He eventually gave us a “discount” to $600. At this point we called a taxi driver friend to see if he could come and help us. We didn’t know what street we were on so we asked the men to tell us. They told us an incorrect street name sending our friend to a completely different section of town.
The man finished the work and we were still fighting with the engineer. We were asking one of them to go with us to our mechanic that we know and whatever price our guy said was justified, we would pay. But we were not going to pay them anything without verification. The engineer tried to get us to leave a deposit with him, etc.
Eventually, I walked ahead a little bit and saw a street sign and realized we were lied to so we called our taxi driver friend and got him pointed in the right direction. We continued to maintain our ground and not pay anything. One by one, the men walked off to do this or that and when our friend arrived, the 3 men were nowhere to be found. Our friend informed us that we had been tricked. They didn’t change ANYTHING on the car. We looked underneath and sure enough all they had done was clean up our parts and put grease all over them. So we just drove away and went to our regular mechanic. In all of the banging to show us the damage, they actually DID damage something, but it is nothing major and can be repaired for $20.
We were very blessed that God protected us in that these men were only scam artists and not more violent criminals who would harm us and/or take the truck.
Of course, looking back, we can now see the whole elaborate scheme and cannot believe that we fell for it – but we DID. We thank God for protecting us in our ignorance. I think if we had fully understand the language we would never have fallen for this – but we did! This group was VERY organized with at least 5 different people in on the scheme and VERY well dressed.
Eventually, we made it to our workshop – 2 HOURS LATE – but everyone had waited on us and we ended up having a great day.
This newsletter is a little bit late, but … WOW! April was a really busy and blessed month! Here are some quick highlights and photos.
Tamitha’s Mom came to visit
We had a beautiful time together enjoying Ecuador.
Easter procession
We learned a lot about the Catholic traditions here in celebration of Easter. They host a huge procession with people carrying crosses and beating themselves as a way of paying penance for their sins. It made me REALLY thankful for the freedom and grace in Christ that we embrace as evangelicals.
Thanks to a donation of fantastic materials in Spanish from Charles & Mary Hollifield (Timothy Ministries & Services), we have been teaching children’s ministry workers in how to understand personality traits. They have enjoyed discovering insights about their own personalities and those of the kids they work with and understanding how best to work together.
Resurrection eggs
The indigenous churches in our area were so excited to receive this awesome teaching tool to use in their children’s ministry to teach the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. City of Refuge (the ministry we worked with in Atlanta) donated as many sets as we could get in our luggage. This type of resource is something these churches have never imagined having for their own use. We have heard many reports of how this made such a difference in their services and in helping to disciple these precious children.
Teaching session in Latacunga
We began teaching indigenous church leaders in a new district this month. The people are so hungry to learn how they can better reach the families in their communities. We’ve already heard from one pastor who left our training session re-inspired to build the church who has now grown their children’s ministry to 80 kids!
As you can tell, God has richly blessed us with ministry opportunities in abundance. These things are all in addition to our regular work at the seminary! We are thankful for each of you who help to make this possible through your prayers, encouragement and financial support. We send lots of hugs and thanks to the folks at Harvest COG who worked so hard to host an amazingly successful fundraiser yard sale on our behalf.
PRAY for our ministry
