The first weekend of March, we were blessed to attend the Church of God FOCUS conference for children’s ministry leaders. This is a conference we have attended in the past and has always been a huge inspiration to us.
This year, we had a booth to promote our mission project where we sold lots of crafts made by the Indigenous people of Ecuador. Of course, we almost didn’t get to sell them because the airline lost ALL of our luggage for about 1 day!
We also taught a conference about teaching our church kids to be “mission minded”. This was a LOT of fun! We saw lots of children’s leaders with a true passion for helping their kids reach outside themselves to help fulfill the Great Commission.To follow up with this, we have created a website for all those who work in children’s ministry…. check out www.missionmindedkids.com… register to stay up to date as more ministry ideas are posted.
One night of the conference, the speaker was Phil Vischer (the dude who created VeggieTales). It was such a hoot when he introduced himself and then went into all his various voices (like Bob the Tomato). The crowd went nuts as if Elvis himself had just entered the building!
I have a new project! I’m tutoring one of the girls who lives at the orphanage where our kids attend school. Grace is an amazingly bright and hard-working 11th grader who has lived with the Stiff’s for 9 years now since her parents died.
She has worked as a translator with many of the visiting medical teams and because of this; she is passionate about becoming a dentist! One generous family in Atlanta has agreed to sponsor her to come and study in the US. In August, she will be moving to Atlanta to finish high school and go on to college and medical school.
My job is to help her with her writing skills, SAT prep and whatever else is necessary to make sure she has a smooth transition to her new school. This girl really challenges me though, she is so self-motivated and DETERMINED to reach her goal. It is really inspiring!
We started off the New Year with a buzz of activities in Ecuador and if this month is any indication, we have lots of great ministry events ahead in the year to come.
Teaching in Spanish!
Both of us were really stretched on our Spanish skills this month having to do lots of teaching in Spanish without translators! We are so excited to be at this point, although it is TOUGH!
Tamitha taught Bible lessons to the shoeshine boys:
I had so much fun spending each afternoon with these guys who were taking a break from their jobs of shining shoes, selling candy or working in construction. They had a lot of fun laughing at my Spanish accent, but they were also very helpful when I was stuck on a word. They enjoyed learning all about the life of Joseph and how they can be more like him. We played lots of fun games while waiting on everyone to arrive. Can you believe they didn’t know how to hula hoop? And I’ve CERTAINLY lost my touch with that skill!!
The only bad part was that they kept me too busy to take good photos. Oops!
Bobby was busy getting students prepared for the new semester
This semester, Bobby has been asked to serve as the Director of the Transcultural Studies program at the seminary (SEMISUD). So this means that he has been recruiting students and helping everyone get ready for the first day of classes on Feb. 3.
Jonathan & Jordan’s new school
We found an amazing school for them to attend so they can make more friends in Ecuador instead of being alone in homeschool with mom all day. The school, Montebello, is operated by another missionary family who started it to teach the kids in their own orphanage. The school has just grown from that and now offers scholarships to many kids who wouldn’t normally have such an amazing opportunity.
They teach in English and use curriculum from the US. It is amazing that by simply having a good understanding of the English language, so many job opportunities will be available to these children as they grow up. But the school is also teaching them many other great skills.
Jonathan & Jordan are enjoying their new friends and the new opportunities for learning here. We are thankful for this blessing!
Update on the Bibles
Thanks to all of you who have given to our project of purchasing children’s Bible’s for the community of La Merced! We found a great deal on the Bibles so we have been able to purchase 200 Bibles and cover the expenses of the training program to teach the families how to use these Bibles in their household devotions. We will be delivering them and holding our first training session with them next week.
We found 2 fantastic Bibles and would like to purchase more and continue this program in more communities. $10 will purchase the hardcover children’s Bible that covers the entire Bible and $5 will purchase the comic book version of the New Testament which is perfect for the older boys! You can make your donations online or via mail.
Thanks to everyone who continues to uplift us in prayers and for your financial support. We are thankful for every day we have here in Ecuador to share the Gospel.
The school, 
PRAY for our ministry
