Ecuador Days 6 and 7 Photo Update!

It has been a whirlwind of travel on our way home. We left Ecuador at midnight last night, and most of the group got home this afternoon. My family is still in Miami, and we will finally be home tomorrow afternoon! I haven't had time to write a full update on days 6 and 7 yet, but I hope you enjoy these pictures of the last day of VBS, the carnival and our tourism day!

Sweet Steeven in his new Longhorns outfit!

This was one of my old shirts. I was so excited to see someone wear it and love it as much as I did!

Mason and Anthony

The Wilson girls with their new friends

Me and Estefano!

Jenna and Melanie

Marcella and Melanie

Elizabeth, Marcella and Melanie

Tito and Joseph

Grace and Melanie

This little girl had the cutest outfits every single day!

Alicia and Alexander

I couldn't resist this one. She was TOO precious.

My mommy Jennifer with some of the women!

Debbie, Jennifer, and Kelli

The fam.

Love these girls so much!

Phelecia and Kristina

The traditional Ecuadorian meal we had for lunch on Friday

The blue (oldest) group performing their song for the parents at the carnival.

The Bumpass boys with Emerson and Rody

Some of our favorite translators!

The whole team on top of the mountain!

I love these girls!

The fam.

On top of the world!

All the girls at the Equator museum.

Madeline standing in two hemispheres at once!

Sweet Mason!

We love the equator!!

We truly did see proof of Ephesians 3:20-21, "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be GLORY in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen" Our God is BIG, and He is doing big things in Ecuador that we are truly amazed and blessed to have experienced this week. Please stay tuned for a full update on the rest of the trip coming very soon!! 

Ecuador Update Days 4 and 5!

Day 4 VBS was an awesome success! We had a record number of 170 kids and 27 women who came, and the older 2 groups had the opportunity to hear the gospel and the plan of salvation from Pastor Doug. Our story was about the birth of Jesus, and we acted it all out with costumes and everything! This story allowed us to introduce Jesus to them, and the rest of the stories are leading up to the cross and resurrection on friday! 

The decision time for the older 2 groups.

In the afternoon, we got to host an event for all of the women of Las Marias, and there were 74 women in attendance and some precious babies as well! We had a whole program prepared for them including a talk by Kelli about how , a drama to "Beautiful Things" by all the kid girls, and a few songs! The Spirit of God was obviously moving and we were able to pray with many women about their lives and see some come to have a friendship with God. The men served food to the women, and that was an extra special treat for these ladies because the men in their culture do not usually serve them. It was such an amazing night where we got to see God moving evidently in this community! Such an answered prayer!

The boys who sang "None But Jesus" in Spanish. It was so so good!

The women's event.

Today at VBS we had almost 200 kids which was CRAZY AMAZING! I just remember our first trip to Las Marias when we had like 40 kids and we were so excited. God is seriously amazing. Our story today was about Jesus feeding the 5000, and we got to have one of the translators, Emilio, play Jesus. He did such an awesome job because it was easier for the kids to hear part of the story from someone who actually speaks spanish, rather than us saying, "and Jesus said this" and then having it translated. Matthew Page played the little boy with the loaves and fish, and he did such and awesome job as well! This story was really important for our mission to share the gospel because it established how Jesus has all the power of God because He is God's son, and he is able to do more than we could ever imagine! We have definitely seen that he can this week! 

Some of our sweet kids!

Matthew in his costume!

This afternoon we had the opportunity to give away clothes and toiletries to some of our kids and moms, and it was so fun! I cannot even describe the warmth I had in my heart seeing some girls walk out with some of my old clothes! They were so excited! 

Too sweet.

Some of the best and most amazing news is that we had a men's event tonight that we were very nervous about. We were warned that there would probably be a very low attendance, but God COMPLETELY blew away our expectations and 24 men showed up and heard the Gospel. Praise the Lord!! He is seriously doing miracles and we are in the midst of BIG things happening in Las Marias. Please continue to pray for our last day of VBS tomorrow and for the carnival tomorrow night! The Gospel will be presented to everyone, and we are expecting more miracles!

Ecuador Update: Day 3!

I am going to attempt to multitask while typing this blog as we are currently practicing for the drama we are doing for the women's event tomorrow afternoon. Let me give you a run down of all we have been up to these past two days.

Yesterday was the first day of VBS in Las Marias and we had a record number of about 130 kids! That is about how many we had on the last day last year so it was exciting to have that many the very first day this time. It is such a blessing to see all the smiling faces, as excited to see us as we are to see them! Everyone did such an amazing job no matter what role they had. We have so many different ages and personalities on this trip and God is truly using everyone for their own unique purpose. From our very youngest, who are so excited that they actually get to be leaders in VBS instead of students, to our men who are doing a GREAT job leading each of the age groups, everybody is awesome!
Yesterday afternoon we went to a preschool that we had visited last year. We played duck duck goose (or pato pato ganzo in spanish!), sang some songs, had a snack, made some bracelets, Ruthie and I told the story from the morning (Creation), and we gave each kid a bag of goodies (clothes and a stuffed animal)! They had a blast.

After a night of enjoying being woken up multiple times by loud noises (especially the 6am wake up call from a rooster!), we got up ready to go for day number 2 of VBS. Today we had even more kids and also about 22 women (we had women yesterday I just forgot to mention it). We told the story of Jonah and how God loves us so much that he will always forgive and give us a second chance. In the afternoon we went to this place in Quito and none of us are actually sure what it was, but we were just there to love on whoever showed up! We had kids from probably 2 years old to some older teenagers and some adults in the mix as well. We started out with all the girls singing Tu Gran Nombre (Your Great Name) and then we had a drama about giving your burdens over to Jesus. Pastor Doug gave a great salvation message and a lot of conversations were spurred. After our little "program" was over, we gave out clothes and some necessity items to everyone that was there. It is so amazing to me how appreciative they are for our old hand me downs.

Tomorrow will be another full day of VBS and in the afternoon we will host a women's event in Las Marias. Please pray that we will have a great turn out and all the women who come will be touched and hear from God about how much he loves them. We are also asking for big prayers for our men's event that we will be hosting on Thursday. We have never done an event like this so we do not know how great the turn out will be. If just one or two men show up, it will be special, and they could make a huge difference in the community. We are praying expectantly that God is going to show up in huge ways for the rest of the week and especially in the next two days. I am so glad we serve a God who we can rely on like that!

Casey was Jesus in the drama :P

Tu Fidelidad Es Grande

First of all, I cannot even believe that we are here in Ecuador, let alone that this is the end of our first day of ministry! Yesterday was FULL of travel. Some of us woke up at 3:30 AM Saturday, and we finally got to the hotel around 1:00 Sunday morning! Needless to say, we were/ are a bit exhausted. Our 4 hour layover in Miami became a 7 hour layover, but we ended up filling all the time with card games, shopping, eating free food from the airline, and just hanging out with one another.

Playing some intense skip-bo.

Chillin'.

This morning we had the opportunity to worship at La Vina, which is a church that has been started in response to the ministry our teams have been doing for the past several years. Our pastor, Doug Page, brought a great message about being courageous and ready for the adventure God has for us. It was so cool how the message directly applied to our work here this week. We are definitely on an adventure this week, and we have no idea what all is in store for us! Please pray for us that we will be ready and willing to say yes to whatever He has for us to do, and that we will be courageous in boldly proclaiming the gospel!

The worship service was in Spanish, but we got to participate in their worship, as well as adding some of our own. One of the songs we sang with the whole congregation was Tu Fidelidad Es Grande, which translates to Great is Your Faithfulness in English. We were all worshipping and singing in Spanish, and it was amazing to see the Holy Spirit moving in us even when we didn't even know the what the words we were singing meant! The younger kids got to sing Jesus Loves Me in English/ Spanish, and the older girls sang Your Great Name in Spanish. It was such a great reminder that the name of Jesus is being proclaimed in so many different languages by many peoples on the earth, and we are joining in worship with them every time we sing. Our God is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever and He is working here in Ecuador as well as all over the world. What an amazing God we serve! 

One of the songs we were singing in worship.

The older girls getting ready for our performance! Videos of us singing will be coming hopefully soon if the wifi cooperates!

The whole team!

Beautiful views of God's creation outside the church.

The little kids singing Jesus Loves Me!

The girls singing Your Great Name in Spanish

My Sweet Sisters!

The Page family!

After church, we headed over to Las Marias, the area where we will be holding the VBS this week and did some PR and handed out frisbees to the kids. After that we came back to the hotel and met with our teams and translators that will be with us for the whole week! We are so ready for tomorrow morning to get here so we can start loving on some sweet kiddos! We would love for you to keep us in your prayers all week. A few specific things that you could pray for are for the weather to stay sunny and nice for us so we will be able to take full advantage of the facilities we have for the VBS and the kids will be able to play outside, for our health and safety, and for open hearts to hear the word of God! 

Bethany and I are so excited because we will be telling the stories this year. Neither of us has ever done it before, and we are a little bit nervous, so if you could pray for us specifically to have confidence in the Word of God and be able to share his love with these kids, we would SO love it! Thanks so much, and we will keep you updated on more happenings throughout the week!