May Lockdowns

With hospitals filled to capacity, Ecuador is in the midst of a 4-week lockdown, with 8 p.m. curfews each evening and a complete lockdown from Friday evening to Monday morning. Even here in the mountains, Saturdays and Sundays have been pretty quiet! Since Sunday church gatherings weren’t allowed, we changed to Mondays, a creative alternative that has worked out quite well. Kevin is also enjoying spending his Thursdays in Palmira, teaching guitar lessons to Rómulo and Abraham, and working on literacy with Guillermo. Our days continue to be full with neighbors stopping in for help with a myriad of needs, giving good opportunities to share and disciple and talk together.

A special blessing has been having our young neighbors Christian & Ana Patricia stop by quite often with open hearts for spiritual conversations. Since Ana Patricia had drunk poison back in February (we mentioned them in our March Bruce Brief), they have had a hunger for hearing God’s word, and from what we can see, are taking what they hear and applying it to their lives.  This last weekend Christian told us he was sad that they had to work on Monday and would miss church, so he asked if it was possible for them to come up Sunday and hear the teaching then. He said, “When we can’t make it to church, I really miss the Bible teaching, I feel like I begin to forget and I don’t want to forget!” Amen! 😊
 

Exciting news in the Bruce family!

We woke up May 4th to the wonderful news that Kenny & Sophia’s little one, Miles Robert, had made his arrival in the night! Miles has already charmed the whole family with his cute expressions! 😊 We thank God that he seems to be adapting well to life in the big outside world. Kenny & Sophia have kept the airwaves busy with many pictures, but we do look forward to seeing little Miles in person perhaps later this year.

Sophia, Miles & Kenny

Keilah & Jeremy continue to live in New Hampshire, help out at church, and work on support-raising as they look toward heading to Paraguay sometime in 2022. We greatly enjoy watching Ronin (now almost 3 years old!) and Amaris (8 months) grow and learn and develop. Keilah was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder (Hashimoto’s) in February, and has been working through a treatment plan to address the Hashimoto’s as well as an underlying infection. We are thankful that she is doing better and gaining strength. For those who are interested in Keilah & Jeremy’s news, here is a link to their last prayer letter and their website: https://jkwindler.com/

Keilah, Amaris, Ronin & Jeremy

Kimberly & Zach both celebrated their 23rd birthdays in March. They continue to live and work in Camdenton, Missouri, and are thankful for the shorter Missouri winters! Kimberly is also taking a treatment for an infection, and slowly has been gaining strength and feeling much better. We are thankful for Dr. Moriah from Rolla who has been a great help to both Kimberly and Keilah.

Kimberly & Zach

Thanks for praying for God’s help and strength for us as we face a few months without our coworkers Andy & Chrissy, who are on a short furlough in the USA. We are thankful for His presence here with us, and for His faithful provision for us through your gifts and prayers!

In His grip,
Kevin & Kathy

Check out the video below our mission made about our ministry!

Kevin & Kathy Bruce — Missionaries to Ecuador