Christmas letter

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we take time to give thanks for our many blessings, we also wanted to thank YOU. We really do appreciate all of you who have put forth the effort to partner with us in the ministry to the Awa people with your time, prayers, and financial support. We have been truly blessed to know and relate with each one of you. God is good and it is truly a privilege to be a part of HIS work in this corner of the world. Thank you for your part in this work as well!

This last month found us right where we wanted to be---yep, here at the Outpost in our mountain home. We praise the Lord that our travel to the city was minimal, actually just one trip! This allowed us to get caught up not only with ministry, but also fun things like our garden.  We find it beneficial to be consistently present for those Awa who come by for advice or just a friendly chat. Some neighbors, like Milton and family, come by every day, often with concerns or news to talk through. Meregildo was by this week with a wooden saddle that he wanted me to drill some holes in. One lady hiked an hour to ask us where to go to get help for her eyesight, and we were glad to be able to point her to a clinic which could help. And so the Lord provides many opportunities for discipling or sometimes just showing His love!

Two weeks ago Kathy and I hiked up and spent the night in Palm community, in order to have our second Sunday gathering there. Paulino’s ten kids love to have us visit, and put on a real show for us. Monica let us play with her pet toucan.  We often see toucans in the trees around here but never close enough to touch! The extra time with Paulino also made the service go smoother as he took a more active role. Kathy noted that I had barely finished with one song and he was spontaneously explaining to everyone the blessing that that particular song had been to him. We were happy to see Andrew and his family again joining in. Please continue to pray for this gathering, as we try to balance teaching for the believers there (about half the group) with the many unbelievers who come!

Another BIG area of thanksgiving is that our coworkers, the Shaubs, finally finished the last of the paperwork that went with getting permanent visas! It only took….well, 18 trips to Quito and 9 months...! During those months they experienced many times of uncertainty and frustration. So please thank the Lord with us for this provision and blessing. Andy is REALLY looking forward to a few months (like we just had) being able to stay PUT and do some serious language study.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

In Christ,

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October Update - Wet Hike!

Rain in the Palm community

Although we were excited to hike up to Palm community for our first Sunday ‘church’ service there, it still wasn’t fun to step out into the pouring rain in the early dawn hours! The rain had awakened us in the early a.m. hours, and we both chuckled as we realized the Lord was testing our resolve…again! (It never seems to fail that it rains the night before we are scheduled to make the trip up…even if the trails are dry the day before.) As we packed our backpacks and grabbed a quick breakfast, we kept waiting for the rain to slow down, but it kept coming down steadily. The rain accompanied us through most of the hike, and gave us the added challenge of making our way across several swollen creeks as well. At one creek we had to resort to taking off our socks and boots and wading through the deep rushing water. Well, removing our boots didn’t make that much difference…we were soaked through anyhow...and soon the rain running down us filled our boots with water anyway! Since we had brought along the story of Jonah to teach…somehow it seemed rather fitting. =) But it was a joy to arrive in the community, and to gather together with over 40 people for our first service there. All of the believers were there—Paulino with his wife and all 10 kids, as well as Paulino’s sister Gloria and son David---and they had invited many others as well. We were especially amazed at the number of children who kept coming in to join us! We’d appreciate your prayers as we continue to teach once a month in this community. As we talk with different folks from this community, it’s obvious that they would like us to come more often—which we hope to do perhaps starting in the new year.

Andrew is an Awa teacher in this community, and has been interested in hearing the Bible teaching for several years now. He and his wife have three cute daughters and another on the way. Last year he sat in on one of our Bible classes in the school, and was interested to find out that God is everywhere. “I thought He was just up in Heaven,” he said, “At least that’s what I had heard before, but I don’t really know that much.” Andrew brought his whole family the other day to hear about Jonah, and was disappointed when I stopped teaching with Jonah still in the belly of the whale! He asked if he could keep the Awa translation of Jonah scriptures that I had brought up, so that he read the rest of the story. Andrew is highly educated for an Awa, actually working on his college degree through a government program. We’d appreciate your prayers that he would continue to listen and understand God’s message. We especially need God’s wisdom in laying a firm foundation for folks like Andrew while continuing to advance the teaching for the believers in that community.

We have many things to be thankful for. The Lord has been gracious to us weather-wise and we have been able to use our new driveway without problems so far. This has been a real help to us as we lead a Bible study once a week in Lita and now are able to drive all the way home even in the dark! We also praise the Lord for granting permanent visas for the Shaubs. This process has been quite a test of patience for them, and they are now on Try 3 to get their new i.d. documents.  Another blessing is that I’ve recently completed the formatting and printing of all that Doug Williams has translated from Genesis. It has been a fun project, and I feel privileged to get it into the hands of the Awa readers.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

In Christ,
Kevin & Kathy Bruce

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Drive where?

 We’ve had crowds of happy people milling about all week – men with machetes, school kids loathe to move on, curious women – many smiling faces! Barking dogs by the dozens, scores of horses, buzzing chainsaws, and one big noisy yellow tractor rounded out the scene. Yes, quite unexpectedly, the road is being pushed on up to our ridge and beyond! Everyone loves the excitement, and feels compelled to spend some time each day watching the progress. Our lunch table was full all week, as it fell to us (as the nearest house) to do the cooking for the tractor driver and his various helpers. On Friday the tractor worked for about an hour and pushed a driveway through here to our house. Having the truck parked close by felt so odd!! It happened very suddenly, as a week ago we fully expected it to be years before we saw this day. Although we see some serious 4-wheeling ahead with rainy season just around the bend, we are thankful for this exciting progress. :-)

Here’s some quick updates for those who are interested:

Working with the new elders….Aug 25th we met with Milton and Paulino and set some dates on the calendar. One important issue was beginning a Sunday service in Paulino’s home community three hours south of us one Sunday each month beginning in October. We would appreciate your prayers as we try to double our efforts and have two services going on the same Sunday! (We discussed cancelling the service here at the Outpost these Sundays, but Milton would hear none of it… “We can’t cancel here, we need to meet…Andy or I will just have to teach if Kevin is gone!”) Another date we set was for yesterday, for a ‘culto unido’ (united church service) inviting the Awa believers from all the different communities. It was a blessing to work together with these men to plan the service—planning an offering for those who had to come from far away, food for a lunch together, and the topics for Bible teaching.

Culto Unido…We had almost 50 people here Sunday! Four people made the long trip up from the coast to be here for the service, as well as the local believers from three communities. Milton and Paulino, without asking us for money, had gathered funds to buy tilapia from a local fish farmer for lunch (50 fish!) By Milton’s request, Andy and I both taught on family-related topics from Ephesians 5 and 6.  After a heavy rain the afternoon before, the Lord provided beautiful weather for the special day together! We were thrilled to have Salvador, our local walking ‘miracle’, join us for the day.

Salvador is up and about….Salvador, the older Awa fellow who was unconscious in the hospital just two months ago, is slowly regaining his strength here at his home about an hour’s hike away. He had a pancreatic infection, and the doctor said that such patients have a 7% survival rate. He was released from the hospital August 3rd, but at that time was still too weak to walk or even ride a horse alone. Yesterday, for the first time, I looked down the trail just in time to see him walking up to join us for church! It was neat to have another chance to talk and share the gospel with him. He still has not given a clear testimony of his faith in Christ as his Savior, but he has expressed to his family that he ‘wants to come to church’ which is usually a sign of acceptance of at least as much as he understands. Please keep him in your prayers that he would clearly understand and believe, even if he is never able to clearly communicate it back to us – we long to see him in heaven some day!

Thanks so much for your prayers!

In Christ,
Kevin & Kathy

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Awesome progress!

Click the picture to see the album!

Cayambe Trip

Bruce Brief - latest news

Agustin, Salvador, and Mesias
The last few weeks have been marked by many visits to the hospital for us here in Ecuador. Two different older Awa fellows, Salvador and Agustin, were both hospitalized in Ibarra. Agustin had an intestinal perforation, and was in much pain; Salvador had collapsed while fumigating his fruit plants and was carried out unconscious. Salvador is both Paulino and Milton’s father-in-law, so it seemed that most of the Awa believers in this area ended up involved in the hospital care. The Lord gave us many opportunities to help, as the whole city hospital scene is a bit complicated for these mountain people. We, along with Paulino and Milton, had many opportunities to share God’s word and pray both with the sick fellows and their families. Agustin, although still weak, was sent home last week; and Salvador gradually regained consciousness after about 8 days of being in intensive care. His family thought he was as good as dead—so to see him on the road to recovery is truly an answer to prayer! We feel like God is giving these two men another chance to come to know Him before they die.

At Lita this week, the first summer youth camp is nearing its finish. This year the joy of camp is tempered with the loss of Mesias, a young Ecuadorian fellow who died just two weeks ago after a fall while helping to paint the Lita facilities. His death took us all by surprise…the painting had been done with scaffolding and safety harnesses for all the higher walls, and when I passed by the morning of July 13th, I rejoiced to see the project was being finished up and the property looking great with its fresh coat of paint. Just a few short hours later, Mesias was in the presence of the Lord. He had fallen from a step ladder after handing up a bucket of paint to someone higher up. Mesias comes from the Liebenzell church in Ibarra, Puente de Amor, and had recently turned in his written testimony as part of a Sunday school assignment. In his testimony, he shared how he had fallen into sin several times since his salvation, and how he had experienced God’s amazing love and forgiveness each time. He also clearly shared his confidence that at his death he knew he would be with the Lord. When his testimony was read at his memorial service, his sister stood up and asked if someone would please help her to understand, as she wanted what her brother Mesias had. The remainder of Mesias’ family, all Catholic, has been touched by his clear testimony as well, and we are amazed to see God turning such a tragic accident into a blessing.

We thank those of you who joined us in prayer for these folks. We have seen the hand of God in so many ways! (If you are interested in getting our prayer requests you should make sure you are signed up for our newsletters with the form on the left. Also be sure to select the boxes showing your interests!)
Family News
Keilah is back with us after an ‘awesome!!’ summer at Whispering Winds Bible Camp in Missouri. There was a little complication with their tickets, and she and cousin Laura Shaub actually made it here a day later than was planned. But we are glad to see the Lord’s faithfulness to her, both in travelling safety and the grace and maturity God is weaving into the fabric of her life. She and sister Kimberly are looking forward to being at Lita youth camp next week. Kenny is still in the midst of his summer at Camp Spofford in New Hampshire, which he tells us has been both stretching and rewarding for him as he works with the campers.

Friends from our home church in New Hampshire, Tim and Sharon Branand, along with their kids Tori, Spencer, and Matthew, will be visiting us this coming week! We have several projects lined up for them to help with, including painting the school buildings in the RV community. Tori is one of Kimberly’s good USA friends, and it’s a special treat to have her and her family visit. The dry season weather has been beautiful, and Kimby hopes to squeeze in at least one good river trip while they are here!

In His grip,
Kevin & Kathy