June News

I’ve been reading through the book of Job recently. In the last few chapters, as God answers Job with a pile of questions of His own, I’m reminded of His omniscience and of His sovereignty. He sees all, He knows, He understands, and what He allows has a purpose….even when we don’t understand. On Sunday May 26th we said our earthly good-byes to Mercedes Galarza, wife of Liebenzell Ecuador president Diego Galarza, as she lost her earthly battle with cancer and made her transition to God’s presence. Mercedes left behind an example of faithful service to the Lord, and her funeral was packed with folks from many different parts of Ecuador who came as a testimony of the many whose hearts have been touched by Diego and Mercedes’ ministry. During the funeral, Diego read a letter to Mercedes, saying that he wants to continue to serve the Lord but wonders how he will do it without her faithful presence at his side. I know he would appreciate your prayers as he seeks to find a way to continue to serve the Lord as a pastor at the church in Atuntaqui as well as fulfill the duties that come with being the head of our Mission here in this country.

The last month has been full---as always, we are thankful for your prayers for God’s strengthening to live out what He puts before us! After several hiking trips to Palm Community, we are now the owners of a small house there, which we bought from Arturo. This little house sits right below Paulino’s house, and is situated right on the church lot. At some point it will need to be moved, to accommodate the church building, but for the moment it gives us an instant place to stay! We look forward to spending more time with the people there after our time of home assignment. Many are interested in hearing the Bible teaching.

Doug and Dorcas Williams joined us for a quick week of OT Scripture translation checking—a good crew of young Awa folk came for the work. These are just preliminary checks, but it’s so exciting to get the Awa words pulled together in such a way that the meaning flows! While the Williams were here, we also had a special youth Sunday. A hearty lunch is a good drawing card, but we were still happily surprised to see that along with the regular local folk, about 20 young people came from several different nearby communities. It was a good opportunity to share with them the importance of making the choice to follow God, instead of falling into the world’s traps of drinking, fighting, and immorality.

Keilah graduated from NTBI in Wisconsin on May 17th. Kimberly went along with her Aunt Chrissy and her grandma to be there, and Kenny drove up from VA for the special day. It was pretty special to have our three kids together in one place! Now Keilah and Kimberly are both beginning their summer at Whispering Winds Bible Camp in Missouri (see links below to the girls' camp letters), while Kenny is transitioning into his new job working full-time for Liberty University. We look forward to this fall when we will be reunited with the girls, and plan to make a bee-line to see Kenny as soon as possible!

Plans for our time in the USA are finally pulling together. We have our tickets for the end of July, and plan to spend several weeks in August with the Bruce clan. Early September we hope to hit the road to see Kenny in VA, then on to Kathy’s family in Oklahoma and Missouri. By mid-October we’d like to be heading back to New England, where, Lord willing, we’ll spend the winter. At the moment we plan to return to Ecuador the end of March 2015, but we’ll make a final decision as we see how things go down here without us. We hope to see many of you, so please drop us a line if you’d like us to stop in to visit!

Thanks again for joining us in the work of planting a church here among the Awa!

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

 

Links:

<Printable Version>
<Keilah's Letter>
<Kimberly's Letter>

PS: if anyone would like to directly support the girls at camp, you can send donations to:
(Write a check to the camp and include a note to whom you wish to support)
Whispering Winds Bible Camp, PO Box 9, St. James, MO 65559-0009 Phone: 1.800.748.7410

17th Awa Conference!

The 17th Awa Believers' Conference has come and gone! Thanks so much for your prayers! We saw God answer in many ways--many Awa joined us and jumped right into the activities, the Lord sent perfect weather, He provided strength for each day, and the noisy tractor working on the road took a long weekend off, leaving us in peace! Our goal in teaching this year was to help the believers see that each one has spiritual gifts and talents to use in the building of the church. Having a crowd here each day gave the believers many opportunities to put that into practice! It was a blessing to work with both Milton and Paulino as we shared the responsibility of the teaching, with both of them jumping in to share the Gospel with the visitors. On Saturday we took a car load of people to the fish hatchery to buy 45lbs of tilapia--114 fish!--for Sunday lunch. Now that was a big hit! All in all, as we reflected afterwards, even the presence of a bit more chaos and clutter (and abundant fish scales!) was encouraging to us, as it showed that the Awa are taking over more of the responsibilities, and getting things done in a way that comes more naturally to their culture. :-)

Home for the Holidays
We are planning an 8-month time in the USA, beginning in August. Family reunions are planned for both sides of the family, and we are excited to spend time with our two college kids. It looks like we'll be on the road in the Midwest for most of August and September, but hope to settle in New Hampshire sometime in late October.  A big prayer request will be for the Awa church as they carry the full weight of the ministry during this time, as our coworkers will also be in the USA.

Road Progress
Daily excitement reigns as the excavator works on continuing the road past our driveway! My chainsaw (and I!) are often commandeered to cut down trees in the way, and there is a constant flow of people thru our yard. Monday a bulldozer will join the work. Five inches of rain yesterday caused parts of the brand-new road to landslide, so we hope for drier days to come to help the progress!

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

<for a printable version click here>

Pictures from Conference

Here is a link to pictures from our 17th annual conference with the Awa.

Floor and walls!

The worship center (church/carport) :-) is now sporting a brand-new floor and walls! We had a great time with the team from Grace Community EFC (Spofford, NH) who came down to work with us on the project. Several different Awa joined us each day, but none could match Milton's excitement (and patience!) in working with us. During the week, we had a mix of sun and rain and MUD, making for a slippery slide from our house to the church building, but we were thankful to be able to get all of the materials up our hill when we needed them!

Now preparations are in full swing for the annual Awa Believers' Conference on Easter weekend. Last Friday we had a church workday with over 20 of the believers chopping and carrying firewood and hauling extra boards for making more benches. After a long discussion with the group, a decision was made to have a pig delivered (on the hoof) for butchering at the beginning of Conference, as well as to visit the local fishery for buying 40-50 fish for Sunday's main meal. Each of the believers will donate a few dollars to help pay for the cost of the meat---for the Awa, a generous helping of meat is what puts smiles on everyone's face! More seriously, our theme this year is "Pakaish pakaish kal mijmanpa" /For each one having work(gifts)/, taken from 1 Corinthians 12:11. We'll talk about how God has given spiritual gifts to each believer for the purpose of building each other up as a church body. Our hope is that each of the Awa will see more clearly how they can be involved and what part they play, especially as we consider the months that we will be gone this coming year. Anyhow, we'd greatly appreciate your prayers for the finishing up of the preparations and for the days of Conference (April 18-20); and for strength for Kathy and I and the Shaubs for all that needs to be done.

Road progress: The government has continued to promise a road from RV to the Palm community. The land surveyor is here, and the surrounding communities are clearing the strip of land where the road will continue on. The promised tractor was supposed to show up this week, but hasn't arrived yet. While we too are happy to see the road progress, we are praying that the equipment gets here soon so that it will be well past us when we start the meetings...or that the Lord will work something out so that the Conference won't be interrupted by a roaring tractor or bulldozer at our doorstep! :-)

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

<for a printable version click here>

Construction time

It's easy to see that it's construction time here in Rio Verde--bags of cement, piles of sand and gravel, and cement blocks are piled in various places in the yard. Adding to the chaos, rainy season is at its height, often dropping  an inch or two of rain each afternoon and evening.  We are thankful that we have the pick-up truck for bringing up the supplies, and that we've been able to get each load up our muddy hill and driveway! When we first built here almost 8 years ago, we built everything with wood, as we needed to use materials that were locally available. Now, with the road coming right up to the houses, it's nice to be able to replace some of the rotting wood with cement. Over the last few weeks, Kevin and our visiting cousin Daniel have replaced the laundry scrubbing table where we wash our clothes, and are now replacing the water room (for showers and sink) on the other side of the duplex house. It's been quite a bit of work, always more than we estimate at first!

These small projects are preparation for putting a floor in the new church/carport building in March. A small team from our home church is coming March 10-18th in order to help with this project. We'd appreciate your prayers for the project, especially that we'd be able to get supplies up the muddy, slippery hill just below our houses. We'll need a couple of dump truck loads of material for this project, as it's more than our little truck can handle. If we can't get the big truck up to the top of the hill, we'll have to haul the materials up a little at a time. Our pick-up might also appreciate your prayers---not only is she working hard, hauling loads up, but these last few weeks we've been called upon to pull several other trucks up another steep hill behind us, coming up from the Lita River. :-)

As we try to stay sane :-) amidst the chaos of construction, the ministry continues---I started teaching Hebrews to the church in RV this last Sunday. I've enjoyed studying this book in more depth as I prepare the lessons! We've continued with the adult literacy classes on Friday---chaotic days for us because we often have so many more kids than adults students (one mom sometimes arrives with 6 children!) I've also recently made several trips to P. Community to help with a variety of projects there, and find the interaction with the folks there to be a good way to open the door for friendships and further opportunities. We pray the Lord will begin to prepare many hearts for following Him. Pray also for Paulino, along with Guillermo and Teacher Andrew, who are the main leaders there among the 50 or so families that make up this community.

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

for a printable version click here

cool bugs :-)

 That is a normal size banana!

Fancy moth all dressed up for a night out chasing the lights!

Happy New Year from the Bruce family!

We wish you a happy holiday season! All that snow that’s dumping down on the eastern USA sure makes it look like it’s Christmas-time! We don’t exactly have any snow, or even cold weather, but we are getting into the heavy part of rainy season, and often wake up to a ‘white’ world of clouds and fog! It’s not quite the same...but it does make us appreciate our morning cup of coffee!

December 29th about 70 of us gathered for the first time in our new church building in Rio Verde! Actually, the building started out to just be a roof to park the two trucks under….but somewhere along the way it turned into our new meeting area, mostly because we are just outgrowing our porch, where we normally meet. :-)  We’ve been slowly working on the construction over the last few months. It was a lot of work to pour the cement columns by hand, one at a time, but several of our Awa friends came to help at different times. Milton donated the wood for the roof framework, cutting it by chainsaw down by his house, and one Saturday a large group of Awa friends came for a workday to haul it up to our location. Somewhere along the way, Paulino told us that his family had decided to donate the immediate land around our houses to the church. So now the little fledgling church in Rio Verde has land and a building! Even six months ago we didn’t see that one coming…we give thanks to our amazing God for His provision!

For a quick family update: KEILAH just arrived in Quito for a 3-week Christmas visit. We are so glad to have her here! She flies back to Wisconsin in early January for her senior semester at NTBI. It’s hard to believe she will be graduating in May! I know she would appreciate prayers for the Lord’s guidance for her future after graduation. At this point she plans to continue her college studies, but isn’t sure where. KENNY is in the middle of his junior year at Liberty University. He is especially enjoying having his own apartment off-campus this year, even though it means a few more bills to pay. He is working part-time for the University at their HelpDesk, giving technical help, a job that he enjoys. He spent a few days over Christmas break with his girlfriend Hannah and her family in Wisconsin. Hannah’s family is still grieving the loss of her brother Benjamin from cancer in October (although they consider it a gain for Benjamin himself and rejoice that he is in the Lord’s presence now!) KIMBERLY is in the middle of her sophomore year of highschool here in Ecuador with us. She loves her cat and her bunnies, and is an indispensable help to us as she cooks, cleans, washes all our clothes by hand, and often holds down the fort while Kathy and I are elsewhere. We are thankful we still have Kimberly for several more years before she, too, will head off for college!

KATHY and I continue to thank the Lord for another year of His grace in our lives. We are thankful for His provision through many of you, our friends, and for the opportunity to participate in a small way in building His church here in this corner of the world. We are certainly blessed!

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

<for a printable version click here>