Happy New Year - a year in review!

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of our favorite past-times is working in our garden. How fun it is to watch the plants grow! The abundant wet season rains cause the papaya trees, yucca plants, banana trees, and sweet potato vines to grow so quickly. The Awa, who are born with a love of farming, love to come and take a tour of our little garden...although they do wonder why anyone would like to eat radishes! They are much more appreciative of Kevin's many varieties of hot peppers. :-) Miguel and Digna have been our friends for many years. We remember the two of them hanging out as teenagers, in love, coming riding in on horseback to the literacy class in Lita.  Now God has blessed them with four very active boys--Alejandro, Mateo, Alexander, and Alex. Both Miguel and Digna are believers, although family issues have kept them on the outskirts of the church family for the last years. Recently Miguel has struggled with a strange skin disease, something that neither the Awa home remedies, nor the local doctors, have been able to cure. For the last few weeks we've been seeking to help Miguel find some answers, taking him first to a dermatologist who was able to rule out both leishmaniasis and skin tuberculosis. Now we are waiting on results from a culture being done in a lab in Quito. As we have chances to spend time with Miguel, we pray that God would pull him back into the church family. Miguel is gifted with a calm spirit of helpfulness and encouragement, and the days he comes to church are always brightened by his interaction with the group. As we come to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, our hearts are grateful to our Lord: -For the great encouragement each of you has been in our lives! Sharing our joys and our struggles with you has taught us anew about the comfort that it is to be a part of the family of God. -The land issue is settled for the minute, awaiting the next steps of officially dividing up the property. -We are seeing God at work in restoring to us a friendship with Milton again; he has been coming by each week to help Kevin work on lessons from the book of Ruth. His desire to spend time together has been a great encouragement, although he has not yet returned to Sunday services. And...we wish each of you a HAPPY THANKSGIVING! May God grace your hearts with an appreciation for Who He is, as well as a thankfulness for the many blessings He has graciously provided. In HIS grip, Kevin & Kathy <For a printable version click here>

Moon set over Cotacachi. When the ball drops the world lights up!

September News

We have entered a new phase as parents! We are now officially in-laws. :-) We made a quick trip to the USA in July to join our daughter Keilah in celebrating her union in marriage with Jeremy Windler. We are glad to welcome Jeremy into the family! Although it was a crazy quick trip, we thoroughly enjoyed the time with family, friends, and our church while we were there.

And, speaking of our church, we brought back a small 'piece' of our church family back to Ecuador with us in the person of Eli Nelson, a young man from our church who is joining us for the next nine months as a short term volunteer. Eli is an energetic young fellow with a passion to serve God. We are thankful for his help!

Among the chaos of the summer, we have slowly gotten ourselves organized into beginning the school year. Kimberly has made a good start into her senior year schedule, as well as teaching her cousin Liana science this year. Eli is also helping to teach our nephew Lee several school subjects. The four young folks have already shared many adventures together---swimming and exploring at the river, a day at the hot springs, youth camp in Lita, and instituting a weekly movie and dessert night. We've also divvied out a work schedule among them! :-)

We've seen something here in the mountains we never dreamed of seeing before...cement trucks driving up past our house to the bridge construction in San Francisco! It wasn't too many years ago that a group of guys from Pennsylvania came down and helped us build a cable bridge there...back then it was a 6 hour hike from Lita!

We'd greatly appreciate your prayers for God's wisdom as we sit down with our co-workers Andy and Chrissy Shaub to plan out some goals and plans for this coming year. We long to be where God's heart is among these people. At the moment change and growth seem slow, but we are filled with confidence that God is able to complete the work of bringing each believer to maturity! (Phil 1:6)

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

For a printableversion of this letter click here

July Update! Wedding bells in the air :-)

Our best wishes for an blessed summer for each of you! Here, thanks to the dry season, the new road is making progress, and plans for building a bridge over the river by San Francisco are underway.  A friend in the city has loaned me his motorcycle, and I have to say that pastoral visits are quite a bit more fun with my new wheels on the new road! We made it to Palmira in just over 30 minutes from our house. :-) In just a few days, we are leaving for a whirlwind 2 weeks in the USA for our daughter Keilah's wedding on July 29th. These are exciting days for the Bruce family! We are thankful for the Lord's gracious help in planning for this wedding---for Keilah and Jeremy, who have done most of the preparations themselves in our absence; for many of you from our church, who have stepped in to help in many ways; and for our families, who are making valiant efforts to join us from all over the USA. :-) The Shaub family, our co-workers, rejoined us in June just in time for several days of medical caravan. It's been a blessing to have Andy and Chrissy, and our niece Liana here! Being able to sit down together to place the ministry into God's hands in prayer is a special joy. We are thankful they are here to keep on in ministry while we are gone. We'll be returning early in August with Kimberly, our nephew Lee Shaub, and Eli Nelson, a young man from our church who will be joining us to help out during the next school year. Thank you for your continued prayers for the Awa church. While God has not shown Himself in a fiery mountain, or in a thunderous voice from the heavens, we have instead seen Him present here in His still, quiet, and gentle presence in the believers' lives. At this point, Milton still has not re-joined the congregation, but God is softening the hearts of the believers to be ready to receive him again. Notably Paulino and Gloria have finally become convinced from hearing the truth of God's word, that God would have them forgive their brother. Last week, for the first time, Paulino prayed that his brother would re-join the group.  We continue to seek Milton out to encourage and disciple him as he struggles to re-build his  relationship with his wife and family. Some days are better than others, as he battles his own sinful attitudes...he, too, has areas where he needs to forgive his family. Colossians 3:12-14 expresses God's desire for the church here, "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." (NASB) In HIS grip, Kevin & Kathy <For a printable version click here>

June Update

In the spirit of our Bruce Brief (which is usually anything but 'brief'!) we wanted to give you an update on what is going on here and how God is at work. We have been greatly encouraged and blessed by your notes, prayers, and encouragement--God has given us a new appreciation for the body of Christ, and the way we share in His kingdom, no matter how many miles apart we may be! THANK YOU for caring and sharing in the ministry here!

May 19th we were finally able to talk with Milton again, encouraging him to repent and return to walking with God again. Three days later, on May 22nd, Milton came to our house and talked for a long time. This is the gist of what he said that morning: "Repentance is coming to me. I was living in sin, doing what was wrong, and I found I couldn't live without Christ. I just can't stand living without Him anymore. I know He is calling me to come back to Him, I have heard His voice calling me. I know He is wanting to forgive me. So I left my sister-in-law and now I am returning to God and returning to my wife and my family. I am really hungry for God's word, and I want to do what is right. I am really sad over what I have done, and I realize that I've damaged many people, and damaged God's name."

Since that day, Milton has come to visit several times, and the fellowship with him has been truly sweet. Thursday night we had our first time of Bible study together. He is greatly humbled, and has a new appreciation for Christ's suffering and death for him, paying for his sin. He is amazed that his wife Delia has been willing to receive him again and to forgive  him. He is thrilled to be back with his kids again, especially his littlest one, baby Sonia, who is just three months old.
Sunday (May 24th) Milton came to church, to join the group of believers, for the first time since before Christmas. He was embarrassed, feeling much shame for his actions, but affirmed his desire to return to God before the group of believers, acknowledging his guilt. I explained to the group that Milton can no longer be an elder, or have a position of teaching the Bible, but that he desires to return to the church to listen and to fellowship together.  We went over 2 Corinthians chapter 2, where Paul encourages the Corinthians to receive the repentant one, so that this man would not be overcome by sorrow.

The group of believers, many of them Milton's family, were very quick to respond...each one taking a turn to talk. Kathy and I were a bit blown away by their response, as they loudly and clearly said that they were not ready to receive Milton; he could not return to the group; if he came to church, none of them would come.

In all the angry talking, God did reveal many heart attitudes. Last year, as we left the church for the 8 months we were in the USA, we realized that it would be a time of testing for the believers. And it does seem like God is using the present situation to reveal hearts...what was said, over and over, was that because Milton had done wrong, and caused them (as fellow believers) to suffer in the community, now they really want Milton to suffer. Many of them pointed out Milton's 'badness' and then listed their own 'goodness'. Many things were said, and much of it was not pretty! In the end, I told the believers that we would wait a month, with Milton not joining us on Sundays, but just coming to be taught another day of the week. During that time they could watch Milton, to see if he was truly repentant...also, that they could see what God would say to them, how He wants them to respond, and I would continue to teach them and Milton separately  what God's word says.

Thanks for your continued prayers. We are thankful for God's revealing of heart attitudes, and greatly desire your prayers that I would know how to clearly teach these people over the next month! I believe that God is wanting to teach the group a deeper understanding of their own sinfulness, which will help them to be able to come to the cross of Christ in a new way, allowing them the humility to forgive. The way they are acting now is according to their traditional Awa customs...it would seem God is calling them to grow in their understanding of His grace and mercy. Last Sunday was a good day and I saw glimpses of hearts softening.

So many of you have told us that you are praying for these very issues! Thank you. Recently we are reading the book "The Prodigal God" by Timothy Keller, and are encouraged by a clearer understanding ourselves not only of the sinfulness and repentance of the younger brother; but also in the elder brother's superior attitude. Both of the brothers were called to repent by a loving Father.

Pray for our hearts, that we would continually be coming to our Father in repentance ourselves, and that our actions and teaching would be in alignment with His loving grace to all involved.
We are thankful for many answers to prayer:

-Milton's repentance and return to fellowship with God and his family; Delia's willingness to forgive him; and the opportunity for the rest of the believers to grow spiritually.
-God's continued grace and work in Kimberly's heart, faithfully doing His work to teach and mature her. (She has now taken off to work at camp in Missouri, her first solo trip navigating the airports all by herself! We are missing her already! Click here to see her camp letter.)
-God's protection for Keilah in a car accident in mid-May in NH...she was fine although her car didn't come out of it very well after hitting three trees!
-Praise the Lord for the provision of a truck. We purchased a 2009 D-max 4-door pickup truck last week. Apparently it can seat about 25! :-)

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

<FOR A PRINTABLE VERSION CLICK HERE>

May 2015

Greetings from Rio Verde! Just as many of you are enjoying the coming of Spring, we are also happy to be here in the beautiful climate of these green mountains again! God has created so much beauty around us! Each day the toucans gather around to sing, and the hydrangeas and other flowers are in full bloom. The fruitfulness of this area is impressive, with bananas and plantains, papayas, naranjilla fruit, yucca root, and lemons, oranges, and tangerines growing in abundance.

We are thankful for God's daily grace. He has brought joy into our lives in these days--in the smiling faces of many of our Awa friends who are happy to welcome us; in those who have come each Sunday with an earnest desire to listen and learn and grow; in the five cute little babies that God has added to the fellowship while we are gone. This last Sunday after church, 17 of us made an excursion down to Paulino's parent's house to pick tangerines....how fun it was to laugh and share the fun together! In these moments God gently re-confirms in our hearts that we are exactly where He wants us to be.

So many of you are praying for the situation with Milton. We have no desire to sound like a soap opera--and yet we wish to update you so you can join us in prayer---hopefully we can somehow balance out those two desires! There is much at stake for the Awa church; literally several hundred people up and down this valley are onlookers in what is going on. At this time, Milton continues in the relationship with his sister-in-law, Delia's sister. Several times he has come to talk to Delia, saying that he is going to 

leave the sister and return to Delia, but we have yet to see any action behind his words.

We've been seeing that culturally, the Awa people in general (including the believers) believe that Milton has done the unpardonable...that the problems he has created are SO bad...that, therefore, he is stuck in this mess with no possible way out. It's difficult for them to grasp how forgiveness could be applied here in any way. We are thankful for the HOPE that we have in remembering that God is the Great Redeemer, and that no-one is beyond the reach of His great mercy. Please pray for us to have wisdom as we continue to reach out to Milton in compassion, yet wanting to clearly speak truth into his life. We quite regularly feel inadequate for such a task! (2Cor. 3:5)

God has amazed us with a big change in someone else...in Delia...someone we perhaps least expected! Two months ago, when Milton had first tried to return home and ask for her forgiveness, she angrily responded by threatening to kill him, burn all his clothes and belongings, and otherwise do him all the harm she was able to. But over the last few weeks, she has faithfully come to the Bible teaching each Sunday, listening to how Jesus interacted with people with love and compassion. Many days she has stopped by the house here to talk and ask questions, asking us what God would have her to do in this situation. We have seen God working to change her heart. Recently she had a calm conversation with Milton, sharing with him that she has changed, and she is willing to forgive him and to receive him back if he is serious in wanting to follow God and to do what is right. This despite what she is hearing from the rest of her family, as they have counseled her to never allow him to return, and to instead, just beat him up with a big stick! It's been neat to see her earnest desire to do what God would have her to, and the way God has gentled her heart. Her life these days is not easy, as she struggles to feed six kids, and get four of them off to school each day. A special joy in her life right now is baby Sonia, three months old, who is a sweet, happy, healthy baby. She makes Delia smile!
 

Recently I went over Jesus' parable of the prodigal son with the believers. In the Awa culture, where their land has so much value, it was a terrible thing the younger son did---selling his inheritance and squandering the money. How amazing it is that the father would forgive him and allow him to return home! The believers have much to think on in these days. We appreciate your continued prayers as we seek to impart these truths to the Awa church. If Milton repents, and returns to Delia, the two of them will need the encouragement and support of the church here in order to make it work.

On the family front, we continue to prepare with Kimberly as she hopes to work at Whispering Winds Bible Camp this summer, in Missouri; Kenny continues to work at Liberty in VA, and our family is gearing up toward Keilah and Jeremy's wedding in NH the end of July. Here is a link to their wedding announcement and invitation, for those who are interested; perhaps some of you might join us that day! :-)
In HIS grip,               
Kevin & Kathy

<For a printable version click here>