Spring Bruce Report

BTW: Here is a link to our Spring Bruce Report (sent via snail mail) if you are interested: Bruce Report

 

Kevin

 

Bruce Brief - June 2008

Greetings from the RV Outpost!

 

The summer begin with a tragedy in the community south of us. The first week of June our neighbor Milton went to go fishing and found the body of a young girl floating in the river down below us. For Milton it was an extremely upsetting moment, but after praying, the Lord gave him courage to tie the body up, get help, and find out what had happened. We were in Ibarra that week, and Kathy’s sister Chrissy was at the Outpost alone, but did what she could to help. Milton soon found out that the body belonged to one of two girls that were missing from a family 3 hours’ hike upriver from the Outpost. The girls had been returning from their country farm to the community center where they went to school, and had to cross one of the swollen creeks along the way. Apparently they somehow were washed downstream. Their family, along with many others from the community, searched for the next two weeks all along the river from their community to town, but were unable to locate the other body (about 25 kilometers of river). Please pray for the family of Marco Aurelio as they deal with this sad loss. Pray for Paulino as he reaches out to them and others there in the community. One day while searching the river near us, Marco Aurelio asked me if it was true (as he had been told) that people that drowned in rivers couldn’t go to Heaven.  I assured him that drowning in a river made no difference to God---His acceptance of a person had everything to do with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and not the manner of death. I encouraged him to help his remaining family hear God’s truth. But our hearts are heavy knowing that likely neither Marco nor his girls have accepted Jesus’ payment for their sin. Please pray for this needy family!

 

The beginning of this week found us assisting in a medical caravan here in RV.  A missions trip organized by our friend Sheila in Kentucky came down bringing medicine and doctors. This group is visiting different communities here in Ecuador giving a free medical checkup and medicine when necessary. They have come annually here to our community, and it was a joy to work with them again. In the two days here they saw around 350 people and showed Christ’s love in a very tangible way to the Awa people. We also took the opportunity to teach the Bible with all those who came, sharing that although when Jesus was here on earth he was concerned with the health and physical issues of the people, he came with the purpose to provide a cure for the even more serious disease of sin. Just as these doctors freely offered medicine, God freely offered his Son.  Click here to see a few pictures

 

Thank you so much for your continued prayers!

 

Kevin & Kathy

 

PS: check out this big worm we saw while hiking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtaIpfJUqF0

 

Kevin & Kathy Bruce

Liebenzell Mission

Casilla 10-01-692

Ibarra, Imbabura

ECUADOR

+593 9 478-7811

http://brucekev.blogspot.com

 

Kenny's Israel Report

At last, the long awaited report from Kenny on his Israel trip! Here is an exerpt:

"Day 2

I don’t think very many people slept. This day began in the vicinity of the British Isles. Dawn wasn’t until just past Rome, and as we passed Greece, I had a conversation with a weird old lady to my left… it seems she liked reading classics and watching war movies, and had never been out of the country before. We landed at Tel-Aviv.

The airport was near the beach. Getting out was easy… just getting your passport stamped, and collecting bags. Then it was outside. The temperature was about 75-80 days: perfect. The three busses were right there; big red and white things that said, oddly enough, “Maya Tours” on the side. Our bags had tags that said “Canaan Tours” on them… and as we got on the bus, we were handed blue hats that said “Diesenhaus Unitours” on them… that was one puzzle I never figured out. But there were more interesting things going on.

Our guide, Amnon, introduced himself and carefully explained that even though our internal clocks probably though it was 1AM, we shouldn’t go to sleep because then we would stay up all night and be just as sleepy the next day. So I accepted the slightly dizzy feeling I’ve come to associate with exhaustion and ignored it."

If you want to read the rest of it check it out here: FULL ISRAEL REPORT

Beware it is 7 pages long! ;-)

TTFN

Kevin

Big hike

Here are a few pictures from Kenny's and my 12 hour hike to Buenos Aires with Paulino and a group of the Awa from Palmira. J

http://picasaweb.google.com/brucekev/BuenosAiresTrip

May Bruce Brief - The Wall

Greetings! Here’s the new front view of the Awa Center in Lita….thanks to a group from our home church that joined us from March 31^st to April 8^th! This cement block fence replaced the older chainlink fence that was none too sturdy. Security in Lita has become much more of an issue in the last couple of years, and we are glad to have this front fence now in place. The team can testify to the hard work that also went into putting the large concrete tubes for the new culvert under this main entranceway to the property. With the heavy rains that we’ve been receiving, the culvert has been put right to work. Much thanks to the team for putting their muscles and backs at risk(!!!), and to our home church for raising the finances to make it all happen!

We are back at the Outpost now, digging back into the work of the ministry and homeschool. It is a blessing to have Kenny back with us---he returned from his time in the USA and Israel with the work team. He continues to talk through his experiences, and we are amazed to see all that God is doing in his heart in these days, especially in preparing him to soon step out on his own (he will turn 17 next month and will be a senior in the fall.) He is finishing up a report on his Israel tour, for those who would like to hear his perspective on the trip!

Kevin has his hands full with some added responsibilities for the next five months as our Liebenzell Area Director, Edgar Luz, is on a short furlough with his family in Germany and Hungary. We’d appreciate your prayers as Kevin tries to balance these responsibilities with the Awa ministry, a task that seems to be more than a little overwhelming at times. During the next months, we will be spending a week each month in Ibarra, working to coordinate the ministry there, as well as part of another week at the Lita property, preparing for the busy summer months coming up. Our goals for the rest of each month spent at the Outpost in AwaLand include continued Bible and literacy teaching, hiking to visit homes, as well as a new project we have undertaken—back-translating the OT portions that our co-worker Doug Williams has been translating. Doing this back-translation into English will facilitate the checking that needs to be done in order to insure a good translation. It’s been exciting to jump into this project, as we have seen the importance of getting more Scripture portions into the hands of the Awa that can read.

Thanks for your friendship, prayers, and backing in so many ways--our hearts are continually blessed by your encouragement!

Kevin and Kathy Bruce

Kenny, Keilah, and Kimberly

Kevin & Kathy Bruce

Liebenzell Mission

Casilla 10-01-692

Ibarra, Imbabura

ECUADOR

+593 9 478-7811

http://brucekev.blogspot.com

pictures

Hi All, Here's a link to some pictures of us and our ministry :-)

http://picasaweb.google.com/brucekev/BruceFamilyMinistry

TTFN
Kevin

Bruce Brief---Believers' Conference

Hi, folks!!! Thanks to the many of you that have commented on our last update and assured us of your prayers for everything from the weather to Milton and his horse to our Believers’ Conference last week. We just wanted to take a minute to update you on how God has answered some of your prayers:

 

·         We just finished up our annual Awa Believers’  Conference on Sunday. Seventy-four Awa showed up, perhaps half of them believers and the other half their relatives and children. Meregildo blessed us with his generous heart in inviting his many unsaved brothers and even his mom and step-dad! We have tried to emphasize for years that the Conference teaching is mainly geared for believers, but Meregildo’s burning desire continues to be for his family to listen to God’s word…so there they were. Our coworker Doug Williams was able to clearly share the Gospel on several occasions, and it seemed that the folks listened. Now is their time to accept or reject….you can pray specifically for Pablo and Francisco (2 of Meregildo’s brothers) and his mom and stepdad, Rosa and Sebastian.

·         God has been working in Milton’s heart during his recent trials. Slowly, Milton is beginning to feel better from the weeks of sickness. (The dr.  suspected amebic liver disease and prescribed a strong medicine and Milton does seem to be slowly recovering.) Kevin had asked Milton to teach the story of Moses and the Israelites coming out of Egypt during Conference. Milton carefully prepared and taught three different sessions. I never knew someone could preach on each plague for 10 minutes or more…but that’s what he did! God really enabled Milton, and he did an excellent job teaching. Everyone seemed to listen carefully, and several other Awa thanked him afterwards for helping to teach. The last afternoon, Milton also taught the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace to everyone (it had been the key story of the kids’ class). Many of the folks had never heard the story, and were anxious to hear how God worked that situation out. We realized that by the end of Conference, Milton had taught more hours than either Kevin or Doug. Wow! We truly see how God is beginning to raise up leaders among the Awa!

·         Doug and Dorcas Williams joined us from Virginia for the Conference, and were a great help, as well as the Shaub family and our Lita coworkers, the Millan and Rosales families. Yesterday we ran into trouble trying to get the Williams back to the Quito airport to fly home….there was a regional strike among the Quichua Indians (over a local health program), and the roads were blocked. Kevin was able to follow some back roads to get them partway, and then turned them over to one of the Liebenzell pastors to finish the journey, and they did make it safely to Quito. The road-blocking strike was a short one, and roads were clearing up by the time Kevin headed home. We again thank the Lord for opening roads before us!

·         The weather seems to have taken a turn for the better! We had prayed for weeks for drier weather for Conference…and we had excellent weather with only light rain at night! Thank the Lord! We don’t know if this is just a few dry days or if we are truly heading into dry season…but we are amazed to see how God controls even those black clouds for His glory.

 

Our next project is receiving Kenny and a work group from our church on March 31^st. We will be working with the group to re-build the front fence on the Lita Awa Center property during the following week. We are now busy making preparations for the group. Yesterday our first delivery of materials (1,500 cement blocks) was delayed by the road strike, as roads between Ibarra and Lita were also closed due to the same demonstrations. We are told the strike is now over, but we would appreciate your prayers that the roads stay open for all the travel needed over the next 10 days.

 

Only because He is able,

Kevin and Kathy

 

Kevin & Kathy Bruce

Liebenzell Mission

Casilla 10-01-692

Ibarra, Imbabura

ECUADOR

+593 9 478-7811

http://brucekev.blogspot.com