Picking berries

Keilah and Kimberly picking raspberries in NH

(Kevin's parents' house and our van from Righteous Rides!)

Kenny happy with his blackberry - a gift from his uncle!

Bruce Brief July--goodbyes and travel

With our flight to the USA coming up in just a few days, we are in the midst of saying our goodbyes—not only to our Awa friends, but also to our coworkers and Ecuadorian friends. In a Latin culture, it is quite offensive to leave without saying a proper goodbye, so we are trying hard to do it right and hurt as few feelings as we can. J Leaving the Awa believers was especially hard for us. Even though the Awa heartily dislike showing strong emotions, many had tears in their eyes last Sunday as they said their goodbyes. Because they have such a difficult time handling these feelings, I think they actually feel a little upset with us for causing them to feel such sadness! While we look forward to seeing friends and family in the USA during this year of furlough, part of our hearts will definitely stay here with the country and people we have come to love.

Changes are in store for the Awa communities while we are gone! Construction is quickly moving forward on the bridge over the RV river, and the workers estimate that it will be done in about five months. At that point the road will continue further interior. At the same time, the Awa are carrying heavy loads of electric poles (made from a PVC pipe-type material, but still over 200 lbs each!), transformers, and wire up into the communities all along the main trail. There should be electricity in our community in just a few months! We can hardly imagine what it will be like to come back to both a road and electric service at the Outpost! These changes bring both good and bad influences for the people as the first electric items that most buy are televisions and dvd players, along with an abundance of videos full of violence and poor morals. Cultural change comes very quickly because these isolated people consider such movies to reflect life in the modern world, which they long to be a part of. With the road also comes easy access to alcoholic beverages. At the tiny community center of RV, there are already three bars/cantinas in place! Please remember the Awa believers as they learn to deal with these influences. Discernment only comes by God’s grace in their lives.

We are sorry to have been out of touch over the last eight weeks! Our not-that-old laptop computer bit the dust, leaving us hanging. I have finally been able to resurrect the hard drive and we have our email address list back. J We are thankful to have communications up and running again (even temporarily on a loaner computer)! For those of you who we have kept in the dark, our plans include flying into St. Louis the 10^th (this week!) and then heading west/north to see Kathy’s sisters, and then on to New Hampshire. Our three weeks in New England will be a little rushed, as we need to be on the road again by mid-August so we can drop Kenny off at the Bible Institute in Wisconsin. In September, we hope to head back to New England (from Oklahoma) by way of any of you who would like us to drop in! At this point, we can be reached best by way of email. As soon as we have some type of phone number, we will let you know. For the fall and winter we plan to settle in New Hampshire. We are still sorting out where we will live, but we praise the Lord for His provision of a Grand Caravan van loaned to us by a wonderful organization that loans vehicles to missionaries (Righteous Rides)!

Many thanks for your prayers for us!

In Christ,

Kevin & Kathy

A few pics from my Hike from Buenos Aires (Ecuador) to Palmira

June 2009 Bruce Brief news

What a month it's been! We are thankful for God's mercy and grace through the ups and downs of trying to pack and sort our three 'homes', many hours of travel for paperwork (and a broken-down vehicle), and a crazy schedule as we tried to keep up with ministry in the midst of it all. The Awa have been a little puzzled by all our comings and goings; actually, I'm not so sure we aren't a little puzzled ourselves as we wake up each morning trying to sort out which ones of us are coming or going today! Most puzzling of all is the fact that our laptop computer died last week and left us high and dry for communications (it's been dying over the last few months, generally making life difficult, but we had hoped it would last until we arrived States-side in July.)

A quick update on the paperwork, ministry, car, kids, and travel plans:

Paperwork: The Lord was gracious to us through the many hours on buses as we went back and forth to Quito five times renewing one USA passport and renewing our Ecuadorian missionary visas. In Ibarra we renewed our Ecuador i.d. cards, although we ran into some problems with Kimberly's 'cedula' (Ecuadorian citizen i.d. card) when the government records showed that her fingerprints had changed. (Apparently a mistake was made in reading her fingerprints years ago when she got her first 'cedula' as a baby.) Thankfully a few more hours waiting in offices cleared this up without too much delay! Then we were finally able to renew her national passport and are now all ready to fly. Thanks, Lord!

Ministry: Some of you may have heard that Humberto's wife, Maria Liria, fell off one of the cable foot bridges about 10 days ago. She slipped on a wet board, and fell with one of their children. Thankfully the little girl was okay and Maria wasn't hurt worse! She broke her arm in several places, around her elbow. Since our car was in the shop, Cipriano (our national pastor friend) was able to rent a truck to go in and get her, and the Shaubs headed for Ibarra the same day to be of help and encouragement to Humberto there. This accident brought back memories of their daughter Erika, who fell from a cliff and died about three years ago, and Humberto was quite nervous. Andy was able to visit the hospital every day. The doctor first cleared up an infection and then wanted to operate to put in several screws and a metal plate, but Maria and Humberto refused, so Friday the doctor sent them home to make the slow recovery with just a cast. I think he was a little frustrated trying to communicate with them! Andy said that Maria said that no doctor was going to put little nails in her arm! We pray her arm makes a good recovery despite the lack of surgery.

We are struggling to finish up our year of literacy study. With the local elections (today is voting day) and several community happenings, it seems to be difficult to get all our students together long enough to administer our last tests. This next Friday and Saturday we should be meeting for the last time before we leave. Please pray that all 9 students will make it and finish their exams!

4-Runner: Thankfully is back on the road, 'running' again! It took quite a stack of money and about three weeks, but we are glad to have the vehicle again. With so much travel in our schedule this month, we were sure missing having the Toyota, although we gave the local truck drivers some good business!

Kids: Kenny is now a high school graduate...as of Friday! He graduated at the top of his class (okay, we home-school so he WAS the class...but he still did great!) We celebrated with apple pies and ice-cream yesterday. Of course, immediately after the party, on our way down from RV, he fell and sliced open his knee and got to go get a tetanus shot. Hopefully he'll be walking again in a few days, as he has promised to travel with a medical caravan team from Kentucky. Kimberly finished fifth grade several weeks ago, and Keilah will finish up her freshman year with a big Geometry test today or tomorrow. Our kids are gearing up for big changes in the next month as we pack up and say many good-byes.

Travel plans: We have our tickets for the 2nd week of July, flying into St. Louis. We are privileged to have the use of a van for the year, loaned from an organization called Righteous Rides. We'll be heading to New England from Missouri for a few short weeks, and then will head out again to the Midwest sometime in August. Beyond that, we have made few plans, although we have done much praying that the Lord will direct our days and miles. Our full-to-the-end schedule here hasn't left us much planning time!

We are savoring our last moments with our friends here. Last night I enjoyed an hour sitting with Awa friends on the porch at the Awa Center. Gloria wanted to know how she should handle having a drunk and unsaved husband, while Guillermo (her husband, sitting right there) lamented about so many friends pulling him to drink, now that he is the Palmira community leader. Leandro sat back and listened, asking a few questions of his own. I was thankful for yet another opportunity to share God's wisdom for living, and the fact that many people are praying for Guillermo's salvation. Today I am heading out with Luis Alfonso, for the long hike in the back way to RV, making a map for the community of where the road will hopefully be put in one day. Our hearts are pulled to these people...please pray for us as we have a few last chances to encourage our Awa friends. Saying good-bye, even for a year, is hard!

Because of God's mercy,
Kevin and Kathy

Bruce Brief--May ~ Paperwork and Red tape await us :-(

Although not exactly our favorite past-time, paperwork is on our must-do list this month. For some time we’ve known that we had to renew our visas before the end of May, but in looking over our other paperwork we had a few surprises. (This stuff all adds up, especially having two kids with dual nationalities!) So just this week we realized that both Kimberly’s Ecuadorian i.d. card and passport will need to be renewed before we leave for furlough, and Keilah’s USA passport was already expired (oops!) So Monday found us on the road again, going to Quito to renew Keilah’s passport. Thankfully that went well, and we are waiting to begin the process of renewing our visas. We ran into a few snags trying to renew Kimberly’s i.d. card, but hope to be able to find a creative solution to the student card (proof that she is studying) that they require. Your prayers will be appreciated!

We are also in the home-stretch for finishing up our homeschool year! In just a week Kimberly will finish up fifth grade; Keilah will soon be finishing up her Geometry, Bible, and Spanish with her cousin Laura to complete their freshman year; and Kenny will be doing his last lesson in Calculus and completing his Visual Arts course to close up his senior year by about mid-June. It feels like quite an accomplishment for Mom and Dad to have started with Kenny back in 1996 with kindergarten and now to be finishing up highschool! I’m wondering who should get the diploma---Mom or Kenny! :-) But yes, we are proud to be the parents of this young man, and are excited with him as he turns 18 this year and prepares to step out on his own. Kenny has applied to New Tribes Bible Institute for the fall semester, and would like to continue his studies at college afterwards. He just has to decide what to study, since at this point he wants to learn everything from linguistics and languages…to history…to computers and technology!

Fifty-eight Awa joined us for the Believers’ Conference Easter week. The Lord worked out such details as the lack of town water service, a shortage of propane tanks, and kids’ school schedules. Thanks for praying! The Millans and Rosales, our two staff families in Lita, played a key part in preparing the property for the Conference and working through these difficulties. Doug Williams flew in from Virginia to shoulder a major part of the teaching, along with our Awa neighbor, Milton. It was encouraging to hear the feedback from the believers. When Kevin asked on the last morning what they had learned from the teaching, many took turns to stand up and share. Meregildo shared that as he listened to Doug’s teaching on the family, he was reminded that this was very different from the way his father had raised him. “But I’m happy to hear God’s Word, so I can know what God says about how to live as a family.” He went on to share more specifics of what he had learned. Juan Carlos, Meregildo’s oldest son, came to conference and quietly listened to each teaching session. As we celebrated the Lord’s Supper with the believers, Juan Carlos quietly asked to take part. As his father questioned him about his sincerity, Juan stood his ground, saying that he was believing. Paulino, another of the believers, also proudly presented his two daughters, Sandra and Diana, who were baptized this year. It is impossible for us to see into these young folks’ hearts, but it is apparent that several of the believers are passing on their faith to their children. And so we came away from Conference encouraged with what God is doing in the Awa believers’ hearts.

Thanks for your prayers!

Kevin & Kathy

Casilla 10-01-692

Ibarra, Imbabura

ECUADOR

+593 9 478-7811

http://brucekev.blogspot.com

Photos of our 12th Annual Awa Believers Conference!

RE: Bruce Brief - Awa Conference coming up!

This is just a quick update for those of you who were praying! We will get some more details out later and post some pictures, but for now I wanted to respond quickly the prayer requests that we had posted before the conference.

 

Below are the original prayer request and a brief response to each of the Lords grace and provision!

 

 

1.       There has been no regular water service at the Mission Center since the big rain. Pray that the town will get the pipes fixed and normal flow restored before the conference. The electric service has been a bit sporadic as well.

The Lord provided water every day! There were a few times the water was off for just a few hours, but because we had prepared by filling every container we could before the conference we were able to function normally. The electric stayed on the whole time as well! It is kind of funny as Sunday afternoon after the conference it did go out for a couple of hours. ;-)

 

2.       There has also been a shortage of propane gas here in the north of Ecuador, especially out in the rural areas. Pray that we will be able to refill the empty tanks soon.

We were able to fill our tanks before the conference and we had plenty of propane.

 

3.       Pray that the Lord will work out the details for the Awa to be able to come. In the community of Palmira, the head teacher has decided that their school will hold classes all Easter week and he has told the believers that their children cannot have permission to leave (Thursday and Friday).

The Lord brought us a good group of believers.  Even some from Palmira as they chose to come down and miss the two days of school anyway. Praise the Lord for this stand of faith. Most of them had to make sacrifices in order to come.

 

4.       Pray for our partner Doug as he prepares and travels down from the USA to be here.

Doug made it fine, and even said that it was one of the nicest trips he had made as far as airline and schedule. Praise the Lord for this! (Doug does not like to travel all that much! J )

 

5.       Pray for us also as we try and coordinate all the supplies needed, including a refrigerator. Transporting all the supplies to the Mission Center from the city can be quite the challenge, as even the main road has been closed off and on with more landslides.

The Lord helped us accomplish this even with my back out! Praise the Lord. We were able to hire a truck to bring a fridge and freezer down with a load of the bulk stuff ahead of time which turned out to be a real blessing, and saved me an extra round trip between Ibarra and Lita.

 

Many thanks for praying! The conference went incredibly smooth this year. Easter Sunday with them was a highlight for me, and a real blessing as the believers shared what they had learned during the conference! It has been many years that we have been waiting for that kind of feedback! During times like that I realize what an enormous privilege it is to be allowed to take part in the Lords work!

 

 

Your servants,

Kevin & Kathy

 

 

Kevin & Kathy Bruce

Liebenzell Mission

Casilla 10-01-692

Ibarra, Imbabura

ECUADOR

+593 9 478-7811

http://brucekev.blogspot.com