November In Ecuador!

What a great month we had!  God continues to give us great opportunities to get to know the Ecuadorians, the country and the ministries here!  At the beginning of the month we participated in a Couples'/Family Retreat with our association of churches in Valle Hermoso...

We had a great time getting to know everybody and studying the Bible together, but we especially enjoyed our extended time with the only other couple from our church who attended...Dilita (with me here sporting the seeds from the guava we just ate!)...

and Vicente (one of our deacons) - here with the fish we ate at Dilita's mom's house on our way back to Cayambe!

Then we joined Crossworlders Dan and Diana McKeen - who are involved in ministries in Borja - in a visit to the home and ministries of Crossworld's Linda Arens and Martha Craymer in Chillanes...

Dan taught the pastors and leaders from the area's Quichua churches and Glenn led the devotional time each day.  The men, and women, were hungry to learn and have already requested another conference!

Martha, Linda, Diana and I visited the final day of the conference and were able to enjoy one of the delicious meals that the Quichua women prepared each day for the men!

We had a great day with our neighbors one Sunday...our 1:30p lunch date turned into an adventure to the forest & to see the Cariacu waterfall near Ayora...I'm hoping we'll have pics to share with you soon!


Finally, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our Primero de Mayo church planting team a week before Thanksgiving (again - I'm hoping to have a pic of that for you soon!)  and again with the ten in-country Crossworlders on Thanksgiving Day.  We had a traditional Thanksgiving meal in our house, beginning with a craft focused on giving thanks to God for our many blessings here in Ecuador...

Here are the 10 us - blurry, but content with all that God is doing here in Ecuador and for the privilege of serving Him here!

The day after Thanksgiving we celebrated CHRISTMAS together at the Meyer home!  We all joined in on a great Christmas gift scavenger hunt and then in making Shish Kabobs - a new, but wonderful Christmas meal!  We ate many of the leftovers from the day before, plus an assortment of amazing sweets...

 and we celebrated the birth of our Savior - God's gift of love to us - by singing Happy Birthday to Him!

Grandma and Grandpa Regier made sure Daniel and Luke had a piñata, and we played ALOT of Mexican Train dominoes - what a great time as a Crossworld family!  Thanks for your ongoing prayers and support!

October 2011 with the Primero de Mayo Church

We started out the month with a teen girls' "pijamada" to introduce the new Bible Study groups

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and to just enjoy being together - eating spaghetti!

The highlight of the month was the church's baptism service...let's head there together...

Glenn preached on baptism...

Eleven people were baptized!

Here's our new church treasurer being baptized by Pablo and Glenn!

Of course we had great food...

and TONS of fun!  Soccer...

Ecuavoli (Glenn has been learning by watching since we moved here and finally got to play!)

and tossing people in the pool - "involuntary baptisms" !  We had a great day!

We were honored to host the celebration of Carlito's birthday!

We had a sports day...futbol first but THEN "American Futbol!" was requested!  The teens learned quickly and played well!

Gissela led a teacher training in her home...

the same Saturday that the men had a "minga" to get Diana's family set up in their new Primero de Mayo home!

We had our first Guagua de Pan...store bought..

Glenn had fun decorating it!

God blessed us with a vehicle - Vicente was SO helpful in the process!

Susie is enjoying her Bible Studies with the teen girls (and with the women!)

We ended the month by celebrating Pastor Appreciation Day.  Pablo and David and their wives, Lourdes and Brenda, were honored and personally thanked for their labor of love!  God has blessed us as a church!