Merry Christmas!

Now we can get to the task at hand! We want to thank all of our friends and supporters for being with us on this journey. We pray that this Christmas was spent near family and loved ones, and was a time of blessing and joy, bringing you rest and encouragement.

God has given us these times of joy. Psalm 81:4 TLB

This tree is in Rockefeller Center in New York City, btw . . . we had a 12 hour layover on our way to Oregon to spend the holidays with our kids and grandkids. There will be more on this later. Bless you all.

Marcha Blanca

Well, it's been a busy few weeks, but we haven't disappeared. I wanted to follow up the last entry with this news about the "white march" that was held on December 8th. As we mentioned before, the families of the boys who died in the accident want to make changes on the national level. They have been researching and found a national group with the same goals, and we are hoping this connection will enable us to have the numbers needed to impact the lawmakers. At this point, the president has dismantled the congress, and has a national assembly in place who are re-writing the constitution of Ecuador, so no law writing will be taking place until they are done.

After holding a press conference, and appearing on several radio and television interviews, around 1,000 people assembled in downtown Cuenca. The participants were supposed to wear white clothing, and the purpose of the march was to bring attention to what is happening on the highways of our country in a positive way.

There were many groups- students who went to school with the victims, as well as their families and many groups representing other people who were unrelated to our church. This banner says: "We support justice on the highways,it is everyone's obligation to respect the laws, and everyone should be obligated to respect the laws."

After the march we gathered in the central park of Cuenca, and we held a minute of silence, followed by a prayer for our country, and several hundred white balloons were released into the air. The parents from our church expressed their thanks to the crowd, and we met in city hall with representatives from the city government to present a declaration and a petition. This will be sent to the national assembly as well. It was a bittersweet moment.

A Great Grief

In case some of you missed the last newsletter, I wanted to put this article here so that it would be easy to reference, as we hope there will be ongoing results, and permanent changes in the Ecuadorian laws as a result of this terrible tragedy.

On Sunday, August 26^th 4 members of our church were killed in a bus accident near Chunchi, Ecuador.

For the past two summers, we have sent teams of youth to minister at the Ark Orphanage in Riobamba. They each paid to go and help out the 50+ orphans with vacation Bible school type activities, as well doing daily chores, painting, etc. Thirteen members of our youth group, who made up the last of three teams that went this year, had finished their week ministering to the children and working with the staff. As they ministered, prayed and worshiped together their love for the Lord and their burden for the orphans had grown. They had been calling home telling their families and friends what a wonderful time they were having and how their lives had been changed.

On the way home, about 2 hrs. north of Cuenca, an oncoming bus swerved into their lane and smashed into the side of their bus. Three of the youth, Pedro Vintimilla, 17, Sebastian Carrion, 19, and Andres Vallejo 20, were killed instantly. The other youth on the bus sustained only minor injuries. Angel Sanchez, 45, another member of our church, was also killed in the accident, leaving behind his wife and child. Angel was not part of the ministry team and just happened to be on the bus returning to Cuenca from Quito.

We were in the middle of our Sunday morning service when the sad news began to trickle in. Some reports said that the bus was being robbed others said that it had rolled over. Immediately, several parents and two of our elders who are medical doctors, Marlo Palacios and Rene Cabrera left for the scene of the accident.

On Monday, we had a memorial service for the three boys. With the coffins of the three boys at the front of the church over 1200 people came out. Many of whom had never heard the gospel message before. The abundant and powerful grace of God was evident to all. It’s been a trying time, but the parents of these boys have been an awesome testimony to all. God has been faithful to comfort and strengthen them and the church has pulled together to minister to the parents, family, friends and youth. Pray for us that as the weeks go by, we all will continue to seek God for His gracious help in coping with this terrible tragedy.

Visit to Loja and Gualaquiza

Last week we took a trip down south to visit two of the churches that we cover. We broke it up a little, since John is trying to take care of his back. He hurt it in July, and has had sciatica ever since. So, first we drove to Vilcabamba, a little south of Loja. We have a medical team that goes there to work every January, and because of that outreach, there is a small group of believers who regularly meet with one of the leaders from Loja. We are praying that it will grow to be an official church plant soon. Above is a view of the central park. John and Bob Capaldi had meetings with the leaders on Thanksgiving day, and Lauren and I enjoyed a Mexican food lunch and watched our men at work. It was a nice break, strolling around town when it wasn't raining.

After that we headed east and north to Gualaquiza. The "highway" passes so many beautiful waterfalls. We especially enjoyed the sign placed in the middle of this waterfall- it says "enjoy nature- don't deface it" hmmm.

Here is a nice looking bridge. Kind of the opposite of a suspension bridge. I wonder what it would be called! (I doubt the engineers would name it a sagging bridge!) At least there are no potholes!

Our church in Cuenca sent Daniel Quiroz and his wife Martha to Gualaquiza to plant a church about 6 months ago. It wasn't an easy start for them but they rented a new building a month ago, and are seeing great fruit. We were there for their very first youth group meeting. (above photo) Very fun to see a new group excited about all that the Lord is doing in and through them. On Sunday, John shared and then they prepared a meal for everyone who attended. There were about 10 first time visitors among the 112 who attended!