One Month Left :(

Hey Everyone. This might be the last blog update from South America. After arriving in Ecuador over a year ago it´s kind of sad to think I´ll be leaving so soon. I will definitely miss the people here that I´ve gotten to know and seen grow in their faith. However, the time hasn´t come so I´ll go ahead and tell you what´s new.

First, I want to share about Sunday at the Ark Children´s Home. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Kingdom Day together (everyone dresses up like princes and princesses to symbolize how we are sons and daughters of the King of kings). It was cool becuase I was able to celebrate it last year too.

My favorite memory from this day was playing with one of my former preschool students, Felipe. He doesn´t live at the orphanage anymore, but goes to school there and comes to visit. He pleaded with me to play fight with him (all the boys and some girls had play swords) and then to play volleyball with a balloon. I think I enjoyed it as much as Felipe did!

A few weeks ago I felt a strong desire and need to pray for the Jesus Family (what we call the members of the Street Church). Debora and I were able to go on some prayer walks and really intercede for the people. It´s such a blessing being able to know them individually. I find it more motivating to pray and easier to pray for specific needs.

This last week I was able to write encouraging notes to the majority of the Street Church. I may not be able to lead worship or preach in Spanish very well, but I believe God is using me in other ways.

This past month I´ve also been taking some Haitian Creole classes to prepare for my more long term dream of starting a ministry in the Dominican Republic. Even if my Creole is not even close to my level of Spanish I believe it will help build a small bridge between me and the Haitians I hope to work with.

The last thing I want to share is about a guy named Bienvenido. I talked about him a long time ago. He´s the one with a tattoo of 3 tears on his face and used to be in a gang and steal. He turned to Jesus, but still had some old habits left.

Well, just a few weeks ago some friends and I were in a church service and there were few seats left so some of us sat separately. As I was looking around for friends I saw this guy with this hands lifted and singing to God with all this heart. A couple minutes later Debora asks if that´s Bienvenido and I say ¨No¨right away because to me Bienvenido has shorter hair, is way skinnier and doesn´t act like that. Low and behold, the guy turns around and it is Bienvenido! I was so happy and excited that someone´s life could turn around so much because of Jesus. Praise God. Pray that Bienvenido will keep growing closer to the Lord and that he won´t fall back into his old way of life.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures I´m going to post soon.

Blessing.

Anna