Spiritual Growth

Team News (Jan. 2008)
Well, I have the joy again of informing you of the month and how it´s gone. It has been a good, but slow month. I think that some of the highlights that I have enjoyed seeing God at work would be the following.
The men of the church have expressed their desire to be more involved and so they starting meeting all together. It´s very encouraging to see our brother Dr. Ernesto desiring to help out and serve. He is going to start a first aid course at the church with an open invitation to the public to sign up, and we will use this oportunity for sharing the gospel also. Our brother Juan Sandoval, wants to be more involved as a prayer warrior. Luis is actively sharing the gospel and teaching his own small group. This shows us that this works is God´s, becuase God is moving faster than we expected.
Another highlight is for me to see Carla Duran, also a sister in Christ, trying so hard to learn to read and write. She is reading the Bible outloud to her boys every night and after they finish a chapter, she says that she takes the boys to the table and they all write a verse they liked from what they read. This is so exciting to me because when I first started studying with Carla 8 months ago she could barely read a verse with me. Praise God. He even teaches to read and write by changing lives for his glory. Carla also showed up every Saturday this past month to help Erik and I clean the church building.
We have continued with our prayer times as a church, every Monday and Thursday at 8 in the morning.. and Sundays at 9:30. I am glad that we have set this as a priority in the ministry.
I would like to say a little something about my teammate Juan Carlos Cabrera. I feel that this has been a true highlight also. In the past months, Erik and I have truly seen a spiritual growth going on in his life. I don´t know how to descibe it, but Juan Carlos has been a big blessing to the work here, and his love for God has influenced his dedication and passion towards the work.
The Sucre Team (Jan. 2008)

CARNAVAL

The Rains

We´ve been receiving constant rain the last few weeks. Things here have been very wet to say the least, and to add to all the water, we have been experiencing Carnaval. Carnaval here is very different from what I grew up with in Ecuador, they don´t just wet everyone with buckets of water and baloons, but they have about a week long of dancing in the streets, and getting horribly drunk, while they walk down the street with their licor, and have a marching band behing them. We`ve had many of these marching bands and drunk people go by our house, in the past two days. I would say one every 30 minutes or so. It is not attractive at all. Well, Zion and I figure that at least the drunk men staggering on the street deserve to get wet, so we go upstairs when we hear the bands coming with all the drunks and we throw water down on them from our bathroom window. It`s what everyone does here. We`ll be glad when Wednesday rolls around and these five days are over.. Erik and I are thinking about maybe leaving the city for a couple of nights, since we will have the contact center closed Monday and Tuesday. We`ll see if we feel up to it. But things are insane around here.... Windows have been broken twice at the Contact Center by water balloons. Just thought I would fill you in on our Carnaval experience so far. - The Reyes