It’s been good being back here in Ecuador again!  We have seen some changes from the last five months were were gone.  A new gas station is being built near the Equator monument and other buildings are increasing in size or going up on empty lots.  We can see that our area north of the city of Quito could very soon  become “North Quito.”

One of the big changes we have noticed on the streets driving through Quito is a larger number of people asking for help.  Many have placards that say something like, “We are from Venezuela and we will work for food.”  Yesterday we had two couples visit our church in Quito and ask for help.  Both families have children and they have been in Ecuador for about the last month.  They were needing everything!  I had the privilege of taking them to our deacon’s cupboard and helping them get some much needed clothing for their families and stock up on some food for the week.  Sadly I noticed our deacon’s cupboard getting rather bare.  Obviously this is something our church fellowship has been dealing with while we were away.  Please pray for the refugee situation here.  It is a little overwhelming to see the need and we haven’t been here for two weeks yet!

The first load of Cofan/Spanish bilingual New Testaments are in boxes in our basement!  Ron was thrilled to see the first copies and we are now busy planning a special celebration to launch this edition the end of November.  Later this week, Ron is heading down with some of his helpers to visit the villages to formally ask permission to have the celebrations.  He and Sarah are also working on a special video that will give the history of the Cofan Scriptures to show at the event.  Since this will happen the end of November, this event will be instead of the usual Christmas celebrations.  There are many people very excited for this!  Pray that the planning will go well and that God’s Word will spread out even further among the Cofan people.

Last Friday, October 19, we met for the first time since we returned to Ecuador with our Homeschool Teen Fellowship group.  We were so encouraged with the kids excitement at being back in a routine for meeting!  We have a couple of events planned in the coming months – a fundraiser in early December for the annual retreat in late February 2019.  Pray for all the hard work and planning going into these two upcoming occasions.

Some of our Home schooled teens were not able to attend Friday because they were part of a music ensemble for a nearby Bible conference!  Four (soon to be five – as the cellist is almost 12 and will be soon old enough to join our group) of these talented musicians have been long-time attendees of our home school teen group.  In the middle back row is Joshua G. who recently finished his home school studies and is headed to Texas in December to study at the Rio Grande Bible Institute (our second student to do so!).  It warms our hearts to see some of “our kids” use their talents to bless others!

Ron, Ethan and Sarah were able to polish up the special memorial service video made for Ron’s dad late last month.  They finally got it up on YouTube for anyone to watch.  If you haven’t seen it yet, we hope you enjoy it!

Ron also found another photo gem from our time together at Dad Borman’s memorial service last month:

Thank you for your many prayers, notes, emails and cards.  Our family has been encouraged and blessed by this outpouring of love during the last weeks.