Dear friends we want to thank you for your many prayers during these last few months as we traveled to North American and then returned to Ecuador. We were able to visit with many, but not all. We saw some long time friends and made some new ones. We are thankful for good health during the whole time and safety. He is faithful!

We will post a few highlights of our trip:

Mexico – Samachique is where our oldest daughter Lydia works as a teacher for missionary kids. It was a blessing to see where Lydia works and meet many of the other missionaries that work at the Hospital Misión Tarahumara in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

We also had a great time with friends and family:

We spent time with some of our churches, longtime supporters and new ones. Our new friends and church family at Bellingham Bible Chapel have informed us that they have decided to take us on as their missionaries! We were so blessed to get to know them, enjoy fellowship at church, in homes, and at their annual family camp. God has been so gracious!

The Cofan OT Bible translation work continued while we are away. The guys kindly sent a photo of them getting together for the revision work in June:

Since we returned to Ecuador last week, Ron started up the church youth group again and had five new kids attend for a total of eight – a great group to have over the summer with so many families traveling! We have a project happening right now to replace part of the wall on our property here in San Antonio that was dangerously leaning. Ron hopes to get down to the jungle the coming week to check in with the church leaders in the various villages, the translation team, and share God’s Word with some of the village children.

In August our Sunday school program at church will be starting back up (most of the teachers were away for the summer), and Ron is hoping to have a Father/Son campout with some of our youth families. Sarah returns from her summer working at the Ark Encounter on August 31st! Here are a few photos of our three that worked this summer in Kentucky – Lydia and Sarah for the zoo and Aaron for the attractions.

In September Esther hopes to get the ladies Tuesday afternoon Bible study back up and running and we will start up our Homeschool Teen Fellowship group again on September 8th. We appreciate your prayers as we move back into the work here in the next months. Thank you!

We are adding a special prayer request for Ecuador as there is a special election scheduled to happen on August 20th. The people will be voting for President and all the national assembly members. This occurred when President Lasso declared a “muerte cruzada” back on May 17th, which relieved all the national assembly members of their duty. There are eight candidates running for president (President Lasso is not running again) and depending on who wins this election, things could become very interesting. A state of emergency has been called in three areas of Ecuador because of violence and the assassination of the mayor of Manta, a city on the coast. Please pray for the country of Ecuador, especially for the people during this time of unrest.