“Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”

Proverbs 25:25

Greetings from Ecuador! We apologize for taking so long to give updates on this source, but for day to day news we post regularly on our Facebook page – Borman’s Broadcast. We will give a quick month by month review for now.

January

After a wonderful Christmas time with our whole family in Washington state, we returned safely back to Ecuador January 12th. We jumped right back into things with a Teen Night, Jungle trip and preparations for our Homeschool Teen Fellowship fundraiser. Esther also started having some problems with vertigo during this time, which lasted several week. We are thankful for the private health care system we are able to use here.

Photo: of our Teen Night small Bible study groups and sing time together; getting some homemade bagels ready for our fundraiser.

February

The first of this month we held our annual fundraiser fair on our property for helping the teens’ cost for our annual retreat (held in March). We had a great turnout this year and raised a good amount of funds to help with the cost of the coming retreat. Ron also fit in a jungle trip this month. Then came a difficult time for the family as Ron’s oldest brother Randy became ill and hospitalized. We spend time visiting him and the family in the hospital until Randy’s passing February 17th. Ron’s brother Rick and his wife Sue and their sister Sheri were able to come a few days before the passing and helped with putting together a funeral in Quito. Next, we headed down to the Cofan village of Zabalo to have a memorial service for Randy with the Cofan people. It was a difficult time, but we sensed the Lord’s presence and we know that Randy is with the Lord, whole and healthy.

We also managed to have two Teen Nights this month along with houseguests.

A few photos of the fundraiser fair:

Randy’s funeral in Quito

Randy’s memorial in Zabalo

March

This month was packed full of activities. We had a Teen Night AND our annual Homeschool Teen Fellowship Retreat down at the beach. We had our friends from the state of Georgia come down to give another Cofan Church leader’s course. Randy’s son Josh married Olivia – so we had a big family wedding! And then we hosted Ron’s sister Sheri, his brother Rick and wife Sue, and their son Greg and family for a good part of the month – whew! I haven’t mentioned that we kept our regular Bible studies going this whole time as well – Ron and Sarah’s teen Bible studies on Monday night and Esther’s ladies Bible study on Tuesday afternoons. It was a blessed time!

Josh and Olivia’s wedding (March 8)

More family time!

Annual HTF Retreat (March 27-30) Theme: Holy

April

This month Ron fit in two jungle trips. The first one was with our language consultant Rick Aschmann to visit our Cofan Bible translation team in Dureno. Progress is being made “poco a poco” on the Old Testament. Exodus was finished and handed out to some people to read and critique.

We had two more Teen Nights, a retreat helpers appreciation dinner, our Bible studies and Esther and Sarah were able to attend our church ladies retreat for one day. We were thankful that we were able to get into a more stable routine this month.

Bible consultant’s trip to Dureno

Our annual HTF retreat helper’s appreciation

May

In this month, we had our last Teen Night for the school year. Ron fit in two jungle trips, the last one was an eyeglasses clinic for the Cofan people. He and our friend Ryan and his dad were able to get to four villages and served 106 people with glasses! We also finished up with Bible studies and our daughter Sarah headed north for her work at the Ark Encounter for the eighth summer!

Eyeglass Clinic

Prayer requests

• Pray for the upcoming men’s retreat at our church, June 6-8.

• Pray for Sarah and Lydia’s travels this summer. Sarah is already in the States and is waiting for Lydia to arrive from her work in Mexico. They will drive from Washington state to Kentucky for their annual summer job at the Ark Encounter!
• Pray for Ron and Esther as we travel up for a month in Washington state to visit our kids. We leave June 11th and return July 9th. Esther will be helping our daughter Julia bring our eighth grandchild into the world!
• Pray for a busy July ahead with a men’s conference at church, July 12th.
• Pray for a team of eight coming July 15-25 from our supporting church Bellingham Bible Chapel of Bellingham, WA. They will be doing some work projects here on our property and seeing some of the work in the city and jungle.
• Pray for our church here in Quito as we will be having a VBS July 28-August 1. This is the first VBS we have had at our church in quite some time. We have a team of six from North Carolina that will be coming down to assist this year.
• Pray for continued progress on the Cofan Old Testament project. We are once again thankful for the special gift given towards this project from the Chapelstreet Church in Geneva, Illinois. This church supported Ron’s parents from the time they first came on the missionfield, supporting the translation of the Cofan Bible since Day 1. Thank you!
  • Pray for Martin, Wilson, Leoncio and Osmar as they work on the project. Pray for the health and safety of them and their families. As mentioned above, Exodus has been printed for reading and final editing. Leviticus, Judges, 1,2 Samuel need revision and they are currently working on 1,2 Kings and Joshua first drafts.

Serving Him in Ecuador and beyond,

Ron and Esther