Thank you for your faithful prayers, notes, and gifts of support! God continues to be faithful to meet our needs.

This passage keeps coming to our attention: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

Homeschooling was a major period in our lives. With six kids, it took many years to educate them all before sending them out into the world. The basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic were accompanied with Bible teaching – something we held in the highest regard in our family. The curriculums we used were heavy on Bible verse and poetry memorization. We learned it was like a “muscle” that needed to be used to be made strong. I remember working in AWANA for the first time with the Cubbies (3 – 5 year olds) and being absolutely amazed at how those little minds could memorize Scripture! For myself, the Bible memorization I did for Sunday school and VBS are the verses that I remember best now as an adult. Our kids all did very well with memorization. Perhaps the winner in our family was our daughter Julia. She excelled in her Bible memorization and poetry, and then there was the year she decided to memorize the whole poem of, “The Lady of Shallot!” It has nineteen stanzas! I think we recorded it somewhere…

All that to say, we were moved and thrilled to see our kids taking up that tradition with their own children. Getting to spend time with them and share in their evening bedtime devotions with their kids was so special. Raising them up with God’s Word, teaching and singing the old hymns together (something we did as well!), and praying together as a family. Julia’s family are working on memorizing the book of 2 Peter together. Julia, our champion memorizer, is showing by example and working on memorizing the whole book. They were on chapter 1, and each evening the children (ages 6, 4, and 2) were reciting the portions they were working on. All of them would recite word perfect (the 2 year old with prompts – he wasn’t going to be left behind!), verses 5 – 8. To hear our 4 year old grandson Silas, recite those verses with enthusiasm and emphasis, just moved my heart so much! His older sister would recite that passage and another one of several verses that she was trying to perfect. What a time to lift up praise to our wonderful Lord and Creator! We are so thankful for the time we were able to spend with all of the families for five weeks in June and July.

May

Ron, Sarah and I boarded the plane in Quito, Ecuador, Sunday night, May 17th for our flight to Spokane, Washington. Our flights were uneventful and we arrived before noon. We spent 3 1/2 very full days with our kids in the area and then Ron and I headed south to Albany, OR. We stayed with my (Esther’s) siblings while in the area, but also visited many longtime friends and supporters and gave a ministry update in two of our supporting churches in the area. We had a wonderful time with folks and our church families.

Below are just a few of the many folks we visited with

June

Next, we headed up to the Bellingham, Washington area where another of our churches are located. These folks are always so warm and welcoming and we enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know many of the new folks that started attending. They are a sweet growing congregation – Bellingham Bible Chapel – and we always treasure our time with them!

They gifted us with several days rest in Leavenworth, Washington! It was a perfect time to unwind after all the travel and social time, and spend some quiet time with the Lord. We enjoyed exploring the area and enjoying God’s beautiful creation.

We then headed back to Spokane to spend time with three of our kids and their families. We had some special birthday parties, Father’s Day, and a new grandchild during this month! Our family welcomed William Valentin shortly after his due date. Esther was able to attend the birth and meeting little William was so special!

July

July brought some family time celebrating our country the United States’ 250th birthday! Probably the best show we had was on July 3rd in the little town of Ritzville, Washington. They had the best celebration with a town fair in the city park with free hotdogs, followed by a parade at twilight down the main street, and then they pulled out all the stops for their firework show! It was definitely “small town America” in all it’s glory!

Ethan’s family, Ron and I then headed over to Bozeman, Montana, where we shared a house with Aaron’s family (who currently live in North Dakota) and we enjoyed some sweet family time together. It was Ron’s and Ethan’s family’s first time to meet little Robbie, Aaron and Heather’s little guy. We spent some time exploring the area, both in town and hiking a beautiful trail…and we spent time in the hot springs!

Time went too fast the last weeks before we flew out of Spokane and back to Quito again on July 22nd. The goodbyes are always the hardest with our beloved kids, their spouses, and the grandchildren that grow up so quickly.

August

It’s hard to believe we are already in August. Our calendar is filling fast for the last months of this year and already filling in the early months for 2027.

This week we are hosting one of our Cofan Bible translation team members, Martin, and his son. Ron and they have been working about 8 hours a day ironing out some more trouble spots in the translation in the book of Exodus. Martin and his son head back to the jungle today.

Next week, August 10th – 15th, Ron plans to head to the jungle with SIL’s Larry Salay for a week of training of the guys on the Cofan Old Testament translation team. Pray for their travels and time down there to be fruitful. The project continues to move ahead slowly, but we are hoping with the training, time, and practice, the pace should start picking up!

Ron has a Father-Son Campout planned for later this month and Sarah returns the end of August! Then our real schedule begins with Bible studies, Sunday school, youth group, Homeschool Teen Fellowship and more!

On the calendar coming up in September is the next Cofan Church Leader’s Training, the 14th – 18th. It will be held in Dureno and the subject with be “The Christian Family.”

The beginning of November is our annual English Teen Retreat with our church, and we appreciate prayer for that.

Prayer Requests:

• for the busy schedule in the coming months, to use our time wisely for the Lord
• for Aurelio, a Cofan informant on the translation team that has been diagnosed with cancer
• for Maribel, a 4 year old from Dureno, that is struggling with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis
• for the SIL workshop, Aug. 10th – 15th in Dureno with the Cofan translation team
• for health and strength for Ron, Esther and Sarah

Thank you for your prayers! They are so very important in the work here in Ecuador.

Serving the Lord,

Ron and Esther