To our dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,

 

Today marks 6 months since we arrived in this beautiful country!! We have had the blessing of 3 incredible evenings with clear sunsets behind the mountain (volcano) across the valley from our house. Wow! We are sure glad that God never gets tired of providing such blessings.

 

We celebrated Mother’s Day yesterday along with all of you. We send God’s blessing and joy to all the moms out there-we pray you saw His face brightly. It was a special day at out church. The kids had a drama and then they and the church gave all 28 moms roses, candy and cookies. The Bishop of the Methodist Church of Bolivia gave the message from Luke 5 about the calling of the disciples and making them and us ‘fishers of men’.  There are many Christian organizations with regional offices here in Quito so we frequently have several nations represented on Sunday mornings. This helps us remember that God’s army is working and continues to prepare to reach the nations, we are not alone in this fight. The Great Commission will be completed if we work together to not only preach but also to teach.

 

Last Sunday at church we presented a puppet show on the same scripture; Luke 5 ; 1-11.  I guess I need to back up a week to give you a peek into the life of the church in Ecuador. May 1-4 was a pastor and lay leader training event. The trainer, Alicia Paredes of Peru is the advocate for children and adolescents for CIEMAL (Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches of Latin America). By noon the first day about 40 of us were sewing puppets by hand. Imagine your pastor sewing!!! It was a wonderful experience to have all 15 pastors and their leaders gathered to work and learn together to reach kids. We had some invaluable time to minister and get to know our church leaders. We learned techniques with puppets and drama as we worked in groups to perform and teach. We learned about the great need to respond to the reality of abuse to children in Latin America. We each left with a new urgency and cry of God to rescue these children. We also left with tools to apply and use to offer the hope of Jesus Christ. (see photo)

 

The work in Guayllabamba which has been named Puerta de Esparanza (Door of Hope) continues to progress much slower than the weeds grow. Yikes-everything grows when it rains!!! We hope to get a handle on all the unwanted greenery and bugs as the rains stop and we face the challenge of setting up an irrigation system.  We had the April pastor’s meeting at the property to consecrate the land for God’s glory and share a bit of the vision and purpose with them. (see photo)  We plan to finish our first building project this week. Tim and Kevin are out buying plywood, roofing and a toilet seat to finish our outhouse—finally, no more wondering what bugs may bight you in parts which are temporarily exposed.

 

Our apartment will soon be overrun by plants which are seedlings now. We are waiting for the heavy rains to slow or time and money to build temporary covers so we can plant 40+ tomato plants, watermelon, squash and pepper plants as well as almost 100 flower plants which are just now sprouting. It is a new experience to transplant indoors in the bathroom. We have to climb around the plants and the empty bee hives boxes to get to the window in the office.

 

Please pray for our honey project-we have had a setback and are attempting to recover. One thing we are doing is supplementing the bees with bee candy which I need to make a few times a week. Sound simple enough but the 2 mile high altitude does weird things in baking and candymaking. I am learning how to make adjustments but it is a learning process which is inexact; what works today may not work tomorrow.

 

Kevin asks for continued prayer for the youth. Since the retreat last month we have 2 new leaders and a more consistent base of young people which meet every Sat. afternoon now.  At the retreat I, Daina, taught on the power of words, ours and God’s. We saw and felt God’s presence as we got to know 17 very active young people. It was a blessing for all. Pray for God to prepare the young leadership to guide others as they themselves learn to walk with God.

 

Thank you again and know that we do pray for you and your ministry which keeps our ministry alive. Continue to be brave and courageous in view of God’s mercy and love. God has a plan for YOU!         

We love you, Tim, Daina and Kevin

 

 

Tim and Daina Datwyler

Missionaries to Ecuador with The Mission Society

(706)534-0308

NOTE NEW Email datfam4ecuador@gmail.com