The Pioneer Meeting

In February we had our Circuit Overseer Visit and Pioneer Meeting.  The Circuit Overseer also had a substitute CO and they happen to have been serving here from Oregon, Mark and Tess Lange.  We had the privilege of having them stay with us and really enjoyed getting to know them and hearing about their experiences of serving in Ecuador.  I have to admit it was also nice to get a ride to all of the meetings, in fact we got so used to it we were late to every meeting for the next two weeks!!!
In our congregation we have about 16 pioneers and a couple of regular auxiliary pioneers, and about 50 publishers total! During the pioneer meeting it started to rain so hard that we could not hear Mark talking! We all had to move our chairs as close as possible to the stage so we could hear him.

Mark & Tess are in the back standing.

Most of our pioneers are single and have been in the truth about 2-3 years.

We have such an awesome group pioneering, we all really have a good time together and to see the sacrifices our younger brothers and sisters make to be out in the ministry full time is really amazing! Many of them have given up higher education and work as fishermen making next to nothing for a daily wage and yet all of them have such a huge smile on their face every day!

Sunsets in Puerto Cayo

I have to show everyone just how beautiful it can be when the sun is setting down here.

The Zone Visit

The Puerto Cayo Congregation was invited to the zone visit in Guayaquil, which was held in an open air soccer stadium, and about 40,000 people were in attendance.  We left our house at 4:45am to catch a bus in the town center at 5am.  The whole congregation hired a bus to take us to Guayaquil which is about 3hours away.  It was so hot and humid at the stadium because it had rained the day before, yet you have to give credit to how good the kids were during the program.  Ok I have to admit that the adults need some credit for this one too, because even with an umbrella you were still dripping in sweat from the heat and humidity!
All in all it was pretty encouraging to spend time with our brothers and sisters enjoying their friendship and knowing that for many paying the few dollars for each person in their family to take a bus to Guayaquil was a huge expense for them.  Yet they viewed this spiritual privilege as something they did not want to miss.

The stadium.

A sea of umbrellas!

Alion and Kevin.

Worn out from the long day!

Preaching in Galan

Preaching in Galan, can be a little bit of an adventure and at the same time can be quite a task on any normal day.  That is if it's a normal day of sun and dry weather....  If this is the case you are walking for about 5 or 6 miles on trails and dusty dirt roads only to find a few homes,a school, some pigs and maybe a few people.  Although a lot of walking is required there are a few very interested people including the school teacher, who will usually take time out of her day to stop and talk with us.
On one particular morning the group decided to go to Galan for preaching, everyone expected it to be a little bit muddy, because of all of the rain that we had been having.  But I don't think anyone really expected it to be quite as wet as the pictures below show!

On the trail to Galan.

 

 

Mark helping Zoe across the river, there were about  12 river crossings that morning.

Brian and Zeph

Notice where the water is on Zeph, he's wearing the hat!

Zeph and Zoe fell all the way in!

Puerto Cayo

We finally have internet! So we just wanted to get everyone caught up on where we have been living and all of the experiences we've had in the last few weeks.
Right now we are living in a small coastal town named Puerto Cayo, which is an hour south of Manta the largest beach town in Ecuador.  Puerto Cayo at one time was a bustling vacation town, but now most of the vacation homes sit empty and it appears to be a ghost town until the holiday season.  (which unfortunately is on it's way)

The congregation in Cayo has about 40-50 publishers, although the meeting attendance is higher due to all of the bible studies and children.  There are about 15 pioneers, of which 7 of them are from other countries. The territory ranges from small dusty beach towns, a few lush villages in the hills and some really dry "wild west" towns. ( Seriously you are expecting tumbleweeds at any moment!)  Most people here are interested in the bible and are more than willing to listen to us stutter through our presentation in Spanish.  Chad and I are both looking forward to being able to speak Spanish more fluently, to be able to have a more in depth conversation with people at the door would be wonderful.  That's the hardest part is that you have people who want to listen to you but, you only have a handful of words you can use to talk with them.  Body language and charades comes in real handy!
Here are a few experiences from our days in the ministry.

People in Puerto Cayo are so interested in the Bible they can't wait to get baptized, so why wait?? We just throw them in the ocean!

Taking their victim into the ocean!

This is actually a morning in service where we finished the territory early and everyone decided to have a little fun.  The fun was not complete until everyone had been thrown into the water!  Well that is everyone but those who carry electronic devices that can not get wet! Yes technology was my savior on this one! The brothers and sisters here always seem to be laughing at even the simplest things and they love to joke. (As you can tell!)

And of course Zephaniah has made some new buddies down here. For some reason he always likes to hang out with the teenagers or "young adults!"  One of new friends is named Gustavo who loves to tease and joke and Zeph of course plays right into this. 

Zephaniah and Gustavo

Of course the morning in service was not complete without Zephaniah's baptism!

We recently went to a town about half an hour from where we are living to help out in their territory.  The town is called Jipijopa, (remember the J's are pronounced as H's) and there are a few congregations there including sign language.  The territory we worked though has a group but no actual congregation, so the group has a difficult time covering their territory because of how large it is and the lack of vehicles to take in the ministry.  A couple of brothers in our congregation have trucks, so we meet with the group in Jipijopa, everyone piles into the back of the truck and heads out to the territory.
The first time we did this, we were totally covered in dust by the end of the day and a little sunburned! The territory is very dry and there is not a lot of shade, so riding in the back of a truck down long dusty roads, you can imagine how you look at the end of the day.

On our way to the territory.

One of the amazing things about this territory is that a lot of it has not been covered in years.  During the 70's there was a large congregation where the group now meets, but over the years people moved to the city for work, became inactive or died.  The main road through most of the territory used to be a major road to the largest city in Ecuador, which is Guyaquil.  Now that dusty, rocky road is still dusty and rocky but there are all of these scattered towns that have just been forgotten about because the new highway bypasses them.

Francesca preaching to a woman.

What I'm getting at is there are areas in the territory that have not had witnesses come to their door in over 3years!  One such family we talked to was really excited to see us, they wanted to know where the Kingdom Hall was and when the meetings were. What is sad is that you get these great calls or areas with a lot of interest and it might be awhile before anyone can get back to them.

Taking a break from the heat.  

What's amazing to is that many of the brothers and sisters in the truth here have been baptized for only 1 or 2 years and a good majority of them are pioneering.  They are so zealous in the ministry, it's very encouraging.

The truck was completely full-23 people in all.

When you go to the door here it's a little different than at home.  Most of the time you do not knock on the door.  You stand in front of the house or at the gate and yell out, "Hola! Buenas Dias!" or
"Hola! Senoooorah!"  When the householder comes out you ask for permission to enter the gate or if they are occupied, before you begin your presentation.
Most of the territory is walking territory, in fact one of our territories "Galan" is about a 4-5 hour walk.  The truck drops you off at the top of a hill in a lush tropical area and you walk about 4miles up and down hills, past cows, and burrows over streams to a few houses that cars can not get to.  There is also a little brick school house in Galan, that has about 10 students, and the teacher is very receptive.

Chad in Galan.

On Chad's morning in Galan they had a couple of good stream crossings, only one sister Wendy didn't have such a good crossing.

Wendy before she fell in!

Besides all of the encouraging experiences and association you get in service Jehovah provides many other fruitages! One long hot morning after walking in the ministry we stopped by a brother's house to say, "hello" to his unbelieving mother.  The brother who we were with Roberto, has lots of mangos, coconuts and other unidentified fruits growing in their yard.  Let's just say our much needed "coffee break" was coconut water, mango and some sort of nut that comes from a giant brown pod.  It was delicious!!

MMMmmm fresh coco water!

Maria enjoying her coconut!

This fruit has some sort of nut in it. 

One morning we were finishing our territory and the last stop just happened to be a watermelon patch! The watermelon is delicious here and you can pick up a giant melon for only $1.50!  As you can tell in the pictures, everyone was pretty happy about that!

Mark really likes watermelon!

That's some melons!

And last but not least here is the view from our house!

The street we live on.

We live in the bottom of this house.

The beach in Cayo.

The fishing boats. 

Welcome to Gringolandia!

Yes! Ecuador comes complete with it's own Gringolandia! There is an area in Cotachachi where some gringos have bought property and divided it up so there is a whole neighborhood with just brothers and sisters.  The main family Linda and her husband Tom have a beautiful home complete with this amazing garden.  If you are a gardener you will not believe how big things grow down here.  The soil is very fertile because of all of the volcanic activity, so you wind up with beets bigger than your head and carrots the size of your arm!

Samantha and Linda in Linda's garden

A homestyle pumpkin

Onions

Chad with a giant beet!

This is the "Taxo" fruit.

Gringolandia!

Linda gave us a tour of her garden while we were visiting them and sent us home with a few treats.  Chad and I tried a new fruit, it's called Taxo. Taxo grows on a vine and is similar to the color of an apricot, but when you open it up inside it has all of these seeds covered in an orange gel kind of like a pomegranate seed.  The gel taste pretty sweet but the seeds are bitter.  We also got a beautiful pumpkin, giant beets and zucchini.