Dear ones,
We hope you are well, and holding on to our Eternal Hope. Thanks for prayers and help as well as a due to a grant we were able to print 24,000 2 and 3 page tracts and booklets ( see photos 1,2 and 3) aimed at vulnerable sectors in and around Quito and nearby provinces. For our RESCUING VALUES PROJECT, 13,500 of these have been dispatched to the head prison office in Quito (see photos 4, 5 and 6). Due to tight security issues concerning the prisons in Ecuador, we are unfortunately not allowed access to the inmates. We are now procuring personal hygiene articles for the inmates.
Our city distribution also continues (see photos 7 to 12) in the street, to students outside the university, in the bus station etc.
We are grateful to be able to have the strength, energy, albeit slowed down, and provision to continue with this ministry. Gonzalo and I also make visitations to individuals to help in their discipleship growth as well via WhatsApp bible classes.
We appreciate your prayers for our health and endurance as well as continued provision. (I, Jenny, have had a bout of bronchitis, the coughing of which I am over but have been left somewhat lacking in pizzazz!)
Again, we are so very appreciative of your help.
Continued is a very interesting and thought provoking article on unconditional Love..no matter what the appearance!
Love Gonzalo and Jenny
WHAT DOES LOVE LOOK LIKE?
His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans, and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant, kind of esoteric and very, very bright. He became a Christian while attending college.
Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students, but are not sure how to go about it.
One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. … The service has already started, and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat. The church is completely packed, and he can’t find a seat.
By now, people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything. Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet. (Although perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, trust me, this had never happened in this church before!) Now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick.
About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill. The deacon is in his eighties, and has silver-gray hair, and wears a three-piece suit. He is a godly man, very elegant, very dignified, and very courtly.
He walks with a cane, and as he begins to move toward this boy, everyone is pondering that you can’t fault him for what he’s about to do. How can you anticipate a man of his age and his upbringing to comprehend some college kid on the floor? It takes quite a while for the man to approach the boy. The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man’s cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can’t even hear anyone breathing. The minister can’t preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do.
And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships with him so he won’t be alone. Everyone chokes up with emotion. When the minister regains composure, he says, “What I’m about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.”—Rebecca Manley Pippert
