Welcome to the world, Rafaela!

Cute Baby Rafa!

The colorful baby’s room :)

The proud mother and her girls!

Last Thursday, we visited our spanish teacher, who just gave birth to a cute baby girl! It was a difficult birth that lasted 2 days.. wooh! (Salute to mothers who go through so much to bring us to the world!!) The baby’s name is Rafaela, which means, God’s medicine. What a nice name. Baby Rafa was just 4 days old when we visited her, but quite a big baby for 4 days!

Congratulations to our spanish teacher, Esthela, and welcome to the world, baby Rafa! May God bless you as you grow up to be a blessing, as your name suggests!

May visit to Fundación Remar

Last Saturday, we went to Fundación Remar for our monthly visit. This month, the theme was Responsibility. We played tongue twisters (spanish ones) for warm up and started with a play about an irresponsible doctor. The kids had fun being pasted with curitos (handyplast) and acting as patients or nurses. Luis was the irresponsible doctor who told the kids that their injuries were nothing serious, and they could get another one on the other hand if they wanted to. haha..

We taught them some simple sentences in English and the kids learnt about what a responsible student, child and friend should do. I think the lesson was a little difficult, “responsible” is quite hard for them to pronounce. But anyhow, I think they learnt a little and enjoyed themselves. At the end, we served cake and juice as a mini celebration of Children’s Day for them. Children’s Day falls on 1 June in Ecuador.

We spoke to Maria, the director of Remar and she mentioned that we are the only group that is still visiting Remar and teaching the kids regularly. She is very thankful for us and appreciated our work there, sharing that we are also one of the few groups who come prepared and know what we can do with the kids. Thank God for using us to bless them this way!
Oh yes, praise God too, because the kids received 2 television donations the last 2 months! Their other TV was almost broken because when they had only 1, the children would carry the TV around.. very dangerous. A sad news, however, was that due to the economic crisis, the children’s home is no longer receiving financial support and thus faces difficulties now. We learnt that Maria, the director who is Peruvian, is managing the home without a salary and lives on what the children they too live on. I was really touched when I heard that… another unsung hero among our midst, living the life of love, demonstrated by Jesus and Mother Theresa. We’ll keep the prayers and Maria too, in our prayers and continue to do our best for the children there. In our short few monthly sessions, I’ve seen some of the children grow, learn, and we’ve really been blessed as we bless them. Praise God

Trabalenguas.. tongue-twisterssss…

Doctor Luis and Nurse Katty

Betty caring for a little baby girl :)

Me teaching English

Children listening during class

Katty distributing the cake

Luis and some kids while waiting for cake!

Luis and me, serving drinks

Primer Culto 24 May 2009!

Here are pics of our very blessed first service held in our new church on the 24 May 2009!

It was a rather long service, with extended praise and worship (6 songs before and 2 praise at the end! Didn’t get to take pics.. :p) and food (each family brought something to share!), but everyone was contented and enjoyed themselves, and we thank God muchissimo for his grace in helping us to get the place ready! Thank God for all the members who helped out to clean, paint, fix the place the past 1.5mths. It has been a hectic and tiring time, but we’re glad to be part of the team to construct our house of God.

ST preached on the how we can build a strong church – A Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission builds a Great Church! A well preached sermon, convicted and full of energy.

Thanksgiving points:
1) God’s amazing provision and grace throughout the preparation!
2) Enthusiastic and committed members who helped during the whole 1.5 months and are still helping to fix up more things!
3) Help from even visitors, such as David who brought his whole sound/events team – Niniaqui, Jimmy, Ricky, Juan Gabriel, to join us during our first prayer meet and do up professional sound system for our first service.
4) And they in turn brought their families to our first service!! David also invited other friends along! Starbursting amen!
5) Other visitors and members who came back to visit us and join us after some time away!
6) We had 3 new babies at the service and at least 3 first time visitors!

Jesus, help us to keep on following you and build a strong and biblical church that is beautiful in our character, firm in our faith, joyful in serving and loves you and others wholeheartedly!

Our reception area :)

Decorations by Sabrina and Claudia!

Our kids helping to do up balloons b4 the svc!

another work by Nilda for the kids’ room!

Inside the Hopekids room, still missing some paintings but almost there! :)

Nilda’s handiwork – our Hombre bathrm sign!

Nilda’s nimble hands- Mujeres bathrm sign!

Daniel and Axcell getting ready before the service

Tim and Kat preaching the sermon

Listening attentively to the sermon

HopeKids hard at work!

Our kitchen area!!

Pple enjoying food aft svc

Daniel on his friend’s drumset.

Niniaqui and his daughter!

Champions League Final

Messi played really well and Barcelona won the game 2-0 over Man United. Messi scored the second goal and nailed the victory. Below is the video of the goals:

Susan Boyle does it again!

Another superb performance from Susan Boyle in the Britain’s Got Talent semi-final. She is very real and really good. She is now through to the final. Below is the video:

Sneak Preview of Children’s Rm 1

The children’s room 1 is looking greater, prettier and cuter by the day!

Here’s a sneak preview of what we’ve been doing!

Lucy delicately painting the Bug

Katty at work on the tortoise

Carol painting Noah’s Ark

Alejo and Lucy with their finished Bug :)

Emily and Katty and their Tortuga

Me and my completed Bee! :)

Prayer meet before the first service

We had a very blessed prayer meet at our new church place before the first service this Sunday. One of our visitors, David owns an events company and he brought four of his workers to help us set up our church. They were very professional and brought mixer, amplifiers and lights to set up the whole place for free. All of them joined us for the prayer meet too. We had a good time of prayer for our church and celebrated one of his workers, Jimmy’s birthday together. One of his other workers, Ricky received Christ during the prayer meet too. After the prayer meet, David told us that he will leave his equipments for us to use for Sunday too. Thank God for his generosity.

Below are some photos of us:

Praying for each other

Our band in action!

Leading the prayer meet…

Our birthday boy, Jimmy

Our mixer

Playing guitar and having fun after the prayer meet.

The cross on our floor

PR and the person laying the tiles designed an artistic cross on the floor with the tiles. It is beautiful and the people in our church love it. We thought the laying of the tiles will take 2 days but it took only 1 day. Thank God for answered prayers on speedy renovation. The person laying the tiles did an excellent job too! Below are a few photos of the floor before and after laying the tiles:

Daniel painted this before the tiles were laid!

Katy wrote this verse

After laying the tiles…. the beautiful cross!

Things yet to be done in new church place…

Tomorrow tiles are going to be laid in the new church place. We are having a prayer meet in the new church place this Friday night before having our first service this Sunday. Some of the things to be done before the first service starts are as below:

1. Decoration of the children’s room
2. Touch up of painting in the main hall
3. Putting blinds over the windows
4. Hang a banner outside our church
5. Buy a table for the kitchen
6. Prepare the stage
7. Design graffiti on the wall of my office
8. Move the music instruments to the new church place

Do pray for us that the things above will be done smoothly and quickly, and we will have a wonderful first service on the 24 May. Thank God for Sabrina and Claudia who design the invites for our first service. We are expecting more growth in the new church place. Do keep us in your prayers.

Feeding my soul

After preaching another sermon and a long day at the new church place, we returned home feeling drained physically. I played my favorite game “Crazy Taxi” on facebook and watched a few video clips on Britain’s Got Talent 2009 through YouTube.

I spent some time feeding my soul by listening to Joel Osteen’s sermon in his website. It is encouraging to see him preach in Yankee Stadium and his message was about stepping into our destiny. You can watch his services and sermon in the link below:

http://www.joelosteen.com/Broadcast/VideoStreaming/Pages/VideoStreaming.aspx#