Preaching in Spanish

I am going to preach my first sermon in Spanish next Sunday on 13 Sep. There is a mixture of feelings like fear, anticipation and excitement. I have set a number of goals at the beginning of this year and one of them is to be able to preach in Spanish by Sep this year. I am glad I am still keeping to all my goals I have set during the first CG this year. One thing that certainly helps is to paste all my goals on my desk. It certainly serves as a good reminder everyday. By the grace of God, I will be able to accomplish all my goals in 2009.

I believe that preaching in Spanish is no easy task so I have started reading my sermon and practising on my own. I will also practise the sermon with my Spanish teacher this Thursday and next week. Thank God that my Spanish teacher started visiting our church last Sunday. She does not really like singing but she enjoyed the sermon. Thank God for my Spanish teacher. She has become a good friend of ours.

PR and I will be visiting Singapore at the end of Sep. We are currently busy planning for the church retreat in Dec and many other things. Do pray for us that God will lead and show us in our planning. Also pray for our people in church to be more involved and committed in the various ministries. Of course pray for my preaching in Spanish next Sunday too. Pray that God will use me to minister in Spanish. Thanks for praying for us.

Inspiring 78-year-old brother

God sent us a 78 yr-old brother, Vicente (from the church opposite ours) who visited us last Sunday and in CG. He’s very fervent, and active and passionate to share and teach the WoG. He has known Jesus since he was 17… wow.. so he’s really full of experience. And quite sound in the WoG.

He’s very good-spirited and wants to help us in whatever way he can, including with the adolescents who are out-growing (as in growing too old for) the children’s ministry. He is well-versed in the WoG and he told us that he knew the theme of the caregroup was Worship so he did his own study before coming so he could come share!

And he is REALLY an encouragement for us personally too! 78 yrs old and so passionate and fervent for God! The oldest in our church now and likely the most passionate. Hahaha….! He came on time for service (wow!) and agrees and says “Amen!” during the sermon and he dances and claps with us during praise and worship! woohoo~ What an example!

He told us that he likes our church and finds it very interesting that people in our church stay back after service and CG to chat and build friendship because in most other churches he knows, they just go straight home after the sermon.

We were a little worried if we would end up sheep-stealing but he told us that he had asked his pastor if he could come help us in our church and his pastor gave him the go-ahead. (So he attends 2 services on Sunday). Thank God that He has been sending people who are willing to serve, to our church recently! May the Lord continue to add to our numbers, those he calls! Amen!

Powerful conversion story

Here is a powerful conversion story in Hope Quito to share with you all. Last Sunday, I prayed with someone to receive Christ into his heart after church service. His name is Dario. He has been attending our church for 3 months, but he was not a Christian.

During a picnic last Saturday, after playing soccer, Dario told me that he had a dream last Wednesday when God spoke to him to read John 1:34. He had never read the bible on his own before and wondered what God wanted to speak to him from John 1:34. The next day, he went to find a bible to look at what the verse says. When he read the verse, he was shocked because it says: “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.” He was so convicted that Jesus is the Son of God after that and he asked me to say the sinner’s prayer with him together last Sunday after service. It is really amazing how God spoke to His people in His timing. God is really powerful. Let’s continue to pray for God to speak to our loved ones and friends personally even as we share with them.

Atuntaqui Pasarela de Moda Verano

10 de Agosto Travelogue Part 3

Monday 10 Aug 2009

We left early in the morning to join with Luis at the new bus station in the north, Terminal de Carcelen to catch a bus to Atuntaqui (Carolina’s hometown). There is a fashion feria (like an exposition/convention) for summer there during this holidays. Atuntaqui is one of the towns well-known for producing clothes (much knitted wear and cotton wear) made in Ecuador. They have about 2 fashion ferias a year, one for summer and one for winter. Carol’s family is in the clothes business, many of the brothers each have a line of their own and they are participating in the feria.

After the ~2hours ride, we reached Atuntaqui, visited Carol’s family and had a quick breakfast with them before heading to the feria. Many of Carol’s brothers and family live in the coast and they brought one of Luis’ favourite sweet food for him. (See the first picture) I can’t remember what it’s called, but it has a soft texture like jelly and comes wrapped in leaves. It’s made of maize and sugarcane. You eat it with cheese. Interestingly yummy.

We had the opportunity to view one of the catwalk shows (pasarela) at noontime. Felipe, Mateo’s cousin was taking part as a model! Woohoo~! His parents have a store (their line is Katty sportswear) and he is modeling their clothes. After the catwalk, there was a….. doggy-walk! Yes, the dogs were modelling doggy-wear! Very cute! Carolina and family were saying that they should have brought Lucas, the pug along to model with Felipe. Many of the dogs were untrained models… haha.. rather difficult to walk them straight and with rhythm. And very difficult to catch on camara! But I managed a few shots.. *phew*

After a long day at the feria, ST and I had a good fellowship with Luis and Carolina, eating the famous Fritadas de Amazonas (fried pork with toasted corn and morrocho) of Atuntaqui. We ate our fill and took the bus home, dropping by Ibarra for a cool walk on our own. We went home satisfied, with 3 new polo-Ts for ST and a set of new bedsheets and a handbag for me. And a fruitful time of fellowship. PTL!

A sweet food from the coast

A group of professional models dancing to start off the show

Man in a traditional chief costume, not part of catwalk.

Felipe’s first appearance

Handsome Felipe strutting his Spidey wear!

Confidence on the catwalk! Go Felipe!

Other young girls modelling new lines of clothes

Sweet poodle in pink sweater

Woolly doggy in woollen wear

Lightning dog in punk shirt!

Lightning strikes in cute orange suspenders!

Aww, doggie with a cute cap to protect agnst Ecuador’s strong sun rays!

The famous Fritadas from Atuntaqui! yummmy!

Tortillas de papa (Ambateño) accompanying our fritadas

Our handsome hubbies

Bicentenario Celebraciones

10 de Agosto Holidays Travelogue (? – because we didn’t really travel.. haha) Part 2

Sunday 9 August 2009

When Singapore was celebrating its 44th birthday, halfway around the world, Ecuador was celebrating its 200th year of Independence! Woohoo~!

Luis had told us that during this hols, you could go visit all the museums in the Centro FREE! Zero entrance fee. But ST and I were feeling a little lazy that day so we spent the day resting and reading. We also took the chance to visit another church to learn from them. The church is called Dios es Fiel (God is faithful) and they’ve grown to 1000 pax in 3 years! Praise Jesus! The service was pretty good, teachings were sound and we enjoyed receiving the Word of God (our first time in Spanish at an Ecuadorian church) and entering the presence of God! There were quite some things we could learn from them, including preaching and leading praise and worship as they have quite a developed team already. We also took the chance to speak to the pastor and ask for advice. Thank God for the experience and encouragement!

On our way to the church, we caught a little of the celebrations along Av. Rio Amazonas. one of the main streets here in Quito. They had closed off one part of the road and set up stage. The entire day, they had performances. I mean the entire day, from morning till nighttime 9 or 10pm (we could hear them still at night!) and that is quite rare because usually in Quito, we don’t see much night activities. It can be pretty cold and at times dangerous. But 200 years is a great cause for celebration.

There were street stalls and dancers and singers and check out the pics below, there were also some young graffiti artists spray-painting the wall of Eugenio Espejo Building (the govt dept that sponsored the celebration at Av. Amazonas). Beautiful art.

May more and more people in Ecuador seek the Lord and God bless Ecuador towards economic progress, political maturity and purity, strengthened family and marital ties (protect the family unit) and being a better, more stable, joy-filled nation!

Street stalls selling Ecuadorian yummies :)

Bicentenario celebrations banner!

Performances throughout the day!

Artists doing spray-paint graffiti on the wall of a govt dept blding

An artistic grafitti mural

The man with the treaty

Mitad del mundo monument!

Man in traditional tribal dance costume

Women in traditional wear

New appliances

In the past week, 2 of our appliances died on us!

First, the vacuum cleaner. It just simply wouldn’t start up. Hmmmm…

Then 2 days ago when I was ironing clothes, the wire of the iron sparked and CAUGHT FIRE. yes, you read right. A FIRE…. Ok, it wasn’t a fire.. it was a flame, like that of the lighter. Hahaha.. I got a shock (not an electric one) and pulled the plug out.

So, we’ve got ourselves two new appliances in the house. A new vacuum cleaner and a new steam iron. Yay! The old has gone, the new has come. Hehehehe….

The old iron, and the wire that sparked.

Our new Black & Decker steam iron. Simple and economic.

The new China brand (Prevac) vacuum cleaner, in ST’s favourite color.

Termas de Papallacta

10 de Agosto Holidays Travelogue Part 1

Saturday 8 August 2009

We had service on Friday night so those who wanted to travel out for a longer holiday could do so over the long weekend. We booked a one day trip to Papallacta, which is 67km east of Quito (1hr 40mins by car). A small town famous for its Termas or Natural Hot Springs as it lies between two dormant volcanoes.

Our guide, David, speaks good English. Along the way, we noticed that the roads were wet and rocks were rather black or red, unlike when we travel up north to Ibarra or even south to Cotopaxi. On the way back, I asked David about it and understood that this area is basically volcanic AND humid. That explains the colour and fertility of the ground. Lots of green plants though it was about 3400m above sea level. Very good for growing crops. Saw quite a few plantations and haciendas of horses and cows. (Learnt a geography term too – “Páramo” means the area of the mountains between 3000-4000m above sea level. Papallacta lies in the páramo.) I asked also, what happens if the volcanos erupt… and David said simply, “Well, the towns disappear!” Woah…. that would be sad… but thankfully the last time one of these erupted was 200 years ago. Hehe..

David brought us to one of the better hostal/hotel “Termas de Papallacta” to enjoy the pools as the other public pools would be too crowded due to the public holiday. The weather was rather cold when we reached but that made the warmth of the hot spring more than welcome! The natural hot springs are said to have medical qualities due to the temperature and minerals, but I’m not quite sure if that’s really true. Haha, we did find our skin smoother than usual after the soak though! There was, however, quite a list of “warnings” outside the ticket booth, explaining what you should do and shouldn’t do such as how long you should stay in the pool, what to do if you feel dizzy, pregnant ladies ought to seek medical advice etc.

We were the only Chinese or Asian looking people there and quite a number of people looked at us curiously (in a friendly manner, as though they would like to speak to us but weren’t sure if we spoke spanish.) We kept our ‘half-ecuadorian’ identity secret till almost the end of our hour there where we started taking photos and a family from San Goquil asked us some questions. Well, when we replied in Spanish to them, I felt like the others around started paying attention to our conversation. Haha.. We explained that we were not Chinese from China, but from Singapore (unheard-of country), and clarified that we don’t own chifas (chinese restaurants). Shared that we were English and Mandarin teachers and taught them a few simple chinese words. Ecuadorians are quite friendly in general. hehe.

After the hot spring bath, we took a short nature walk with our guide along the river. Quite a number of rivers running around Papallacta. Cool weather to take a nature walk. We enjoyed ourselves, just walking and looking at strange plants and flowers and just simply, the mountains and nature. We saw just a little bit of the snow-capped volcanoes. Would have been awesome to catch it when there were no clouds. But David explained that this area is usually cloudy because it’s more humid than the other mountains.

All in all, beautiful scenery, relaxing hot springs, cool nature walk. And it only took essentially, a morning. Reached back in Quito at 3pm. 4 stars out of 5 for the trip.

Lago Papallacta, where Quito gets most of its water!

Rushing river rapids at entrance of the Termas

Beside the river, it’s brrrr… cold!

Our first sight of the pools

Another thermal hot spring pool!

ST enjoying the warmth of the springs

PR near the source, the hottest part of the pool

PR made a new friend! Taught her some Chinese. hehe

Flowers whose nectar is good for hummingbirds, deadly for man.

Our guide, David at the entrance of the nature walk

David on a nice pebble path

GO!

Little Foot

Bridge over rapid waters

Step up! Fallen tree trunk!

A small hole/shelter of weeds and plants

Another simple and sweet country path.

Narrow path to the cross? :)

‘Dying’ on the cross on top of the ‘hill’, or rather, stone.

The Glorious Cross

Crop of fresh onions just beside the path!

Prayer points

We had a 4 way tele-conference with Brazil, Chile and Peru team last Monday. Thanks to Eelee who wrote down the prayer points. Do pray for the South Americia teams below:

Ecuador
1. Community Project
God to give ST & PR ideas to know how to involve the people and how to use this as an evangelism outlet.
2. ST & PR to be able to train the core team well

Brazil
1. Pray for Tess´ visa application to be successful, that she will be able to find work and to pick up Portugese fast.

Peru
1. Pray for their ¨Hope in action¨ campaign in aug – sept. There will be new growth and the distance will not deter the people from going.
2. Pray for this to be a good outreach tool.

Chile
1. Pray for Monica to be able to get a ¨e-space¨ in universidad de Chile where they can have English projects with the students. Pray that God will lead them to people who have a desire to know and serve Him.

My third successful haircut in Ecuador!

I’ve been thinking about a new look for a few weeks… haha.. because my long hair is getting heavy… but I’ve been contemplating if what I have in mind is really suitable for me and also if I should go back to SG to get it done or do it here in Ecuador.

Yesterday, I finally decided I need to do something about it! I decided to try out a new salon near our house, and got myself a $5 haircut. It’s an intermediary between my long hair and what I was thinking… I’m quite pleased with the haircut! Here’s the new me!

Reunion de Damas Julio 2009

Last Friday, we had our second Men’s Gathering and Ladies’ Gathering. The guys came over to our house to watch the movie “Fireproof” with ST; and the girls, we went over to Claudia’s house (just beside the church heehee..) to make sushi!

We had hoped that more people would turn up but some were unable to due to different commitments at work or home, and lesser people came than expected. But still, we had fun with the people who came and thanks be to God, Angie (Emily’s aunt, who is about our age too) and Diego (Angie’s friend) joined us for the reunions. The two of them visited our church recently and were very enthusiastic about serving and growing with us. We recently prayed for God to send us more musicians and Angie is wow… she can play almost all the instruments we have – the guitar, the keyboard, the drums! Praise God! Pray that they will enjoy and be part of the family of Hope and continue to serve fervently with us!

Here are some pictures of the yummy sushi we made at the Reunion de Damas! Except for Katty, it was the first time for all the rest of us. Really fun! And not that difficult to make. It doesn’t taste like professional sushi yet, but yummy all the same. We made SO MUCH, all of us brought a pack of leftover sushi home. hehe

Angie with her first rollo!

The rollo process. :) Alga/Seaweed on the outside.

Katty rolling the sushi roll.

Using a box to do square sushi instead of rollos :)

Emily proud of our first few creations!

Sushi sanduche especial… very colorful!

Sushi with aguacate on the outside ;) Emily’s first work.

Sushi, sesame on the outside, my first piece!

Different sushi and a cono!

Another one of my attempts, queso and zanahoria on the outside!

Emily thumbs up for our first attempt!

My first bite into homemade sushi!

Carol tucking into the sushi feast!

Claudia, not happy that I disturbed her with photo-taking. Haha.

Look at the spread!