Going for church camp today!

We are finally going for our church camp today! Thanks for praying with us. Most of our families are healed already except for one family. Do continue to pray with us that we will experience the presence of God and the people will get to know one another more during the church camp.

Fiestas de Quito

6 Dec is Foundation Day of Quito. Quitenians celebrate it in various ways.

1)The chiva, an open-top truck/mini-bus. People buy a ticket to get on it and drink and dance. There’s usually a band on top playing tipical Quito music – San Juanita. ST and I went on the free chiva trip organized by our language institute. Our chiva was rather modern… instead of having the live band playing Quitenian music, because all of us were English teachers, our chiva had a DJ playing English and Spanish pop, reggaeton, disco music. Basically, you get on a chiva, you get a whistle to blow and make noise as the chiva goes on a tour around town, you dance, and you drink. Our chiva served us free canelazo, which is a warm winter drink. Our canelazo wasn’t very strongly alcoholic, thankfully. And it was a very welcome drink in the cold Quito weather.

2) Parades galore. Enough said.

3) Corrida de Toros aka Bullfight aka Feria de Quito (as named by the sponsors). ST and I got tickets to go experience it for ourselves as the retreat was postponed at the last minute. Quite an experience. The first matador was almost killed by the bull and had to be rescued by the banderilleros. Someone in the audience shouted something that was quite anti-bullfight (like a protestor against cruelty to animals) and the audience arose and rallied for the police to throw him out of the plaza. Because the first matador was injured, the second Ecuadorian matador had to help him out with his bull and ended up doing 3.5 rounds of bullfight that day… I felt sorry for the bulls and the matador. There was also one time where the audience chanted “Indulta! Indulta!” because they felt the bull was a really good bull and deserved to be preserved. (meaning taken out of the ring, life saved and brought away to become a breeding bull.) However, the judges didn’t approve the indulta in the end.

The one thing both ST and I enjoyed was the Rejoneador (the matador on a horse). He was really good. Fast, accurate and it was really beautiful watching the horses dance to the music and taunt the bull.

We left the bullfight ring (Plaza de Toros aka Jesús del Gran Poder, Jesus of Great Power) with mixed feelings. On one hand we were glad to have the opportunity to experience this different part of Spanish culture. We could in a certain way see that it was an art, an agile ability on the part of the matador and rejoneador. We enjoyed it culturally. Yet, it was sad and a rather cruel act. Watching and having the strong, valient bulls being killed, which is really a torture when the matadors don’t do the kill skilfully.

Our brightly colored chiva

Our free chiva goodies – whistle and a cup

Pple dancing in the chiva

our colleagues – Chiva Dance King and Queen

A parade that we saw

Military band in the parade

Us with our hats

Colorful bull models outside the ring

Selling hats outside the plaza

Queuing to get into the ring

The crowd all with hats!

First, the banderrilleros to tire/distract the bull

Then the picadores on bilndfolded and armored horses

Picador dangerously doing his stunt

The matador. Shout “Ole!” each time the bull passes!

Rejoneador arousing the bull with his stick

Taunting the bull with his hat

Bull chasing the horse!

Postpone of church camp

We have postponed our church camp to next weekend because many of our families are sick now. Do pray along with us that God will heal them so that all the families can join us for the church camp.

The good news is that PR and I have more time to rest and plan more details for the church camp. We also get a chance to experience the fiesta of Quito during this weekend. 6th of December is the foundation day of Quito so there are many parties on the street now. It is going to be an eye opener for us as it is our first time here in Quito during this celebration. Last year, we had our church camp in the beach during this holiday.

Tomorrow, PR and I are going to watch the bullfight in the stadium for the first time. This is part of the fiesta of Quito too. Hope that we will like it.

Prayer Request

Dear all who are reading,

As mentioned in the previous post, we are leaving for our Annual Retreat tomorrow. We’re all very excited.

However, today, we received news that many of our members and/or their family members are sick. There’s a wave of flu, fever, cough, laryngitis or sorethroat going around in Quito it seems. Please pray with us for healing and protection and that everyone will be able to join us at the retreat without any hiccups. Thank you very much!

Busy Preparations for our Annual Retreat!

This is the last week before our annual church retreat which will take place from 4th to 6th December (leaving on night of 3rd Dec)!
We’re all very excited about it and this week is going to be a mad rush for all of us to prepare for the retreat.

ST is busying preparing the teachings, I’ve been busy preparing the children’s church materials and am going to hand it over to the main teachers in charge tomorrow. We’ve been going through the devotions with our team and everyone who is coming to the retreat will be involved in doing a presentation! We ’stole’ the idea from SG church’s last retreat to have our retreat theme as Heroes this year. Heehee.. and we’re doing something inaugural in Hope Quito retreat- the attendees are put into 4 groups (1 grp consisting of the children) and need to plan, practice and prepare something to present at the start of the retreat. There’ll be prizes for creativity, effort, significance and teamwork! Looking forward to watch their interesting ideas put into place esply since Latinos are very expressive! We’re also planning a ’secret’ mass dance item.. haha.. that should be very interesting too.

On top of this, we’re also planning ahead into Christmas which is happening very very soon after the retreat. If you are reading this, please pray with us for:

1) Wisdom in preparing teachings; anointed and Spirit-led and impactful teachings and praise and worship sessions
2) Hearts to be prepared to receive the Word of God and put it into practice, growing to become Christ-like heroes.
3) People to get to know each other deeper through the different activities and relationships to grow deeper and stronger. Church to be more united and loving.
4) Effectiveness and faithfulness for everyone preparing for the program, no matter what role. Games, devotions, first-aid, praise and worship, children’s church, participants.. etc.
5) Potential water-baptisees to be convicted and continue to grow in their faith and understanding of obeying and following our Lord!
6) Good weather so that our outdoor games will not be affected and people can enjoy themselves at the beach!
7) Everyone to grow and love the Lord more and commit themselves to Him more and enjoy themselves along the way.
8 ) Safe journey to and from and during the whole retreat, for the people and also our belongings.

Thanks!!

20,000 hits

We exceeded 20,000 hits on our blog after about 1 year and 2 months.

We concluded that people are interested in church planting life overseas if we update our blog regularly and it is a good way to stay connected with our family/friends in Singapore. Our short and regular updates on blog, facebook and twitter have helped us to maintain good communication with our church in Singapore too. On hindsight, it is really worthwhile to devote 10-15 minutes to do updates every few days. Thank God for the internet world. PR and I have really benefited from the increased communication. Our friends in Singapore know what is happening in our lives and can pray for us more specifically. We also want to stay accountable in what we are doing in Ecuador. And it turns out that people are interested to read what is happening here and we have quite a number of faithful followers.

This was a previous post on our blog:

http://stprho.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/top-100-fastest-growing-wordpress-blog-in-the-world/

New faces through soccer event

We watched the final of the Copa Sudamerica in church together just now. The match was between an Ecuador club, Liga and Brazil club, Fluminense. The people in Quito were very excited because Liga is a soccer club from Quito and this championship is very important to them. Luis suggested to me that we can screen the match live in church and invite people to come. We wrote a simple paper that says “Match shown in huge screen – Free!” and pasted it outside the church before the match started. Amazingly, there were quite a number of new people who came to join us. One family which visited us for the first time even said that they will come for our Sunday services after watching the soccer match. Looks like we should paste posters outside the church a few days before we screen movies or live soccer matches next time.

We enjoyed the match too as Liga won Fluminense 5-1. We got a shock when Fluminense scored after 40 seconds. But thank God Liga played very well and scored 5 goals in the next 90 minutes. Below is the video of the goals of the match:

More giving in church

Thank God that people have become more giving in church.

More people have started tithing and giving recently. Our church rent which is already very reasonable has dropped further because our landlady who is a soon-to-become member decided to tithe too. We are thinking to buy a big Christmas tree to decorate the church and a new visitor, Lalita, donated a big Christmas tree to us last week. This saves us quite a lot of money too. Thank God for many of our people who gave generously and joyfully though they are not rich.

With a decrease in church rent and increase in tithing/offering, it looks very possible to be self-sufficient as a church soon. Do continue to pray for us that we continue to grow in giving and serving in our church.

Our Spanish teacher received Christ!

After one year of lessons with our Spanish teacher, Esthela, she received Christ into her heart today! She was asking me for some advice for her life and mentioned about wanting to receive forgiveness in her life so that she can forgive others. I took this opportunity to challenge her to receive Christ into her life and she said yes! I prayed in English and Peiru translated to Spanish, and Esthela repeated after her.

It all happened within an hour of Spanish lesson. I think God is teaching me that He can use us to do His work in seemingly normal circumstances.

Blackout again…

We had a blackout tonight again. This time PR and I went out to catch a movie. There were many things to plan but I think God wanted us to take a break. We cannot do much planning in the darkness without electricity so we decided to go to to places where there are still light.

We did some reading in a Mac nearby before catching Michael Jackson’s “This is it” in cinema. The dancing and singing in the movie were great. We enjoyed the movie and the few hours of rest.