Tuesday, August 5, 2014

FBCBG - Team Ecuador

August 2nd - Saturday
Well, it is 6:30 a.m. and we are finishing the last minute details before we head over to the church and start packing for our trip to Ecuador. Pray for our safety as we travel and pray for the Lord to use us however He desires. May He be brought glory!

We arrived a couple of hours ago. Have already meet Joe of Joe & Jill. Joey & Joanna are her now. We have to be at church at 6 am tomorrow morning. It is going to be a short night. Pray for our energy tomorrow.

August 3rd - Sunday
Well, our first day is almost over. It is 9:30 here as I type this message and we have been to two services at two different churches. Our band did very well and we ministered to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in Ecuador. We are now heading to eat dinner at the pizza place. One of the things I love about being in other countries for their worship services is the community aspect of the body of Christ. To give you an example, in the morning service we worshipped with this beautiful body of believers for THREE hours and this did not include Sunday School. After the service ended, the congregation stayed around to eat a meal together. From what I understand they do this EVERY Sunday. They probably met for another hour just hanging out with each other. Then we went to the service tonight and the service went TWO AND A HALF hours. Now, this service was a special service, so they did have a fellowship time afterwards that lasted for about an hour. The point with these examples is that we could learn a great deal what it means to be a member of the body of Christ. In other words, our real community consists of fellow brothers and sister in Jesus. Why do we so often as the believers in the United States coordinate our service to one hour or just a little more and then get upset if things go longer than the predetermined time? I know that this little rant is a typical topic of a pastor, but it is because the state of the church ought not be so confined to human forms. What if the Spirit of the Lord was just waiting for us to humble ourselves from our structure and norms? What if He was already desires to send a great revival, but because of our corporate tastes for the heavenly things which so shallow that He was unable to pour out His presence in profound was? In other words, what if the church of Americais like the synagogue in Jesus’ home town in which He was unable to do many miracles because of their lack of belief? I would love for every member of FBCBG to attend a mission trip to just have the corporate worship experiences stretch their faith.
Tomorrow we have a concert in the park in the evening. During the day we are passing our flyers all over Tabacundo announcing the event. Pray for the Lord to draw many people to the park. One of the things presently going on in Tabacunda is this festival in which the men wear their chaps, play their guitar, and drink their beer. We will be contending against this festival and we know that our God is greater. So, pray for the Lord to demonstrate His great power tomorrow night. It is now late, and I am very very tired right now, so I am hanging it up. Good night, God bless and I miss you all.

August 4th - Monday
WOW!!!! What a way to start an Ecuadorian update. It was an incredibly busy day of preparation and advertising for tonights concert, testimonial time and gospel presentation. We had forty-seven people attend the event, not including all of the Ecuadorians and FBCBG people that had parts in the event. Of those forty-seven, twelve stuck around for prayer and some of them even prayed to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. For those of you back at FBCBG, Angelica, who makes the most incredible empanadas ever prayed to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Praise the Lord!!!
Tomorrow our schedule is very similar in nature as today. In the morning we are going to distribute flyers all over Tabacundo. We will then set up and have a concert in one of the parks. After that some of us will be heading over to one of our sweet Ecuadorian sisters for dinner and fellowship. The rest of us will be heading to a soccer game to watch Oscar play.
One of the things we have been doing over this past year is to equip our Ecuadorian brothers and sisters to take on more and more responsibilities. One of the things that has happened on this trip is several of the members of Jhoe and Jill’s church have really bonded with us. Our little band of concert performers has grown. This evening for example we had three Ecuadorian brothers join us. They are going to be with us tomorrow as well. We also picked up two others for tomorrow’s concert in the park, which means we will have more Ecuadorians in our band than we have FBCBG members. Again, praise the Lord! Not surprising, Paula, is the one that shared the gospel tonight and she did a fantastic job.



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