May Highlights
May was a blessed month, filled with lots of teaching opportunities for both Bobby & me along with many ministry outreach events. A couple of the best highlights include:
A visiting group of students
Three college students from Alabama came for a short mission trip. We had a blast traveling to various places in the country. They brought many gifts for the orphanage and for other ministries.
In visiting the orphanage, they gave new toothbrushes and toothpaste to the children along with crayons and other special items. We played soccer with the boys using their ball that had not one stitch of the cover remaining, leaving only a ball of strings. Needless to say, we went and bought them a new soccer ball.
We visited many of the shoeshine boys, hung out with SEMISUD students and even climbed to the snowline of the Cotopaxi volcano.
On Saturday, we held a kids service with the children from the FACES ministry who work shining shoes, selling candy, etc. This was so much fun as we were able to help them make a photo frame and printed out a photo of each child. They rarely get photos of themselves so this was a big treat!
The whole week was a great experience for us and the visiting students. We welcome any of you who want to come for a missions experience – no matter what size group – come visit!
Dia del Niño
Ecuador has a holiday like Mother’s Day/Father’s Day called Children’s Day. Every year, the ministry we help with, FACES, hosts a special event to allow the children who normally work in the streets each day to experience a playful day free from work. To accomplish this, volunteers from local churches (upper class) take the place of the kids. They shine shoes and sell candy in the streets to earn the money that child needs for the day while the children get to have a day of fun.
This year, we took over 100 children to have a day of fun at an amusement park. It was a wild and crazy day as we stuffed into a bus for 60 passengers but no one complained. They were able to ride several rides and then we took the cable cars to the top of a nearby volcano. Spike & Sparkle (our clown kids) entertained them with balloon animals and face painting.
We ended the day with a worship service with both the volunteers who worked that day and the children. It was a beautiful expression of how God’s love breaks down the barriers between classes.
