Pastor Manuel Rosero (President of MEDE and President of the Free Methodist Church in Ecuador) has been working very hard on producing the content for the EcuadorMetodistaLibre.org .  Manuel had asked for my help with this, as part of our tasks of service here in Quito while we explore the future of our ministry.

As a web designer, making designing the site is the easiest part, the hardest part is getting the content of the pages up, which is the responsibility of the person/organization.  Manuel has impressively been writing and posting his content which has helped the site develop very rapidly.  Thanks Manuel!

The site is still under development, there’s plenty of work to be done, but its viewable, and Manuel wanted to get the word out.  He also has a news section where he just wrote a very special post about us.
Here is the English for you non-Spanish speakers

On this occasion, I would like to thank the Doar Family, Rob, Kirtie and Isabela, who came from Minnesota USA observe the Ecuadorian mission field, and the Lord has placed the burden on their hearts and the perspective to come as missionaries to support different areas of work, because God has given them many talents and abilities, they want to put them to His service, and that may well be in Ecuador with the Free Methodist Mission, or as the Lord guides them.

With his help, which we consider very valuable, we successfully carried out the design of this website of the MMLE, and Rob will be giving technical support of this site.  The month of August 2008 it will be published officially. You can now visit our website, www.mmle.org although it is not finished, it has the basic elements and information.

In addition, during the time they been visiting us in Quito Ecuador, (6 weeks) they have given us support in strengthening the youth group of the “Luz y Vida” South church, and training the worship team of the same church. We thank, Rob, Kirstie and Isabela Doar for their help and may God reward them plenty for their generosity and delivery of service to the Ecuadorian Free Methodist Church during the month of June 2008, Blessings.

This time in Quito really has been an amazing experience! I’ve been enjoying helping out Elvia with all her work!

For me it’s so cool because I’m getting to work hands on with these kids, showing the love of God, through teaching, giving food, and just playing with the kids!  I love it so much and I feel so privileged God has given me this opportunity  to be here!

It is really special for me also because all growing up, I’d watch the sponsor a child programs and wish I could go and do something for them, well now I am…. Lots of these children do get sponsored. They come from one parent homes where that one parent has to work two to three jobs to feed their five plus children!

And this next week is going to be a special week for the kids, we are going to have about 50 kids sleeping here on Saturday! Please pray that everything turns alright and pray for all the children!

Mothers day here in Ecuador is more like mothers weekend. On Friday the school here Luz Del Evangelio a big fiesta for the moms. This included games, gifts, and cake. It was so cool to see all the moms and some grandmas of the kids!

Then on Saturday night the church had a banquet for mothers. This was really awesome because a handful of people invited their non believing mothers, who really got to see examples of Godly love and Christian fellowship. I was really excited because the next day one of the mothers that was a non believer visted the church!

And Sunday morning I got breakfast in bed pancakes (Bela stirred the batter) and fresh oranges and bananas (like right off of the tree fresh!)!

It was a great first mothers day, and a great opportunity to minister!

We’ll first off, we’ll let you guys know that Bela is doing great. We went to the doctor who took a stool sample, and everything checked out ok. He recommended some dietary changes, but praise God that she doesen’{t have any bugs!

We were just in Quito visiting with our friend and surrogate parents Manuel and Elvia Rosero. We were just planning on being there for a few days while Sandro and I shopped for some computer equipment.
Manuel and Elvia run several programs for kids in south Quito (The poorest part of Quito), One of them is to help kids in the public school system with their homework and studies. Last Saturday, 40 kids came for homework help with only Elvia and a few older students to help.

If you know anything about us, is that we are horrible spectators, so we jumped in to help. Kirstie was helping students with their English, and I was helping with math. We got a little bit of a taste of what our work in June will be like. We are looking forward to pursuing God’s Guidance into what he has planned for us in our lives and ministry here.

Most of my time recently has been spent working on the student sponsorship website. We came up with a name for it, the “Padrinos Program” (Padrinos is Spanish for Godparents). I came up with this logo design, but the feeling are mixed as to which one to go with…

Leave a comment, or contact us to let us know which one you like!

Most of you have noticed that our site has been down.  This happened as a result of the web host company I use having a bad hard drive.

Just before we were leaving, a friend reminded me to be on my guard, because as our ministry was getting closer, Satan would try harder to distract us from the ministry God has before us.
Well Satan got through.  Just moments after our plane took off from MSP last Wednesday, the server crashed.  This happened at about the worst time possible, as we were days away from being settled in, and ready to use our computers.  Then, on Friday, I became ill with severe stomach problems and de-hydration, which prohibited me from trying to restore the site.  I was better this Monday.
On top of all of that, I learned that the company I use as my host failed to back up my site as my service claimed they would.  Thankfully, I had a backup that I accidentally made of our site´s database a few weeks ago, so we only lost a few posts and comments.  Unfortunately, the layout and appearance of the site was lost, so over the next few weeks, we will be trying to make the site a little more like it was.

Satan certainly knew where to hit us the hardest, by attempting to prevent us from sharing our ministry with our support team.  Also, as so much of our work entails web design and computer work, he seems to have known where to strike.   We rejoice and rest in the fact that no matter what Satan throws at us, our ministry, and the Lord’s work will persevere!

We are safely in La Concordia, and everyone is doing well, we will write again in the next couple of days with some pictures to let you know a bit more in detail what we have been up to this week.  We are just glad that the site is back up!