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Serving Christ in Ecuador |
The final crop of wheat has been harvested, now this land will be utilized to help harvest changed lives for the Kingdom of God. Pray for us as we grow and build together a new ministry for extending His Reign and the ministry of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Ecuador!
This past week we had the wonderful opportunity of hosting a Vision Team from New Harvest Christian Church of Oregon, Oh, one of our sponsor churches. Pastor Sharon McQueary and three church members, Andrew English and Doug and Kimberly Zoltani all came down to Ecuador for the very first time to be a part of the Vision Team. We took them to visit churches and ministries in the Quechua District around Cayambe as well as up to Iglesia Betel in Ibarra. We had a blast and enjoyed introducing them to Ecuador and we look forward to when they return to visit us. Here are some pictures from our time together:
We’ve got a lot happening this week! We will be welcoming and hosting a Vision Team from one of our primary supporting churches, New Harvest Christian Church of Oregon, OH. They will be arriving Wednesday night and Joel will be taking them to visit ministry locations in Quito, Cayambe and the surrounding area and Ibarra. Please be in prayer for Pastor Sharon McQueary, Doug & Kimberly Zoltani and Andrew English as they will be visiting Ecuador for the first time for the purpose of learning and understanding how their congregation can further partner with ministries and churches in Ecuador. They will be here for 5 days through July 21st! Please be in prayer for safety on our journeys together and that God will bless our time together with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Ecuador!
There is a lot happening with our project right now. This week our official FACE project coordinator has begun with us working part-time on our project. We will introduce him through a post later on. This week we are looking to finalize the purchases on two lots of land in Juan Montalvo (just outside of Cayambe) that will be used for the home for at-risk children as well future developments for this home. You can see the pictures of the land that we are purchasing here. In addition to this, we are still working with and getting closer to getting permission from the customs officials in Ecuador to get our container sent all the while we are getting the needed permissions to open the clinic.
Finally, we are blessed to have a visit from Kim’s mom, Noritta. Safe to say she was excited to come and see her new granddaughter, Esther, as well as spend time with Simeon. She did say hello to us when she got in!
Grandma Carter and Baby Esther
Joel ran up to Cayambe last evening for a 4.5 hour meeting to discuss the launch of our project in collaboration with Iglesia Emanuel. It was an incredibly blessed time. To see the folks of that area and from the supporting churches who are so excited about the project and ready to help out. Many of the church leaders there pledged their support and the support of the denomination. They also talked about the needs in the area and how a medical clinic that provides a high level attention is so needed. This is getting very, very exciting!!!
We have us an Ecuadorian in the family!!!! Yesterday, we were successful in finally getting Esther’s Ecuadorian Birth Certificate! At the same time, we were then able to get Esther’s Cedula, which is an official identity card that shows that she is an Ecuadorian citizen. It’s funny but her name in Ecuador is legally Esther Ashby Delp Delp. Since Ecuadorians have two last names and the last names are the combination of the last names of one’s parents, they just doubled Delp since that is both of our last names.
Thank you all for your prayers and helping us accomplish this seemingly very difficult task!!!!
Update on the Birth Certificate ordeal…. we were able to visit with the team from New London Covenant Church in Minnesota this morning. It was very nice to greet them and spend a little bit of time with them. And it was wonderful to receive from them 2 copies of our marriage license that is apostilled! THANK YOU SO MUCH NEW LONDON ECC AND JERRY AND NORITTA CARTER FOR THEIR HELP WITH THESE DOCUMENTS.
After spending time with them, we went directly over to the Civil Registry to try to get Esther’s Birth Certificate. When we turned in the paperwork, they said that the marriage license looked good but that it needed to be translated into Spanish also.
So, yet another roadblock. We have already dropped off one of the copies of the apostilled marriage license at the official translator to get an official translation. We should be able to get that back tomorrow and then we are going to try again on Wednesday. Please pray that it works this time. It’s been a bit distressing for us having a child with no legal identity.
We have a couple of really big prayer requests for this week. Please pray for Joel’s parents, Ruth & Earl Delp, as they have had their share of serious struggles of recent. Please pray for them and that God’s peace will abound.
Also, we really need to get Esther’s Birth Certificate!!! Yes, you read that correctly. We still do not have her Ecuadorian Birth Certificate yet. When we went to go get one for her, we were told that we could not get an accurate one unless we brought with us a copy of our marriage license that is apostilled from the U.S. An apostille is like an international notary that recognizes that a document is legal for other countries. We had one of these previously but do not have a current copy of our marriage license that is apostilled. We tried to do everything we could, including going to the U.S. Embassy, but nothing worked. In the end, we had to have Kim’s parents help us in getting a new copy of our marriage license apostilled and sent to Ecuador. Today, a team from New London Covenant Church in Minnesota is bringing a copy of our apostilled marriage license with them. We plan to get it from them tomorrow and then work hard this week on getting her birth certificate. Please pray that we are successful and have a child with a legal identity!
We had the wonderful opportunity to accompany Rolando Escola, President of FACE, and Jose Tuquerres, Pastor of Iglesia Emanuel (our partner church) in visiting some possible land to purchase for the first home for at risk children in Cayambe. You can take a look at all three and tell us what you think. Negotiations are currently in progress.
First Property
Second Property
Third Property – First Section
Third Property – Second Section
Simeon enjoyed riding in the car in front of us and watching us from the window
A big THANK YOU goes out to Pleasant View Mennonite Church of Goshen, IN and the VBS they put on this past week. They invited us to be a part of it through Skype. Simeon was able to “attend” the VBS and watched the opening worship and group activities and then each day we had a question and answer time with the kids during the closing session of the day. It was a lot of fun and really neat to be a part! In addition to all of this, their mission project for the week was the Santiago Partnership and over $1,600 was raised for the purchase of land for the first home for at risk children. THANK YOU SO MUCH PLEASANT VIEW MENNONITE CHURCH!!!
Esther Ashby waving hello to the world seconds after being born
“I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1
It’s been a difficult road for us of late and we have sensed God’s presence along the way, but what better way to see Him clearly but through a miracle right in front of us.
PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!!
Esther Ashby Delp was born at 3:00 p.m. on June 5th, 2014 weighing 6.37 lbs and measuring 18.5 inches. Though the surgery was long and complicated, both Esther and mom are doing well. Kim is doing extremely well considering the difficulty of the surgery. Please continue to pray for little Baby Esther as she is not feeding extremely well yet from mom and we are trying to watch to make sure she does not become jaundiced.
The Santiago Partnership