Redemption in the Hard

Posted on July 27, 2025 by Joel & Kim

So, as a continuation from the hard I just talked about in the last post, I wanted to give you a story that was both hard and redemptive at the same time.

As I said, we had a team that came from one of our supporting churches, Bethany Cov in Berlin, CT.  We attended different groups, the first being in Caranqui, Ibarra where we have expanded our SUMAK team and project.  In that area, many non profits and agencies are being closed because a lot of financing comes from the U.S. and without it, they have had to close.  So, there are many displaced people who are without care or access to care.  We saw these patients with general medicine, psychiatry and pediatrics.  The 2nd day we were at the Home for At-Risk Children and saw many family members and beneficiaries of the projects where we serve, some coming from 1-3 hours away for care.

I saw a 17 year old boy.  He was very nice and answered questions more than most 17 year olds do.  But I noticed he was very low on the growth chart for weight and height.  I started to ask some questions about this and after a few minutes, I realized that he didn’t know when the last time he ate a meal was in the last few days.  He said he drank some coffee that morning, that was what he was sure of.  I asked him more about his family.  He lived with his mother and 3 siblings.  He was going to start his final year of high school.  I asked him what he wanted to be and a little light started in his eye that he wanted to be a mechanic.  When I pressed a little more about his family he said that he was taking care of his mother.  He hadn’t been going to school.  She was in an accident in the recent past and wasn’t able to get out of bed.  Although she was getting better, she wasn’t able to cook for the family.  They lived with a grandmother, but I found out that most days she was at the neighbors drinking homemade alcohol and would come back drunk and abusive to the family.  He said that he wasn’t afraid of her anymore, but the younger kids were and he needed to protect them, although he alluded to many years of no one protecting him.  I deduced he was giving his food to his siblings which is why he is so underweight.  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes so I politely excused myself and went out in the super crowded waiting room.  All I wanted at that point was a space to just fall apart, but there wasn’t any place to do that, so I went to the corner and cried.  The team was there and they weren’t sure what to do.  Asking if I was OK and what I needed.  They put a hand on my shoulder and I’m pretty sure they were praying for me.  I went to talk with our team and found out this family was known to our SUMAK project.  The mother had been part of SUMAK up until her accident.  Although she was mobile this day, she was almost catatonic when I saw her.  I remember I had sent her to talk with our psychiatrist that we had on the team.  Talking more with the team, I voiced my concerns and we came up with a plan.

I went back and talked with the young boy.  I cried and said I was worried about him, but that we were going to do what we could to help.  I asked what we could do and he thought for a couple of minutes and couldn’t come up with something.

Although this story and family really hit me hard, the redemptive part of the story is that we had avenues that we could help.  Two or three years ago, this family would probably be living in silence, but now all of this is out in the light and we have a team surrounding them that can help, tangibly help!

After talking with the mother, she was so fearful and anxious that her kids couldn’t go to school because she has no way to afford buying them uniforms.  By the end of the day, the uniforms had been financially covered and the team was going to be giving an additional food pack to the family for the week before they visited them in the next few days.

You may wonder if what is being done in Ecuador helps at all?  Do medical caravans matter?  Doing a VBS, what difference do we make?  Having a project for women and teaching children that violence isn’t OK, does that matter?  Well, I think it does.  I may not have been able to do much for this sweet 17 year old 3 years ago, but I can now with the help of the amazing team on the ground in Ecuador and we all get to be witnesses to it!  Yes, was this is a hard day with hard stories, of course, but the redemptive power of presence and helping them be able to talk with people that are present with them in their suffering makes a difference.  It matters.  People matter, presence matters.

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The good and the hard

Posted on July 27, 2025 by Joel & Kim

We recently came back from a trip to Ecuador.  So many people have asked, as is a normal question, “how was it?”  If you have ever been on a team with us in Ecuador, I usually give feedback and advice to always have something to say when someone asks that.  I always suggest to give more than just “it was fine” or “great!”  All of that may be true, but a lot of times, people want to know more.  I suggest a story or something of impact so people understand a little more the depth of your answer.  However, the last week as people have asked me, my answer has been “it was great and it was also really hard.”  Probably not the best answer right?  It is honest and it does open the door for people to ask more questions, but I think I have caught a couple of people off guard instead of just raving about how amazing it was.  I think as I myself debrief a little bit more from the trip, it is actually a really good answer and I try to explain it a little bit more if people want to know more.  So, I’ll do that for you all.

Yes, this is the honest answer “it was really great and it was also really hard,”  For some who understand this having your heart and home in two places, you may understand that.

The great parts:

~We spent good time with our staff at the project.

~The kids spent time with their friends.

~We got to spend time with friends.

~We ate amazing Ecuadorian and Venezuelan food.

~We got to stay in our home in Ecuador for 2 nights.

~We spent time with a team from our supporting church in CT and served together with them.

~We got our hair cut and nails done at our old familiar place.

~We got to be at home in the mountains and volcanos.

~We did our end-of-year pictures with our staff.

~Joel got to share devotions with our staff and the team and was able to be open and honest about struggles we have all had which opened up doors for conversations, much needed prayer and people that understand what it is to be in the “trenches” of ministry together.

~Our kids got to visit their old soccer coaches.

~We drank coffee from some of our fav place.

~We shopped in Otavalo.

~We took a family day to spend time doing normal things we used to do, meal out, park walks, fun mountain pictures, and park games.

The hard parts:

~We had to visit multiple doctors for illness and dog bites.

~We had to leave.

~We had debrief conversations about living in the U.S. and why we have to.

~We had to leave our house again.

~We were not able to see all of our friends and spend time with them.

~We had hard ministry conversations.

~I was not able to help all the people tangibly during the medical caravan.

~We weren’t able to visit all of our favorite places.

~We had to fly away.

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The Altar

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Joel & Kim

Sometimes I think people get nervous when they hear this word.  The altar in the church can bring different connotations.  Maybe some think of it as a place for scolding or that you go there when you’re convicted of you sin and have to be shamed in front of everyone.  I can understand that feeling, but that hasn’t been my response, at least lately when I think of the altar.  For me, the altar is a beautiful sacred place where change happens.  I grew up in a denomination where “altar calls” were common.  The altar has significance being a place of pruning and awareness, repentance and forgiveness, call and confession and correction.  People sometimes think of the altar as a place of shame, guilt and remorse.  However,  when I think of the altar, I actually look at the altar so fondly.  It has been a place of needed connection with God.  It is a place where everything else is stripped away and all the we can use around us to interrupt our relationship in reconciliation with our God is gone.  You are before God, in all of your brokenness standing or kneeling in need of Him, seeking Him and you know what?  He is there.  He meets us there.  The altar isn’t a place to get dressed up for; it is a place to drop and unload the mess of your life into the arms of someone who can carry it, who is big enough to hold the doubts, anger and questions.  A God who can handle your disappoint and tears.  Of all the places to come, the altar is the representation of where God meets us and changes us.

I have seen chains broken at the altar, lives changed, brokenness reconciled.

A lot of times when I was at the altar, I was not there alone.  People came up and prayed with me, prayed for me.  Not only did I meet God, but others also met me there, where I was, not for what I was or could be, but where I was.  They prayed for me, they encouraged me, they helped disciple me.

The altar can be described differently, defined in many ways, some I found were:

“a memorial of the places where God meets us”

“a significant symbol representing sacrifice, worship and divine encounter”

“the altar foreshadows the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross “

We read in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament of people building an altar in representation or marking of where God did something and it needed to be remembered.

Altars were places where people experienced God’s presence and entered into covenants with Him.

The altar does not need to be a stiff, stoic place of fear and shame.  I think we often put spiritual, holy things in boxes of how they have to be which makes us consciously create formality around it, which, sometimes makes it scary.  But when we meet Jesus when we encounter Him, the space is sacred, yes, but the sacredness doesn’t have to make it stoic.

The altar is the place to offer ourselves, our whole selves, stripped away of all that holds us back from full engagement with the everlasting God.

I have been listening to a song to help keep me reminded of my need for the altar.  My frailty, my brokenness, my weakness to continually keep me in a place of reckless dependance on Jesus.

There are a couple of lines that have really spoken to me with one being, “there’s no waste at the altar.”  Offering isn’t always equal in our human brains.  We think offering our child as Abraham did was such a large sacrifice, and of course it is.  But in the offering is obedience and in that obedience of offering, I believe God is pleased.  There were times for me when I was at the altar where I was struggling with something small, like guidance in a high school friendship, other times it was offering myself to full-time ministry.  Our brains in the human sense would say that isn’t equal right?  But offering isn’t wasted.  Whether a high school problem or a life call, God uses it and it isn’t wasted. Even when life looks different than we imagined when we said YES to the offering, it isn’t wasted.

Another line is “where the tears of the desperate, reach the feet of the Savior,” (GASP EMOJI)…oh the beauty of these words.  In the nothing of our tears, we bring everything, because we know who we are bringing nothing to.  And if nothing is wasted, then those tears, those desperate tears never fall unseen.  They aren’t nothing, they are an offering, sometimes when we have nothing else to give.

“Where the heart of surrender, meets the hands of the Maker.”  In our offering, no matter how big or small, there is likely a cost.  Surrender, giving something up, allowing it not to be yours anymore is a cost, but what better place to put something we think it costly into the hands of the Maker?  Our offering is not wasted.

At the Altar

I’m removingAll of the things that would move me further from YouA thank you could not be enoughIt’s not lost on me what You saved me fromI’m runningStumbling, I know but I’m comingTo give You this offeringMy worship, I’ll never withholdBroken, but You call it beautiful

Where the tears of the desperateReach the feet of the SaviorNothing I wouldn’t offerThere’s no waste at the altarWhere the heart of surrenderMeets the hands of the MakerNothing I wouldn’t offerThere’s no waste at the altarYou can bring everything, everything

Things I’ve treasuredOh, couldn’t come close to Your presenceGrace upon grace, who could measure?No, nothing could measureAnd I’m returningOh, back to the One, I am runningTo give Him my love‘Cause He took a sinner like meWashed me with grace and then set me free, oh

Where the tears of the desperateReach the feet of the SaviorNothing I wouldn’t offerThere’s no waste at the altarWhere the heart of surrenderMeets the hands of the makerNothing I wouldn’t offerThere’s no waste at the altarThere’s no waste at theYour arms are open wide (there’s no waste at the altar)Oh, just bring it all to the Father

Use it all, You can use it allOpen invitation

Come lay your broken dreams at the altarAnd every victory at the altarFear and anxiety cannot live hereThere’s no waste at the altarLet your heart sing out and tell Him you love Him (love You, Lord)Don’t make it perfect, just let it be honest (we love You, Lord)He can use anything, sit back and watch HimThere’s no waste at the altar

Come lay your broken dreams at the altarAnd every victory at the altarFear and anxiety cannot live hereThere’s no waste at the altarLet your heart sing out and tell Him you love Him (you love Him)Don’t make it perfect, just let it be honestHe can use anything, sit back and watch HimThere’s no waste at the altar

There’s no waste at the altarThere’s no waste at the altarThere’s no waste at the altar, ohThere’s no waste at the altarThere’s no waste at the altarThere’s no waste at the altar

Lay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downThere’s no waste at the altar

Lay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downThere’s no waste at the altar

Lay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downLay it all down, lay it all downThere’s no waste at the altar

Oh, He can use anything (He can use anything)Yes, He can use anything (He can use anything)He can use anythingJust sit back and watch HimThere’s no waste at the altar

Listen to At the Altar

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Living with Scars

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Joel & Kim

A lot of us live with scars. Some of the scars are obvious, outward scars.  Some are a little more hidden, and some of us carry scars that no one else knows about.

 

This year I have done a lot of speaking with my family during our one year ministry assignment.  It is a time where we visit supporting churches or individuals, check in with them and let them know what is happening with the work in Ecuador.  Because I knew I would be in churches, I felt it very important to talk about my obvious scar on my face.  Not because I felt I had to explain the scar, but because I felt if I had a platform, then I needed to use that platform to speak truth, healing and honestly, the power of God that I have witnessed in my life.  It isn’t because I am special or chosen or really anything.  It is just simply that God healed me and being witness to that, I feel like other people need to know it.

 

The parallel to that is that I am also carrying my own hidden scars of these past couple of years.  Deep grief and hurt that I have carried as part of this hard time of ministry.  I have been honest, maybe not in specifics with every person I meet, by I have been honest that ministry has been hard.  I don’t think that is a form of weakness, but I think it is true form of honesty that people need to hear.  It’s hard to share both of these truths, but I think there is something about being vulnerable in what we share that allows people space to not only share their own stories and their own scars, but it also allows them to see that God is big enough to carry them.  There is something healing about sharing stories and sharing scars because we all have them, we all carry them.  When we share those scars, others feel a place where they can share them too.  Sometimes that is hard, sometimes its healing, sometimes it leads to miracles, sometimes it leads to brokenness of relationships for healing to happen.

 

So, April 1st is the one-year anniversary of my cancer surgery.  I have somehow earned more scars this last year with other possible cancer on the skin.  Praise the Lord it has not been.  But in the last year I have learned that I am not ashamed to carry my scars.  My scars tell a story, my story.  It is one of healing and miracles and I think we need more stories told of how God heals!  It isn’t something that happened centuries ago, it still happens and there is power in calling on the “Lord of Hosts”, Jehovah Sabaoth to fight our battles for us when we can’t fight for ourselves.  There is healing in telling people they too can call on this same Lord.  He isn’t a distant, far-away God.  He is a close, present God that catches our tears and sits with us and mourns with us.

 

So, I carry and live with my scars because my story is important to share and yours are too!

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Medical Caravan to the Jungle

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Joel & Kim

During the first week of March, Kim was able to travel to Ecuador with 2 other Nurse Practitioners from Chicago to gather with women from Ecuador and Finland to partner in the Ecuadorian jungle.  We traveled to the area of Puka Peña which you can see by the map photos is right next to a river.  We traveled 8 hours from Cayambe in a car and then 1.5 hours in canoe.  Puka Peña has 150-200 people living in this area, their houses tucked within the jungle trees. The majority of the people spend their time working the land.

 

This community lives far from society, with no internet, no electricity, no easy access to the outside world. For some, it was a 3-hour trek to get to the medical caravan.

 

In total about 245 patients were seen by our medical team, 33 by dental hygiene. Many of the women brought their families to be seen as well. Teeth cleanings, filling cavities, and needed extractions were available as well.  Workshops were held on the cycle of violence and how violence affects women. Menstrual workshops provided education about menstruation and reproduction. Kits with feminine items were given to women and families.

 

On the last day of the caravan, the team served another community of the Secoya people made up of 50 families. They speak their own language, completely different from Spanish. They are renowned for their knowledge of medicinal plants, with traditional uses for over 1,000 different plants. The Secoya now number around 600 people in Ecuador.

 

We are so grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve together in various capacities in partnership, creating spaces together to learn, grow and care in different ways.  We look forward to continued partnership and learning together with women leading the way!

Screenshot

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Changes on the Horizon-From Kim

Posted on March 29, 2025 by Joel & Kim

It has been wonderful to spend time with many of you as we have been on Ministry Assignment this year in the U.S. We enjoyed being around tables, drinking coffee and eating good food, sharing life together.  We have appreciated honesty and openness in being able to share that these last couple of years have been difficult for us in ministry as a family and that moving to the U.S. has been a challenge.  We have so appreciated safe spaces to be prayed for and welcomed in with open arms.  We have felt care from in our home church in Joliet, IL, Church of the Good Shepard,  that has lived out radical hospitality for our family.

 

When planning the transition back to the U.S., we had, in true Delp fashion, created a plan of how that might look and how we could as a family, as a couple and as missionaries make the transition tolerable.  Doing so, we knew that I would likely have to work at some point as a Nurse Practitioner and our plan was for that to happen after our Ministry Assignment had ended in June of 2025.  In true missionary fashion, we have had to be flexible, which is always the first thing we tell teams in Ecuador that they need to do.  As we moved to the U.S., we soon realized that I would need to get a job sooner because, as most of you know, it is not cheap to live in the U.S. In November, I took at job as a Nurse Practitioner at Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago.  The reason for this is because the financial strains of our family were greater than what we could handle on missionary salaries.  Because of taking full time employment at Lawndale, I was given two options by Serve Globally, both of which included resigning as Global Personnel as I am not able to have a full-time job outside of Serve Globally.  As of April 1, 2025, I will no longer be a Serve Globally employee.

 

Although I write that with heaviness and grief, there is hope in knowing that I continue to be a missionary.  The ministry God created in Ecuador doesn’t change and my commitment to all that God is doing doesn’t change.  Earlier this month, I returned from a Women’s Caravan in the jungle with Ecuadorian Covenant Women ministries ladies, caring for families holistically and sharing the love and care of Jesus.  We plan to return in July to partner with a Covenant team from CT.  So, friends, although my time officially with Serve Globally is done, the ministry in Ecuador remains and I will continue serving in the ways I always have.  I plan to continue to serve, mainly through Medical Caravans and a medical liaison from the U.S. to Ecuador from now and into the future.

 

For those supporting churches of ours in the days to come, you will receive information from Serve Globally leadership about these changes.  I encourage you that if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us and ask any questions you may have.  We won’t be offended or upset by that, but we know that this is a big change that seems sudden, so questions will likely occur.

 

Love to all,

 

Kim

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Simeon’s Words of Gratitude

Posted on March 29, 2025 by Joel & Kim

We are just so, so incredibly thankful for the wonderful love and support shown to Simeon with his birthday and his knee surgery that fell on his birthday.  The knee injury was a big blow to his spirits and receiving such beautiful encouragement really meant the world to him.

 

Simeon received somewhere around 80 cards, letters and gifts from all over the U.S. and Canada as well as he received a gift and encouraging messages from friends in Ecuador in the project as well as from his friends in school.  He received books from people that were sent to encourage him, one from a former professional soccer player who had to overcome the same acl injury in order to pursue his goal of playing professional soccer.  Additionally, Simeon received words of encouragement through video messages sent from Ecuadorian professional soccer players, the kind of guys he has looked up to his whole life.  And really that’s not even covering half of what all he received as he got so many gifts from Canada and all over the U.S. and so many heartfelt and timely letters and cards to encourage Simeon in his journey.

 

Being his parents with great love for our son going through a difficult time, you couldn’t have made us any more encouraged through your encouragement for Simeon.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We love you all!

 

And to provide an update: Simeon is doing well after his surgery.  Every day there is a little less pain and a little more mobility, so things seem to be going well.  He participates in Physical Therapy twice a week and does home exercises to strengthen his leg.  He is taking less and less pain medicine so it will be good once we can wean him off that.  His spirits have somewhat gotten better as his pain has decreased and mobility has increased, but we continue to ask for your prayers for that and his continued recovery.

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Upcoming Church Visits – Come and See us!

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Joel & Kim

Please check out our calendar of many upcoming church visits.  Please come and see us!  We’d love to see you!

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End of Year of Updates

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Joel & Kim

Happy New Year!

 

As we close out 2024 as a family here in Romeoville, we are just filled with such a deep sense of peace and gratitude for so many blessings in 2024.  Whether it be a joy filled sense of gratitude for our amazing staff in Cayambe, all of the support from family and friends in our transition from Ecuador and to the States or all of the wonderful new begginings with our lives here in the U.S, we just know God has been the center of it all and so we give Him all the praise, glory and honor!  We especially thank Him for healing Kim from skin cancer earlier this year.

 

Additionally, we just want to give you all a big THANK YOU because you have been an instrument of God and his goodness toward us.  Thank you for all of your support, care and love in 2024!  We can’t thank you enough!!

 

 

Here is our end-of-year newsletter in case you hadn’t seen it yet:

Delp Family Christmas Newsletter 2024

 

 

We also recorded this video update around Thanksgiving time:

 

Here is where you can learn about and give to the Santiago Partnership’s end-of-year campaign:  10 Years of Impact

 

And as always, you can also give to support the Delp Family and our ministry through the Evangelical Covenant church: Our Support

 

Thank you so much for who you are what you all you have done in 2024!

Bendiciones,

 

Joel, Kim, Simeon, Esther and Manchas Delp

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Broken AND…

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Joel & Kim

Gather your broken pieces, every single one, and drop them at the feet of the only One that can piece you back together. And when you are WHOLE in Him, don’t you dare hide those parts of you that speak of His glory the loudest. May we always be those that tell our whole story to see Jesus wholly woven within it. –Bekah Blankenship, 2016 

 

As I have thought over the last month about a title, since I started writing this blog post, I knew that the word “broken” would be in it.  However, I couldn’t figure out another word to add with it.  The main reason being because, the words that can come after “broken AND” can be very different each day.  Some days it could be “broken and angry”, some days “broken and beautiful” or “frustrated” or “overwhelmed.”  There are a large number of combinations, but none seemed to fit.  So, I went with AND.  Because the broken can always be coupled with a different word, but the word changes.  That is OK.  It doesn’t always have to be wrapped up and nice because life isn’t always that way.

 

It’s interesting doing an international move.  Maybe interesting isn’t the exact right word, exhausting, overwhelming, full, busy are maybe just a few that describe it better than “interesting.”  I suppose there isn’t one word that wraps it all up perfectly to explain to those who haven’t done it.  I’m not trying to be melo-dramatic or oversell it.  I’m just trying to give glimpses in to our view of a big international transition.

 

As we started unpacking bags today (over a month ago now), I was surprised to see the things that were broken.  Things we had worked meticulously to protect.  Some things we knew were extra fragile or items that had special, significant meaning, thess things we protect.  But some things we don’t think about being quite as meticulous about.  We wrap it in a blanket, but it isn’t sufficient protection and we open up the suitcase and it is full of glass.  Some things are only half-broken.  The glass of the picture frame is broken, but the photo is intact, for example.  Or the wood part of a painting is scratched, but the significant part is fine.  Maybe a book is torn, but the pages and words, although worn, still read the same.  The significance of the items haven’t changed, in fact, they may hold even more significance because they have traveled with us through hard transitions, but they still remain.

 

But sometimes things are best left in the suitcases.  Yes, it is true.  When you open the bags, you reveal the mess inside.  What has been hidden for a few months after being packed up, sometimes packed rapidly and carelessly, sometimes packed meticulously is now being revealed.  Usually when things are being packed, there is the element of not knowing exactly where or when or how it will be opened up.  That can be translated to life too!  Life that seemed known, stable and easy now carries more things undone, more life not in a specific place.  A house that may have looked put together now is a disaster and messy.  Leaving it in the suitcase means that at least it is contained somewhere and sometimes leaving it contained in a different space is easier than trying to clean it all up in that moment.

 

In transition, and in life in general, sometimes, well, really, almost all the time, it is easier to leave our broken things, our messy situations, our hurts and our grief in one place.  A place where it is contained in its messiness and a place we don’t always have to deal with.  But it starts escaping sometimes in to other places that are not contained.  It can come out in anger or sadness, a lot of times at the worst times.  But I was reminded earlier of the quote above that our brokenness was never meant to be carried by us.  Our broken things and our weaknesses can be laid at the feet of the one who can carry it and has been carrying it all along.  Because our stories don’t end in our broken things.  Our broken things point to the healer of our brokenness.  Our scars and wounds point to the one who can heal them and turn them in to something that doesn’t just speak brokenness, but speaks life and healing.

 

As I held the broken pieces of pictures and Christmas ornaments and special mugs, I realized that some were worth salvaging, but some things needed to be thrown away.  It was OK to let them go and it was a good representation to me that some grief I am currently dealing with in leaving stability and things that are known can be traded for the unknown written story that God has me in.  The broken pieces are OK because they are all part of a bigger story and picture that God Himself is writing.

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