December 17 Prayer Letter

Joyous Christmas Greeting Family and Friends!       Christmas is a celebration of hope. For when God the Father sent His Son to be born of a virgin, He was sharing the gift of hope to all mankind. "To whom (His saints) God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). It is a wonderful message that needs to be proclaimed worldwide - Our Messiah brought hope that Christmas night, because His birth would one day result in His death on a cross, paying the price that God demanded for mankind's sin. This Christmas season let us not forget to worship and adore our Hope of Christmas. Christmas is also a special time for family.      

      Last year we had the blessing of being all together for Christmas for the first time in 9 years. This year will be the first year for Dave and I to be alone for Christmas. We thank the Lord for technology to share time together through video. Everyone stateside has been busy with their own Christmas activities. Through technology, we were able to watch Lauren and Caleb’s school program; and just today, were able to watch the cantata at New Hope Bible Baptist Church, which Lori, Hannah, Tim and Nathan were a part of, as well as the kid’s Christmas program at Gallia Baptist Church, where Daniel and Melissa and their children attend. What a blessing to live in a day where we have the ability to be a part of our children and grand children’s lives even from thousands of miles away!        We will soon have our own Christmas activities underway down here in Riobamba. On December 23, we will be doing something a little different from the previous years. We have invited the church family from Alausi to join us for a joint Christmas service/meal. We appreciate your prayers as they will be traveling up to Riobamba. We do not want them traveling back too late, so we planned an afternoon service. We are excited to introduce them to our church building. The Alausi family has often invited the Riobamba church to joint services, but this will be the first time for the Riobamba family to be the host. There will be about 80 in attendance.        We want to give you a brief update on the ministry before we close. We are finishing up of book one with the Bible Institute students this week. Both in Alausi and in Riobamba, the students finished the course of Bible Methods and Hermeneutics: one of the hardest books of the Bible Institute. They successfully finished with a project handed in on a Bible personality. Praising the Lord for their faithfulness and for God giving them wisdom in comprehending the material. The next class will begin after the New Year - which will be Old Testament Survey. 

       Thank you for your prayers as we travel each week to Alausi. This is the time of the year when we are traveling in thick fog, and with unmarked roads traveling is very dangerous. One of the weeks as we traveled back home, we were stopped by police and told we had to take a back way to Riobamba because there had been an accident with deaths involved. We stopped and thanked God for His protection over us.         We would like to share with you an upcoming project that is on our hearts. Actually, one of our supporting churches has given a love gift that we are going to use to get it started. Many of the believers are desiring Christian literature and books that will help them with their spiritual growth. The nearest Christian bookstore is in Quito, which is 4-5 hours away. We would like to start a rotating bookstore that can be headed up by some of the nationals. We are setting a goal of $5000.00 to begin the project. As we purchase the books from Quito we will have them available both here and in Alausi for the believers to buy. They might have to pay a little at a time, so we really need men/women that will be responsible to handle the finances and the administration of the project. How can you pray? Pray for God to give wisdom in choosing the right men/women to fulfill this position, and pray for God to provide.        We pray you all have a blessed Christmas and a joyous New Year! We love you all, and thank the Lord for your faithfulness in being a part of His ministry in Ecuador through both prayer and finances. We praise the Lord for a wonderful 2017, and look forward to what He has in store for 2018!

Together in the King’s Service, Dave and Cindy