Sabbath

For those of you who have yet to read my first post, I had the privilege of playing in church this morning and we played three Hillsong songs: Came to My Rescue, From the Inside Out, and Take It All! The morning began with a great QT in Joshua (never heard that one, have you?!), fruit-filled breakfast, and a shower.

Church was fantastic! I believe the Lord was blessed by the worship and church service overall... although the vocals and playing wasn't always perfect. As my friend Briana puts it, "It's a good thing the Bible says just to make a joyful noise." Praise the Lord for the blessing of being able to play music and sing for His greatest glory! After church, a few people said some very nice things to me as a good-bye party-type thing. It was such an encouragement and a blessing! May the Lord bless them as they have blessed me...

After church, I hung out at the Maust house and then we all went to Guano. On the way to Guano we saw the volcano spit out a HUGE cloud (see below). It was so sweet... the picture definitely doesn't do it justice. In Guano we went to many different shops, I met many of their friends and we ate "Cholas", or sweet bread. We also got to visit the town museum, which contains a mummy found preserved in one of the church's walls, saw a woman making a rug (so cool) and a bull fight (not a real one, just drunk guys running around a small bull trying to impress people)!

Bible Study (picture to come soon) was wonderful, as well! We sped through chapter 4 and then distributed the Bibles... they were SO thankful for them! Again, we received a "this is the best gift in the world" comment. Please do pray that they would learn a lot more from God's Word in English and Spanish! Skyping with family and friends (here's to you, KJ and Steve) and blogging was my night.

Monday morning at SMAC was fun and then JM, Andrea, and I went shopping through the town! We were able to bargain all the vendors down, the best deal going from $18 to $13. JM and I went back to his place, hung out for a bit, and then I went to the Coupes to help them move furniture out of their house! Other missionaries from their team were also there, as were two of their Ecuadorian friends (including Christian). I left for TKD after that, had a pretty good time just getting some exercise, was able to minister to Henry afterwards (please continue to pray for him... pray that the perfect love of Jesus would cast out ALL fear in his life- 1 John 4:18), and then walked to Orale to have a "despedido" (good-bye party). Many of the youth of the church, including the worship leader Luis, met to eat and just have fun together. It was a mostly Spanish evening where fun stories were shared (including a list of what I've eaten here in Ecuador) and nice things were said of me. Praise the Lord for friends here in Ecuador! May the Lord bless, lead, and guide them as they seek to grow to be more and more like Him...

Tonight I had the privilege of talking with my friend Cat in Australia and now I'm heading to bed... how's that for concise?

Lessons in Joshua (Lord willing) coming soon...

In His strength alone...

Luke

The Super-Cool Church Band.

God's majesty displayed through a mushroom cloud from the volcano Tungurahua.