Ecuador Day 2: VBS at the project and Home visits

Today has been incredible and at times some of the experiences have taken my breath away (and may have brought a few tears to the surface!) First of all, we started our morning with Jan Rudd at the breakfast table. We are so excited to have her back with the team...she said she has an amazing testimony to share with the team tonight about how she could see the hand of God in everything that happened the past two days.

Today we started our day going to visit the CDSP with Compassion. This is different than yesterday because they are the sponsored children who are in the project. This isn't the mom and babies. All of these children are between 3-18 years old. They were so excited to have guests. They were waving balloons as we arrived and then they put on a special assembly for us. They sang and played instruments for us. The youth praise band led us in a few songs....I am still amazed how worship is not bound by language. We sang "Here I am to Worship" in English and Spanish today.

After the special assembly we broke into age groups. (50 children per group......yes....I said 50!!) We were able to tell the children (or teenagers in my case) a Bible story and then did a craft. Below are some pictures of the assembly and the Bible teaching.

Then we were able to feed all of the children and adults at the church. I am amazed at how quickly we fed about 250 people. They were so grateful for their rice, chicken and piece of lettuce. They ate every single morsel....there was nothing left on the bone!

Then this afternoon we did home visits. We went to some of the homes where the children in the project live. Many of them do not have access to running water, electicity or bathrooms, but they will tell you....they have Jesus! My home was such a blessing. It was a couple with 4 children. Two of the children were in the project. We saw how valuable the letters are from sponsors...one of these boys pulled out letters over the last 12 years from his sponsor. He is eagerly awaiting another one because tomorrow is his birthday and she always writes to him on his birthday. The sweetest moment for me was the mother praying over US! She prayed for us to stay close to Jesus and to continue to serve the least of these.  She also prayed that God would continue to bless us with wealth so we could continue to take care of the least of these in Jesus name....what a great reminder of why God has blessed us with much....the bless those that have little! She thanked us over and over for coming to her home and blessing her with our visit.

Thank you for your prayers. I hope to post a video on facebook of the kids singing to us on Facebook this evening so you can see how excited they were to sing for us! Feel free to "friend" me on Facebook if you would like to see the video.

Shelley DeBusk

Day one: Sweet blessings!

Well, we made it...but not without a little complications along the way. I know a few of you have heard that Jan Rudd ran into some complications with her passport on the day that we were leaving, but God has been so good in making sure she was able to get here...in may not have been in our timing but she will be here. The small part of the story that made this possible is that the Passport Office opened a new location in Dallas in the last year for last minute passport emergencies. (In the past we had to go to Houston....) This made it possible for Jan to get her passport quickly and I am happy to report we just got a text that said she is boarding the flight to Ecuador and she is on her way. She will be with us by midnight tonight!!!!! God is good.

Today has been incredible as we have had the chance to see the ministry of Compassion. We started the day at the office hearing about what Compassion does and how they do it. The best take away for me were these three values that they build their ministry upon: "Christ centered, Church based and Child focused." That resonates with the heart of our church and how we want to minister throughout the world.

This picture is of Robert. He is the program communication manager for the country of Ecuador.

This is the group of ladies instead the mail room. Behind us are HUNDREDS of letters waiting to be delivered to children all over Ecuador from their sponsors.


After we finished at the office we went to have a traditional Ecuadorian meal for lunch. It consists of hominy, pork, potatoes and empenadas.

After lunch we went to visit our project with the Child Survivor Program. This program focuses on pregnant moms and moms with children under the age of 3. In this program they learn how to help their children develop physically, spiritually, emotionally and developmentally.  These ladies also learn job skills so they can start micro businesses to they can support there families and break the cycle of poverty in their family. We were able to hear testimonies of women that have come to know Jesus and whose children were saved through the intervention with Compassion.

Tomorrow we will be working with the older children. We will be doing a one day VBS with 150 children! YIKES! It is going to be awesome. We are excited to see what the Lord is going to do. Below are pictures of us with the children today....they so want to be loved and to love...the hugs were precious! Love does not require you to know the same language....and we were able to be Jesus with skin on to these precious moms and children.

reuniting with Judith from last year!!! Lots of tears and love over seeing a familiar face

International Commission Belize:

Man that Was Saved

Greg and Debra Jennings and I worked at Queen Street Baptist Church which was started in 1828!  We shared with many people and had revival meetings at night.  We enjoyed the people and the blessing of sharing our faith. 

Pastor Mark

Seattle Weeks 4&5

Well here is my last post covering the past two weeks. I'll be home in a few days and it's weird to even think about as I sit here writing this out. Compared to week 3, weeks 4 and 5 have been a walk in the park in relation to what we have done. Week 4 we went to Odle Middle School everyday. The mornings were laid back and gave us the chance to take care of reading or quiet times or anything we had responsibility wise in planning events. We met with Pastor Warren a few times to discuss the weeks ahead before our camping trip and before the Creation Festival and in the evenings we headed back to the Purple Door to fix dinner. I think our homemade dinners at the Purple Door are some of our fondest memories with my team. The whole experience of cooking, sitting down to eat, talking, laughing, and then cleaning up together are some memories that I'll hold tight to for quite a while. Plus I am proud of the way my cooking skills have expanded this summer. I can cook a good filet out of the oven, with some mashed potatoes, chopped carrots, and finish up with some killer monkey bread. :) But it's times where we are all just sitting around sharing stories and just learning more about one another that I cherish the most - I feel like I've known them for years.

Me, Alyssa, Susanne, and Missy waiting on dinner (Guys serve Girls)

They were so proud of their meal - also best dessert ever ^

 



 Well the weekend between weeks 4 and 5 was so nice. It was the first weekend that for me was completely free. Saturday I knocked out some blog posts that I hadn't a chance to get to earlier and then got to sit down and watch the first part of the trilogy of Lord of the Rings. I really enjoyed the quiet time to myself and felt relaxed about everything. On Sunday, after church, my friend Olivia picked me up and we traveled the roughly two hour drive down to Chehalis and Centralia where her parents live. Now for those who don't know, Olivia was (and is) one of my best friends growing up. She moved up to Washington after seventh grade and I haven't seen her until this year when Lakeside's youth group came up over Spring Break. So to actually go and see her house and spend time with her outside of Seattle was incredible. I've missed hanging out with her and you know when you have a God friend when things haven't changed between the two of you and you pick up right where you left off. It felt as if we did this kind of thing every weekend - hanging out, going to eat at the Quesadilla Factory, and riding quads around the trails. Definitely a sweet day that was not near long enough but I rejoined my team later that night and it was hard not to get into the excitement of leaving for our camping trip on Monday!

Monday morning came and we were furiously packing and getting the van all set and then after our trip to Odle we began our week of camping. After four almost five hours of driving, we arrived at our first campground site right on the beach. It was my second time to see the Pacific Ocean and it's always incredible to see the vastness of any ocean and the way it stretches forever. It was here that we saw a bald eagle and ate our hobo burgers and s'mores. I slept soundly in my sleeping bag and was grateful for the extra cushion of a sleep pad that I had to lay on. The next morning I rose to eat Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal and then sat down for my quiet time. As I sat on the beach, listening to the pounding of the waves, I read through the book of Esther. Her story is such an encouragement and I drew a lot of strength from it, especially as I come out of this single minded summer. Everything around me isn't going to be focused on Christ, and that is why it's all the more important that I work to focus on my own heart and keeping it facing towards Christ and the cross.

Some views are hard to put into words...

 

Well the rest of the week follows suit in that we would pack up camp and drive to the next campsite while stopping off at amazing sites such as Ruby Beach, the Big Cedar Tree, Sol Duc River, Hoh Rain Forest, Lake Crescent, Hurricane Ridge, Forks, Hot Springs, and Cape Flattery. Just so many incredible views and met some cool people. Also I was proud of my team, because we were literally around each other 24/7 and while we got short at times we got along really well and were fine throughout, praise God.

 

Lake Crescent

 Big Cedar Tree

Massive rock at Ruby Beach

Ruby Beach

Sol Duc River

2nd Campground

Marie and I at Cape Flattery

On our way back from Cape Flattery we could see Canada :)

 

Hot Springs

 

Well I think I'll wrap it up here because I think it's hard to put into words how great this summer has been. Thank you for all of your prayers and support! The Lord has been so good this summer and I am excited to see what all he has in store for the future. Feel free to ask me about what He has done in my life this summer. Other than that, all my love and I look forward to seeing you very soon.