Greetings from sunny Quito. (Hee hee hee!) We have been watching the news and reading reports on the Internet of this winter storm many of you are living through right now--one more reason for us to be thankful for our call to a beautiful country with perfect weather year-round.

Well, it finally happened....Darryl and I performed our first "duet" in church on Sunday. We were invited to attend a new church plant in the south part of Quito. When we arrived the pastor informed us that the church members would love to receive a greeting from OMS and to hear us sing a special in English. What can ya do? We did give a disclaimer before we sang, just so they wouldn't be expecting something spectacular. We sang "Open the Eyes of Our Heart, Lord", which they sing in Spanish, so we weren't singing alone for long. It was a lot of fun, and as always, we were so blessed by our Ecuadorian brothers and sisters in Christ. They are just so great!

This week the church association that we partner with is having their general assembly. This is really our main prayer request of the week. Things between the mission and the leader of the association are a little tense, so we are just praying that the presence of the missionaries at the assembly this week will be a blessing. My parents are there and we are looking forward to hearing from them as to how things are going throughout the week. Please pray that the Holy Spirit's presence will be evident to all this week. Pray also that the decisions made will honor God and will be positive decisions that help us move forward in building God's kingdom here in Ecuador.

I received several inquiries about our guest blogger and if he had anything else to say, so I will continue to post his remaining blogs in the next couple of weeks.

Guest Blogger….part 3

I shared earlier about how Kelly and Darryl had such a positive impact on our ministry. We were there to work with some of the poorest people in Quito. Our days generally started before 6am as we took our turns in the showers, and had devotions before getting picked up by the bus at 7:30a. In between those events, we were treated to a great breakfast that Kelly and Darryl prepared for us. I’m not talking about toast and cold cereal here. How about pancakes, homemade coffee cake, breakfast burritos with eggs, sausage, bacon and cheese, passion fruit or guanabana juice, freshly baked banana bread…well, you get the idea.

We arrived on Tuesday night and got started bright and early on Wednesday. Our day was generally divided into two parts: preparation and outreach. Extreme Response works with smaller ministry partners and helps them fulfill their ministry through leadership development, fund raising operations and encouragement. On Wednesday morning we unloaded over 50,000 pounds of food from two trucks, prepared children’s gift bags (called Navidad bags) and got packed up for our ministry day. That afternoon we split into two groups to hold Christmas parties for two organizations; Pan de Vida (Bread of Life), an organization that provides spiritual and physical food for people in Quito, and Hogar Betania, a Christian facility for elderly people. In total we ministered to over 550 people that first day. After cleaning up and getting everything ready for day 2, we were beat. We got back to the OMS house at about 9pm. When we arrived Darryl and Kelly were there to listen to our stories, share snacks and hot tea and just make us feel welcome and loved. It was a great way to end an amazing day.

On Thursday the day started much the same: great breakfast courtesy of the Chambers, early bus ride, a worship & chapel time with our whole team, then preparation for the afternoon. That day we went to a very poor part of north Quito to assist a church called Carman Bajo in their outreach to the community. This was a first-time event for the church. As the busses arrived, there were over 1000 people lined up, waiting for us. We got everything set up and then had a party with school carnival-type games for about 1200 people. We finished with a food distribution to each family in attendance; staples such as rice, beans, sugar and salt were given along with a Navidad bag for each child containing toys, pencils & crayons, and hygiene items. After all the people had left, we had a joint worship service with the people of Carman Bajo. It concluded with them encircling our team and praying for us and our ministry in Quito. We then paired up with a member of the church and prayed for their continued outreach in their community. It was a powerful way to end the day.

We thank God for each of you and pray that you will be blessed (and warm) this week!

Serving the King,
Kelly, for the Chambers