Puerto Quito

I have been very busy and tired, so blogging has been hard to commit to the last couple of days!  I will try to catch you up though....

Saturday we went to a town called Puerto Quito.  It is in the secondary jungle zone, so the climate and vegetation are much different than what I've been seeing in the mountains here in Quito.  In fact, we dropped over 2500 meters in elevation just in our 3 hour trip there!  That's crazy yo!! (That's for you Dad-Day😉) Anyway, it was an awesome drive and the transition from mountain vegetation to jungle vegetation was quite abrupt!  I couldn't get any good pictures from the car, but I'm telling you pictures wouldn't have done it justice anyway!

We went down to Puerto Quito with a local pastor from Quito who is trying to get two church groups started out there.  There are no evangelical churches out that way, so the Penley's are helping him once a month bring a service to the people of Puerto Quito.  There are two locations they have started ministering to so far.  So there is a morning outreach and then an afternoon outreach.

Both locations are at a local government run school, so it's kind of neat that the very same schools the government uses to control what the kids learn and where they can attend school, are being used on the weekends to bring the Love of Jesus to a community desperately in need.  Some of these people have never even read or seen a Bible.  So when you refer to a passage from the Bible they have no idea where it comes from or even where to begin looking for it.

So this Saturday, we did some worship, Pastor Ashley preached a message, there was a kids program, we provided lunch and gave away a bike and some other things, and we also brought in some bibles and other material that will help them to learn and grow in their walk.  The idea is that they will begin digging deeper with others in their community and start building a church in that way, until they can get someone on a full time basis out there to pastor them.

Overall, 10 people accepted Jesus into their hearts that day, and at the second location four people, who had already given their lives to the Lord, were baptized in the river!  It was a great day, a very long and itchy day (lots of bugs), but it was a great day, and most importantly 10 people accepted Christ that day!!

Here are some pics from the different locations...

Going in to the first location (sorry it's blurry it was a bumpy ride!)

The first school we went to...

Praise and Worship..

Kid's session...

Then it was off to location number two.  Unfortunately, we couldn't take the truck all the way in, so we parked and carried all of our stuff in... :)

Bridge #1 (yikes! 😰)

I had to carry a big bag of sugar plus a backpack in! (Let's just say, heights and I don't mix very well, especially on a swinging wooden bridge held together by rope.... But I did it!!!!!)

This is the path that led to...

Bridge #2 (a bouncy metal bridge, yay...)

But we finally made it!  After the outreach we went down to the river, and this is where four people were baptized 😄

Afterwards, everyone jumped in and it turned into a big party!  People brought food out from nowhere and passed it around.  I drank sprite from the same cup as 30 other people!! Haha fortunately, I was smart enough to realize what was happening and accepted the cup as like the third person, that way I wasn't at the end of the line! All in all, it was a great day, and I can honestly say, I wouldn't have experienced this back in the States!

Tomorrow we leave for Guayaquil and the teams fly in next Tuesday, the next few days will be even busier preparing for them!  Thank you for keeping us in your prayers as we prepare to dive full force into 3 full weeks of nonstop ministry!!