Why I Love the Church

I know that there are a lot of critical things to say about the church these days (and throughout the ages), but today I want to focus on one of the many reasons I love the church and am so thankful to be a part of a church body.

Jesus is trying to break some faulty beliefs in my life.  For a lot of my life, instruction or commands in The Bible came across to me as another things I needed to do to please God.  No matter how many times I heard from wonderful pastors that these commands are for me, it just didn't click.

Until more recently, when I am starting to see the grace in His commands.

"And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." Hebrews 10:25

In these past few weeks I have seen why this instruction in his Word is so important for us.

Some of our best friends were in the hospital this week with their 4 year old son with cancer.  It has broken my heart to be thousands of miles away and not be able to offer hugs and meals.

But I have watched God's beautiful church (the people, not the building) surround our friends, love on them, offer them words of encouragement, pray for them,  and one of my dear mentors started a meal train to get food to their family so they can focus on the important things as their son goes through treatment. Beautiful.

Early this morning a wonderful woman and mother in our church here in Ibarra left this world and went to be with Jesus.  I heard the team of young missionaries we live with get up early and head out to be with the family.  They are just now starting to trickle in at 9:30 pm with red eyes and full hearts after a day of helping the family put together the funeral in 12 hours.  Beautiful.

Over and over again Kurtis and I have been surrounded with love and support in all the ups and downs in life, including the adoption of our son to our move to a new country. Beautiful.

I have many people in my life that I care for that do not have this blessing.  They are not a part of a church family that can offer love, encouragement, and hold them up when they don't feel they can go on.  This breaks my heart.

I am thankful for God's beautiful church and the way it can be tangible Jesus here on earth.  I am going to bed tonight knowing that my dear friends know they are cared for, a grieving family has seen God's love through His' people, and feeling the prayers and sacrifice of so many who many who give so that we can be here in Ecuador. 

We are so blessed to be a part of the church and I am ever more grateful for gifts in God's Word.

"Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." (Hebrews 10:23-25 NLT)

Longing for Home

Holidays are hard away from family.  What surprised me is that this 4th of July was one of the hardest so far!  It may be due to the fact that we just had my mom, Kurtis' sister, and Kurtis parents come to visit us over the past month, and they were all back at home in the states, and we were here.  Don't get me wrong, I love Ecuador.  It is a beautiful place with lovely people, but I don't think it will ever truly be home.

But in truth, neither is Arizona.  I read a passage from CS Lewis recently where he talked about our longing for home and our constant desire to fulfill that here on earth.  We go through great effort to create special moments, but they never quite live up to what we hoped for.  We remember times with our family in the past and it brings back warm feelings of home, but when we try to recreate those moments or create new moments, they are never perfect, they never quite feel like home to us.  The reason being is that we were not created for earth.  Our real home, our real longing is for heaven.

Philippians 3:20 says, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."

This really resonated with me on our last trip back to the states.  We were so excited to be with friends and family, but in the midst of our joy, there was still pain and struggle.  We still had work to do, time constraints that kept us from seeing so many people we wanted to, there was still brokenness in families, and our best friends found out the day before we got home that their son Moses had cancer.  We were so thankful that The Lord allowed us to be home with our loved ones, but honestly, I am thankful that it isn't really home and that my heart longs for my real home in heaven with Jesus, where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more cancer!

I had a very strange experience last night while I slept.  I am not sure if it was a dream or was real, but I was dying.  I could feel my heart failing me.  I could feel my spirit separating from my body and I was whispering to Kurtis "I love you" over and over.  The thing that surprised me though, was that I wasn't scared.  I was excited!  I felt ready to finally be with Jesus in my home that I was created for.

Obviously, The Lord did not take me to heaven last night, but it was a reminder to me that I need to keep living with eyes that are focused on Him, my true home, and do my best to do His work with the time he has given me in this foreign land.

C.S Lewis (excerpt from Mere Christianity)

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."

We were so confused!  We had just gotten word from our supervisor and the CEO of our organization that the Manta church plant (our group) had been canceled or delayed for at least a year.  There just wasn't the amount of young missionaries necessary to form a whole team.

We had sold our things, raised a lot of money, and moved our family down to Ecuador to help plant this church and in one conversation we realized this may not be why the Lord brought us here.  “Why Lord?  We know your plans are good; this one just doesn’t make sense yet.  We’ll trust you and wait for your answer.” 

In the midst of it all, God gave us a peace that there was a specific purpose in this change.  

This all happened right before Christmas.  We went through the next month with little idea of what we would be doing in the coming months/years; trying to brainstorm ways we could be useful for Extreme Missions and Christ’s kingdom.  Some possible options on our plate were to help with another church plant already in process, or travel home for an extended time to wait for the next opportunity to plant a church with Extreme.  Flexibility has definitely been the word of the year for us!

On Saturday, January 18th, we got a Skype call from our Supervisor.  He asked us if we would be willing to jump in as the Cluster Coordinators of a team that has just recently started their work in Ibarra, Ecuador.  Due to health reasons, the current Cluster Coordinator family needed to relocate so their team was suddenly in need of a support family.

The former Cluster Coordinators are dear friends of ours, so the news was difficult to receive.  We were grieved for them, and yet had peace about filling their position, with great desire to honor the work they put in before us. 

We needed the Lord to confirm it for us, and He did in a beautiful way.  Throughout his young life, Malachi has had a love/hate relationship with prayer.  He loves it when it extends his awake time before bed.  He hates to take it seriously, and he never likes to pray out loud.  This time, Kurtis asked him just to pray for our family in his heart, and he shocked us with this one: “Jesus, please help Mommy and Daddy and Kai Kai know what to do.  Aaaaamen!”  

And we did know what to do.  

It all started making sense now.  This is why the Manta team didn’t come together.  The amazing thing is, there are 4 people on the Ibarra team that were originally scheduled to be on our team in Manta, so we had already started developing relationships and praying for them.  Even crazier is that most of the others were with us in language school or studying ministry on the same campus during our time there.  So we already had this amazing base of relationships with this team before we ever knew we would be working with them!  How cool is that?!

We packed up all our belongings (with the help of friends who showed up at just the right time without us asking) and in 2 days moved to Ibarra, Ecuador on Monday, January 20th.  We were welcomed by our new team with a beautiful lunch they had prepared, flowers, and many welcoming hugs. It was overwhelming.  This team is the one who was experiencing a difficult time, but still they chose to bless us with their welcome.  What a special day!

Pastor, Pastora and some of our amazing team fixing us lunch on our first day

A very warm welcome!

We are now the Cluster Coordinators (or Support Family) for 6 amazing young missionaries, with four more coming in May.  These missionaries have a great passion for the Lord and have a true desire to share His love with the people of Ibarra.  We have learned a lot from them in a short few weeks and we are excited to grow alongside them as we seek to follow the Lord’s call together.

From left to right: David, Chase, Priscila, Pastora (Astrid), Jared (Pastor & Pastora's son), Rebecca, Abigail (you may recognize her from our first newsletter), Pastor (Yoan), Michaela, & the Strunks

We are also working alongside a Pastor and his family, who are incredible examples of what it means to follow Christ and who we are fortunate to consider friends.  Another blessing in this is that Kurtis became good friends with Pastor Yoan while we were studying language at the seminary.  Yoan was one of our language professors.  He and Kurtis bonded through Jesus and playing basketball, and somehow a lack of a common language did not seem to matter.  We are very excited to support this family in ministry over the next two years!

In case you are wondering, Ibarra is a beautiful, small city surrounded by mountains and an active volcano called Imbarbura!  The weather is a bit warmer than Quito, but not bad at all, especially compared to the beautiful oven we lived in for the past 15 years in Arizona.  Ibarra has beautiful lakes and very kind people.  We are looking forward to getting to know the city and the people better and can’t wait to show any visitors around!  Hint, hint…. ;)

A local park with a view of the volcano

Malachi thinks it is pretty cool here ;)

I will write again soon to fill you in on all we will be doing here.  It is such an honor to be doing the Lord’s work with this team in Ibarra!

The Holidays Abroad // Part 1

The holidays are always the hardest time to be away from family, whether you are a few states or a few thousand miles away.  As we faced the upcoming holidays here in Ecuador, we received some very good news.  We had visitors on the way!  What a blessing to have family near on our first holidays away from home (really in all of our lives)!  Yes, we have been super spoiled!

It started with a visit from Kurtis’ sister, Kristina.  She showed up the day before Thanksgiving with suitcases packed with treats from The States!  She even traveled with a cooked turkey breast and a homemade apple pie!  (Unfortunately, the turkey didn’t make it through customs, but thankfully the delicious pie did)!

Kurt's sister, Kristina (or "Aunti Na" as we like to call her) and Malachi, exploring the equator together.

Malachi loves to watch "Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown" and because of this he is SURE that Thanksgiving meal consists of popcorn, jelly beans, and toast!  Well, Auntie Na came through and brought us Jelly Belly's from home! We were all pretty excited for him to enjoy them, but felt so bad when the first Jelly Belly he popped in his mouth was a ho cinnamon one.  Boy was he surprised!  I am sure it is not what he imagined when he was thinking about jelly beans!  He quickly got over it, though, and enjoyed the rest of the bowl with us.

Our best "Charlie Brown" faces.  He's kind of a grumpy dude!

On Thanksgiving day I looked up "Thanksgiving meals made with Chicken" since we were short some turkey and found a great recipe that did end up tasting quite Thanksgiving-ish.  We enjoyed the day, Skyped with family, and thought much about all we have to be thankful for.  It all came together great and it felt like home!  

Auntie Na's famous zucchini stuffing and traditional green beans :)  Yay for big suitcases!

We even got to set up the Christmas tree while Kris was in town!

A little sibling rivalry

You can't set up the tree without some delicious hot chocolate!

While Kris was still in town, we had the privilege of spending a really big Quito holiday with our neighbors.  The 6th of December is Quito's birthday and we found out that birthdays are a really big deal around here!  There were fiestas in the streets a whole week before the actual day; people in party busses, celebrating the birth of their town.  

On the night of December 5th, our neighbors took us through Quito to see all the fun.  We visited the beautiful historic center of Quito.  There were people everywhere!  It was fun to witness all the excitement.  

Exploring the city

We ended the night with a late dinner (11pm) in a beautiful restaurant at the top of a local landmark hill.  We enjoyed delicious empanadas, potato soup, and even tried hot chocolate with cheese.  Yep, you read that right.  Cheese!  I'll just say I prefer to stick with marshmallows :)  It was a beautiful night and we are so thankful that Kristina got to be a part of it with us

On the 6th of December, we were treated to a personal parade in our own little neighborhood! 

Happy Birthday, Quito!