Left, right, left…

If you want to catch the bus toward downtown Quito, or if you want to catch a bus toward San Rafael or San Luis areas to buy something, then you need to put on your walking shoes. And you need to be prepared to pass through multiple economic levels while you go.

We are more acclimated at this point than ever to the altitude, so I can probably challenge you to a conversation contest while walking to catch the bus and win- since I have had plenty of practice. What I mean is this: first you walk to get outside of the orphanage grounds, then once outside, take a left. (See beautiful picture with purple flowers at the home of a physician)

 Next, you walk a hundred yards further and go past the trash bags suspended in the tree, with live chickens enjoying the grazing on the sidewalk. (See second picture-chickens and trash)

Once you pass the graffiti wall and the gravel area leading to the fork in the road, you will see yet another part of the route for getting to the main highway for the bus. (See picture of Nichols family headed down the rough path). This part of the walk leads to the footbridge suspended over what I affectionately call the “Valley Of The Falling Pigs.” (More explanation on this in a later blog)

So after you walk across the VOTFP (see above) you walk up the cobblestone road past the men and ladies working with shovels and “shwapping” concrete up over their heads as they complete the third floor of an apartment house.

Finally, 150 vertical feet higher, you reach the highway! Now you can turn and head downhill to the bus stop. If you are going to Quito, you will need to (yep) climb the stairs of the Puente 7 crosswalk and go to the other side of the road to avoid being killed by the traffic roaring down the mountain.

Now it is time to pray for a seat on the bus, because your heart is racing from the walk, and it would be good to sit for a minute. No such success, the bus is full, and there is a lady breast-feeding her baby with no cover next to where you have to stand, so you graciously crane your neck to look at the man in the aisle next to you who is studying your backpack. Finally you get a seat. Across the aisle are two native Quechan Indian ladies that you can pray for as they sit silently in the midst of the commotion and Latino rap music blasting around them. And it hits you there-just how limited you feel sometimes, and just how glorious our God is, that He deserves the praise of every one of the people you have just gawked at, avoided, or prayed for.

So pray that we continue to seek this purpose: His glory in every nation.

Blessings-

Chris and Vickie and family

Turning Our Attention

 We (Nichols and Coe families) just sent the other strand of our Ecuadorian cord of families back stateside last night as the Brock family headed back to Birmingham for one more year (?) before turning to come back south. We are praying for their year of transition to go well. So, what now? Can we reflect a moment?

This summer- what can we say? It has been incredible to see the Lord’s grace in our teams at work. Teams from Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama have come here, and we have seen God use them to teach and care for orphans and their care-givers, and we have seen God use them to help the work move forward for much needed repairs to the orphanage houses/infrastructure. We have seen them look and listen and pray as we verbally paint the picture of completing a gospel-centered camp here on the mountainside to lead Ecuadorian children to become world-impacting disciple-makers, and to train leaders to multiply the church. We have seen the Lord give grace with relationships, we have seen His word and prayer change attitudes, and we have seen His strength when we are exhausted.

We have preached the gospel and presented the directive for Christ’s mission at every opportunity, and we have urged and pressed groups toward word and prayer while they are with us, and challenged them to never look at life the same when they leave. We have asked them to pray for this 2% of their life to change the 98% back at home, wherever that may be.

And now we turn our attention. Vickie and I, along with Ann Coe, are gearing up for work. School starts soon, and we all are praying for God to work through us and give grace for our children and us as we venture daily into downtown Quito. We want to serve the nations with the gospel at Alliance Academy. Last year there were 29 countries represented there. Can you imagine the chance to walk and talk the gospel in front of families from 29 countries in one place?

It will be a challenge, but also an incredible opportunity for multiplying the gospel. Just to give you a snippet, we had a few students from the school help us this summer in translating for Rock the Block and soccer camps. I shared with them about adopting children into our family. They asked if it was expensive to do it? I said “yes, but we were following God’s direction and so He provided what we needed.” They immediately responded with, “God talks with you?” What an opening for future conversations about the gospel with them.

Hope you enjoy the photos…they tell some of our recent days in sharing, showing, teaching, and serving. Pray for our housing transition here from orphanage area to camp area!

Chris and Vickie and family

^{Hebrews 13:20-21} Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, ²¹ equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

All in a day's work

One small thing that I have noticed here in the last few weeks of life in Ecuador is the immense amount of work required to accomplish something over the course of a day. Now, back in the US, you have the most powerful array of productivity tools known to man. You have fast computers, fast cars, fast news, fast food, fast machines, and fast loans. And believe me, there are some tiny parts in Ecuador that have at least some variety of similar things. But it is still much slower for us at this point, and I think it is still much slower for many of the people of our community as well.

It has been good for me to learn again about how difficult it is to accomplish tasks without some personal transportation. Certainly I can call a taxi if I need to go somewhere, right? Not so fast if you can’t be exact about the language. You will end up somewhere. What about the bus? It is a good option- cheap and relatively safe. The problem is the hike to get to the bus. Ever thought about trying to carry your groceries on the bus? Yeah- you probably have not thought about it. Never complain again in my hearing about how far your parking spot is from the door of Publix.

So about 2 weeks ago, Vickie and I went to the center of Quito to pick up a small refrigerator we purchased from a lady who works at the school where we will be serving during the school year. Step one, you get a “truck taxi” to meet you here in Conocoto, and then to take you to an address you have never described before. Yep, had to have a bi-lingual person to set that up… then, after we link up with the teacher, it is off to meet her husband at the place it is stored. Then, the trick is to get it into the truck bed and out of the area without hitting the low overhead spikes on the gate of the apartment building. Made it by tilting it back until we got through. Close call.

Oh- we are not through yet. Now let’s tie it (the fridge) off to make sure we don’t lose it along the side of a mountain on the way home. My wonderful missionary friend Bill Davis volunteers to ride for a kilometer or two just to make sure the ropes are tight (he is 79 years old). After it seems we are good to go, Bill gets back in cab of the truck for the rest of the ride. Then, we make a stop because the freezer door is flying open and a nice man in a taxi is pointing it out as we weave through the 5:00 pm Quito traffic. Oh, it gets better.

No more hitches until we hit the world’s roughest roads, which are located in Conocoto. Once we exit the main road, everything starts to shake. Then, while we are trying to determine if the ropes will hold, our taxi truck enters the one lane bridge over the “valley of the sewer” and it is kind of a stand off with the other traffic. We make it through, but then the hairpin turns begin. So at this point, yours truly officially enters mission service as Bill Davis and I get into the bed of the pickup truck, and hold the fridge with one hand and the truck rail with the other as we bounce our way at 40 miles per hour down the the last mile to the gate of the orphanage. I think I saw some Ecuadorian guys pointing and saying, “didn’t that guy used to be the Executive Pastor at Brook Hills?” as we whizzed by. Through the gate, up the mountain, unlock the next gate, open the second gate, open the house, move the fridge, lock everything back up, pay the cabbie $30 so he can leave, and walk down the mountain. Done. All in a days work.

Privileges

I had the privilege last night of praying one final time for the day and then putting my incredible Brook Hills small group friends on a plane headed back to Atlanta. Then I had the privilege of riding home with my brother in Christ named Miguel through the chilly, thin air back to our side of the high ridge that separates the Los Chillos Valle (Los Chi-yos Vah-yee) from the Quito area. I struggled and smiled as I tried to make tiny phrases in Spanish and he smiled warmly at my attempts! There was no delay in sleep when my head finally hit the pillow.

What can I say about this group? Cleaning, painting, digging, sharing, showing, teaching, serving, encouraging, giving…these brothers and sisters were doing it all.

They consistently worked as an extension of Pastor Miguel’s church in disciple making among 120+ orphans and the caregivers that live with them. Rocking the Block in the middle of the orphanage grounds was pretty incredible.

This week we also had a board meeting with the Orphanage Foundation from the US, and were thankful to see how God is custom designing this entire process of completing a gospel-centered camp area to serve the lost, and the poor, and ultimately the church in Ecuador, and to ultimately impact all nations.

Continue to pray for this week’s teams as we engage the students from the surrounding communities in order to share the Word with them through a free soccer camp. Pray that God will open their eyes to the Gospel and that opportunities for Pastor Miguel to minister to their families will come as a result.

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us…, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.”

(Philippians 3:17 and 4:1)

Part 2 of “What does your neighborhood look like?”

As promised…here is a more detailed glimpse of our life here. Before you read this entry, read my earlier one entitled “What does your neighborhood look like? In particular, I want you to see a few photos of the surrounding areas here in our new home country and hear a few random collected thoughts from my days. Life outside the Foundation walls is a little different than life inside. Life inside here is modest, but life outside is even more. There are always contrasts in countries like this between the rich and the poor. Honestly, I can take you in a taxi in 10 minutes’ time span from a place a few miles away that feels just like an American mall, to a place that feels like, well, not anything like American suburbia.

 One thing I have learned here. At least 50 % of any trip you take here is uphill. This means you should carefully plan your disciple-making efforts, because if you don’t, gravity and thin air will make you pay dearly! By the Lord’s grace we are getting well acclimated to it all, or maybe we are just learning to be smarter about what point on the hillsides we start our walking journeys. Yesterday, I bought an entire huge bunch of fresh bananas where the lady (fully dressed in traditional village Indian style) flipped over a five-gallon bucket, and climbed up to get them off the top shelf, pulled them down for me, all for 50 cents. This was right after I purchased about 2 pounds of strawberries for 1 $.

 Today, God gave the opportunity for me to preach a Gospel message on disciple-making to the Spanish speaking church here at the foundation. What else would I begin with? After the worship gathering, Vickie and I were humbled to be asked to join one of the brothers from the church in his home for lunch. We dined outside under part of the structure of his modest but clean and beautifully painted home. 15 feet away in the neighbor’s yard, two dairy cows grazed as we ate. The barbed wire fence was all that separated us. This man and his wife were so generous and we were served on their finest dishes and tablecloth.

We praise God for His generous ways toward us, and for the continual satisfaction we find in His word.

Blessings!

This is why we are here...

Mission teams hit the ground (softly- that is) a few days ago on the late evening of July 1^st. Well, okay, it really turned into a couple of hours into the dawn of July 2^nd by the time we got everyone settled in here. There are two groups, one from The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, and one from Crossgate Community Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I can truly say that sheer exhaustion in the Gospel is a joyful thing. It has been an incredible week: time in the Word each breakfast meal, digging trenches for much needed repairs of water lines in the orphanage, scraping and painting of 38 year-old orphan homes, Bible teaching by ladies for ladies, Bible school for 120+ orphans every afternoon, stories of God’s faithfulness over the years shared by Dorothy Davis, and ultimately the realization for us that this is, at least in part, why we are here. We are here because of the Gospel. We want to bless this community because God has blessed us and our debt is really to the world. We have this great salvation, and it is for sharing and not storing up. Each day it seems that God is giving opportunity for us and for the groups here to share, show, and teach the word, and to serve the world.

On our final night together, we had the chance to worship the Lord in the camp property up the mountain. It was pretty incredible to sing praises to our great God along with our friends, family, and with brothers and sisters in Christ from Arkansas, Alabama, and Ecuador by firelight in the middle of the Andes. Pray for me as I prepare to teach this Sunday through an interpreter to a Spanish speaking church here at the orphanage grounds.

Blessings,

Chris

What does your neighborhood look like?

One of the things that I haven’t shown you yet, but will begin to do in posts ahead, is to show you some of the pictures of our “stomping grounds” in this area. We live in Conocoto, Ecuador, which is a “suburban” town outside of Quito. Now, when you think suburb, don’t think Hoover or Dunwoody by any stretch.

 Think much, much smaller. Think older, more crooked homes; think way older, smaller cars, and think of a way more rustic aspect of life. Think sidewalks with multiple obstacles that are not like our smooth entrances to shopping and dining areas of the US. Think barking dogs, and babies carried across the back. Think steps that trip you because they aren’t the same height. Think walking by tiny dwellings that are mostly constructed of concrete block or brick. Think graffiti, lots of graffiti.

Think about old TV’s that are full of static in tiny storefront areas. Think of little ladies standing next to smoking hand-fashioned charcoal grills placed right on the sidewalk. Watch out-they’re hot! Think of 3 generations of a family sitting on tile-floored shops that are selling panty hose and corn and DVD’s all in the same tiny space. Think of at least two or three shoe shops and pelequerias (hair-cut places) and bakeries and farmacias (drug stores) all in 3 city blocks. But don’t think about our places in America, think of the rusty open doorways that are so close to the road that you can’t hear in the store when the bus goes by, and the diesel smoke that roars into the store while you stand there.

But, more that this, think about the Gospel. Think about getting to know the people that you shop with, smile at, buy from, and bump into in the aisle, and doing it all for the sake of hopefully seeing salvation fruit come one day from these beginning interactions. You know, the ones that stare at you, laugh at your language, and envy your good shoes and your nice watch. You know, kind of like what you do for the sake of the Gospel in Birmingham, or Atlanta, or New Orleans, or wherever, right? Or do you- think about it?

 “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.”

Matthew 3:23