Servicio de campo

So now enough of that other nonsense. Were going to talk about what we came here to do. Predicar is the Spanish name for preach. This was our first day in the ministry in Guachapala.  This was the at the meeting for field service.  No English translators this day! And we had no idea what was going on.  We did not yet have a car at the time so we arrived for service with all 3 of us on the motorcycle, which was an interesting thing! We have since seen 4 people on a motorcycle. They topped us. Yesterday we saw 4 people on a bicycle! Now that was impressive. We didn't take a picture of us, even though we have heard many would have liked to see all 3 of us on the motorcycle together! One day we will take one.  The territory here is more rural so a typical day in the ministry is you drive to an area and the rest of the morning you walk the territory going from one house to another.  You pretty much need to in many areas because the houses are just randomly scattered all over the mountains. Many have no driveway of any sort. We walked through some corn fields to get to the houses. Yup not kidding! Then at the end of the morning you drive back to the hall or you go home.  So this particular day Jeremy and Zakk took the bike from the hall and followed the truck that had the other 6 people in it to the territory.  Of course it rained a little bit here and there and then it really came down for awhile!  That was a good break in day for Jeremy and Zakk. Wet and muddy driving a motorcycle in the ministry. We use an umbrella pretty much every day for rain and for sun! The sun is very intense here. And having muddy shoes and pants in the ministry is normal. By the way the circuit overseer informed us that ties are not needed in the ministry. Some brothers actually wear jeans and sweatshirts! That made a whole lot more sense to me when I walked through my third corn field.

 

 

 

 

 So one of the houses that we got to talk to (my partner mainly) had this dog.  I was shocked because we have seen all kinds of dogs here but this was the first time I had seen a Boxer up close.  Of course later I had to show the lady a picture of my dog Louise, and I think she said "how cute"!  She seemed very excited about it because her tone of voice changed into like how you would talk to a baby! All in all we ended up giving her a tract and the man of the house a tract. The dog was not for sale.

This was our first meeting on Thursday night at Guachapala.  Their meeting time is 6:30 p.m. which is nice.  The Brother on the right is Alex, which is the coordinator of the body of elders and the sister beside him is Alyssa, she is from Hawaii and is here as a need greater too and can speak Spanish and English, so she has been a helpful translator! They had 4 pioneers but with the other need greaters and us we now have 8 we also now have 3 elders and 5 servants.  We thought Alex was asking if we needed Kingdom Ministry's but after going to the translator, we found out that he wanted to know which part in the Service Meeting Jeremy wanted for the month of April.  First Assignment given at the first meeting attended, 2 Checks!  Jeremy could have used her help at the elders meeting with the C.O. but obviously that is not an option.  He understood parts of the meeting but had absolutely no clue about much of what was happening.

We went in service again later in the week and these are a few pictures of the area we worked in.  Jeremy and I got work together this day which was nice, between the 2 of us we could kind-of figure out what people were saying.  The brother who did the group for service asked if he could work with Zakk and he had studies and some return visits so he got an easy morning!  We also found out later that he got to have a break with some juice and some crackers which is the closest thing he can get to a break around here.

 It sure looked like it was going to pour but really we only got a few sprinkles.

 

 

 

   So this gentleman here in the picture was working in an office and when the door is open most times you just say "hola or buenas dias" and he of course responded and invited us to come in and sit down.  We gave him the Invitation to the memorial along with our brief presentation and since he invited us to sit I said to Jeremy we should play him the "Why Study The Bible Video."  He was the only one in the office so we took this picture discreetly while he was watching it.  While he was watching it I was looking at the JW Language app to try and figure out what were going to say once it's done.  So there is a section "Offering A Bible Study" and also a section "Offering To Return".  He seemed to enjoy the video and said that those were good questions.  So we asked if he would like to have a bible study and showed him the good news brochure and all the questions on the back, he pointed to #8 which is "Why Does God Allow Evil And Suffering?"  So we opened the brochure to lesson 8 and showed that to him.  Then we used the JW Language app to ask how we can contact him and he ended up writing down his name, e-mail and his phone number.  We are pretty sure he has seen or gotten the magazines before because at one point he mentioned La Atalaya which is the watchtower, so who knows maybe he's never been offered a study before.

 

 

 

 We thought this house was funny because there are geese, chickens, cats and then of course the dog up on the roof!  We have seen many dogs up on the roofs of houses, not quite sure how they get up there or why they go up there?

This day in service they sent Jeremy and I by ourselves, literally.  Zakk went with the other brother we thought on studies.  We found out later that they were doing territory also just in a different area not far from us.  Zakk had a hard day, he thought he was going to die because his head got so hot from the sun! Those were his words. The sun is very hot at higher elevations we have noticed. We got a good laugh out of it.

 Anyone ever heard of the hike called 1,000 steps in PA? Well we think we found another one here in Ecuador.  So we got to this area by driving up a long dirt road and we thought stairs, someone must live up here, so we walked up and got to a house.  But the stairs kept going so we figured it must go somewhere right?  Chelsea kept saying the steps only go to more fields.  So we get up to the top where the stairs stop and what do you know........ fields! At first glimpse. But to the right was a well traveled foot trail.  Now we can see the roof of a house so we start walking that way and of course saying "hola, buenas dias" along the way.  Wouldn't you know someone is there outside washing some vegetables. So we got to talk to her & we are pretty sure she was thinking what are these gringos doing all the way up here?  She knew why after we gave her the memorial invitation!  Either nobody told me I did not need a tie in the ministry or they did and I had no idea what they said!

 We had visitors from the Cleona Congregation in Pa & they wanted to go in service with us.  Well it rained and it had also rained the night before so it was pretty muddy in some areas. Yes dad those are the boots you gave me. They have been very useful to me. Good call! We realized that Zakkary needed some boots also. One minor oversight. We have some for him now, he gets to look like the locals wearing rain boots from Ecuador.

 

This bridge is at one end of town near where the bus station is in Paute. It seems to be much safer and nicer than the one on the other end of town!

 

 This is the scary bridge because some of the boards are missing and it doesn't seem to be very sturdy.  But none the less Jeremy and Zakk went over it on their dirt bikes! The locals all told us it is ok to take our motos across it. At least we think that's what they said.

This is the river that runs beside our house. This is up further where the bridge is that you can walk over.

 

Jeremy and Zakk went riding dirt bike up the mountain and this was their view!

 

Here is the Cooper Family. We enjoyed our time with them very much. They are considering moving here in a few years. They were with us and Chad and Michele for some of their vacation. They also saw some of the sites in other areas. It was nice to speak some English with them!

Here is Chase holding a baby chicken that his dad picked up for him!

So you can tell that the ministry is quite a bit different here than in PA. The visiting sisters from Canada and Hawaii said right away that they felt they personally needed to do more return visits. It is hard for most publishers to do a lot of RV's because the territory is up to 4 hours away from the Kingdom Hall at its furthest point. There are only a few vehicles used for service and the common morning is to meet and pile in whatever vehicles are there which take everyone to preach.  We have a few return visits now and Jeremy has a guy that agreed to a bible study. Again, we think that is what he said. We will see on Friday!