Starting up again with our favorite studies

Now that we've been back for almost two weeks, we have been able to re-establish most of our studies that we had left. They are all doing well and very happy to get the study going again. Unfortunately, most of the sisters we left them with weren't able to study very regularly with any of them, so we are anxious to make up for lost time. I have restarted 5 of mine so far and also have taken over some other studies for a sister who left recently.

One of the studies I enjoy most, Maria, has promised to go to meeting with us next week and has as a goal to attend one meeting a week as long as her husband allows it. Her son Pablito also studies with me now. He is 11, extremely shy, and has always sat in the corner of the room on the bed during his mom's study, pretending to read a school book or magazine, but would mutter the answers to the questions under his breath for every paragraph. When I would ask him to share his answers and thoughts with us, he denied having ever said anything. So a few months before I left, I asked him if he wanted his own study with a brother in the congregation and he said no thank you. But the next week, he was sitting at the table to join his mom's study. For a few weeks there after, I had Maria come to my house for our study and Pablito always joined her. Then finally, one day after Maria's study, she said that Pablito had something to ask me. He, while looking down at the concrete floor of their  one room home, muttered something inaudible and after some translation from mom, we decifered that he had decided to have his own study, but only with "La Senorita Elsie" because he knows me now.

So we started his own study in the Teach book. For our first study, he had his book prepared all the way through the first chapter. However, his idea of studying for the study was to underline every single line of the paragraphs! The effort was very impressive, but we had a talk about only underlining the main point and the answer to the question. He managed to answer all the questions, but in a voice so quiet and shy, sometimes it took a few minutes to understand a single answer. I've never seen a kid here this shy. I wondered if the info was too advanced for him and considered switching books, but he really wanted to study in the same book as his mom, so...

Anyway, the following week, he had the whole chapter underlined again, so in order to teach him the idea of main points, I forbid him to underline more than one sentence per paragraph, which seemed to do the trick. He managed to capture and underline the one main sentence that answered the question. Ding ding ding!! That same study, his 15 year old cousin had come into town to hang out with Pablito, and little Pablito, following his mom's good example of putting the study first, told his cousin that they couldn't go to the video game place until AFTER his study, so motioning over to the bed, Pablito tells him, "just sit over there and wait for me and don't make any noise."  Ha ha! That was the most assertive I've ever heard him and it was in defense of his bible study! yay!

Well, i invited the cousin to join our study instead of waiting in the corner like he was in trouble, which he said ok to. He enjoyed very much participating and bringing up questions when he didn't understand something. You could tell at the beginning he felt a little awkward; here he was a 15 year old kid, sitting in a house with strangers, 2 cute white girls at that (if i may be so bold to infer his thoughts...), studying the bible. But he caught on right away and really enjoyed it. I talked to him about finding Witnesses in the town where he lives and gave him literature to read on his 3 hours bus ride home.

While I was gone in the US those 4 months, Pablito didn't study with the person I had assigned him, as he was too shy to start  with a new person he didn't know, but he did sit in on all his mom's studies.

Maria has also been taking the commandment to preach and make disciples very seriously. She has been preaching to her family, friends, employer, anyone who has something negative to say about the bible or especially about witnesses, which is quite common. She is a good defender of Jehovah's people! A couple weeks ago, she said that 2 Catholic women came to her door, "preaching the word." As she was telling me the story, the look of confusion on her face was very interesting. She says that she asked them why they were preaching because Catholics don't preach. She would know, she "use to be" one. And then she told them that if they were going to preach, they had to know what the bible says first in order to teach people properly. She actually got her bible out and tried showing them straight from the bible the truth about Jehovah God and his relationship with his son, Jesus. She mentioned to them how a proper bible study would help them know what to preach to others. But accurate knowledge had to come first. They said they would come back but never did. I told her that she defending the truth so well, that they had nothing to add, and that's why they didn't come back.

I hope she will find a way to become part of Jehovah's people soon. Here, progress can be slow if the head of the house is not in agreement, which is usually the case. But she is progressing very well in her knowledge and realtionship with Jehovah.

(5/27 update) Just today, Maria told us that she'd been thinking about it, and she needed to either start preaching from door to door or going to all the meetings. She knows Jehovah wants her to do both but in her list of priorities, she wasn't sure which to start doing first! Of course, we discussed how the meetings will help her learn how to preach and "qualify" her to do so, so attending meetings should be her first priority. She also said that the last time she was at a meetings, she noticed the sisters giving talks and she just froze with fear because she knew one day, she would have to get up there too! (Wow, she is really thinking ahead of her progress in the organization). Now, in case you don't know, this is the women my dad and I found door to door last year. Dad, our call is doing well!

Now, on to finding Fanny. Fanny is Hannah's study. We have written about her before. A very humble, sweet, but exuberant kind of person. Just before I left for the US, she separated from her husband under very difficult circumstances and moved to the town over from us. Our first mission when we got back here was to find Fanny. We figured we'd start at her work, a toy store in Cumabaya, a 20 minute bus ride. We went wondering how we were going to track her down once we got to the store, as we didn't want  to ask and get her in trouble with her employers. Well guess who was standing in the doorway of the store greeting customers? It was Fanny and she was so shocked and excited to see that we had come to find her. We chatted for a quick second before her boss came around and she had to look busy, so she drew a quick map of how to get to her house (no addresses or mapquest here!), we exchanged new numbers and made arrangements to study the very next day after she got off work.

The next day, we went at 3pm as planend to find no one home. So as we waited out on her street for her to get home, we took the following pics to ammuse ourselves.

Ecuador's version of barbed wire fenceJust one of the things we have to contend with in service

One photo shoot, 15 minutes, and 2 mosquito bites later, she arrived and we went inside to study. But her two girls who were suppose to be home were gone. No note, no sign of them. Long story short, the next 45 minutes were spent trying to find out what happened to them. Fanny was very worried especially about the youngest one who is 6 who gets dropped off by bus from school at 1:30. After a while, we managed to track both of them down. They had gone to friends houses without asking or letting their frantic mother know. I guess that has never happened with the little one although it's a reoccuring problem with her rebellious 11 year old girl who looks like she's 18 and uses that to her advantage. Fanny talked for a long time about how worried she is for her 11 year girl who stays out all night, hangs out with boys twice her age, and has no respect anymore for house rules. Here, it is very easy for young girls to get into trouble and wind up pregnant, which is Fanny's biggest concern. Pamela the 11 year old has always been a very sweet, obedient kid up until recently when they separated from their father (who is not a nice person anyway).

After the events of the day and relating to us how worried she is for her girls, it was obvious that Fanny couldn't concentrate on the study at hand, so instead we decided to go over information in the current Watchtower and Awake about parents and practical advise the bible gives on raising them in troubelsome times.  Here it is important to be flexible with our studies and make sure they are practical and fits the needs of the student.

Halfway through the study, I went outside to check the clouds. Rain here is always forseeable by the clouds and since we were walking part way home, it was important to keep a close eye on it. As I stepped outside, i felt the first few sprinkles and yelled for Fanny and Hannah to come out and get the clothes that were hanging outside. After a mad dash to get the clothes in before the real rain started, we quickly wrapped up the study, gathered our stuff, and got on our way.

We've had some other real nice studies with our students since then. It really is quite a productive territory here.

Stay tuned... this weekend we are beginning our Ecuadorian cuisine cooking challenge.
First dish to master: Cevichocho
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Our kitchen counter often looks like this upon arriving home from a long day in service, between each study giving us a piece of fruit as a "thank you" and stopping by the street side stands, we maintain a nice plethera of fruits, fresh herbs, fresh leaves for delicious local teas and of course veggies. Most were pulled from the ground with dirt and roots still attached or picked from trees that day. Anyone think they can name all of them that you see here??