English Service -Cumbaya Censo- Day 1

Hello family and friends. Today is June 15, 2010 and we have so much to share. We just returned home from our long anticipated trip to Cuenca, another mountain city that we’ve been wanting to visit since we first came to Ecuador two years ago. At last year’s English Convention in Guayaquil, we met a ridiculously awesome couple named Jordanne and AJ. They are from Cleveland and have been serving in Cuenca for about a year. Since they will soon be leaving for the US, this was our last chance to visit Cuenca while they are still there. Here they are below...

So we made a long weekend of it and packed a ton of fun into about three days. We had a number of very interesting experiences, watched a mad man wreak harvoc in the streets (I’m told this is not a common occurrence), got a party shut down by an angry neighbor, made friends with people serving in English, Spanish, Sign and Chinese congregations and groups, and met some wild llamas in the most beautiful place in Ecuador... More about the trip later...

Before embarking on the epic post of Cuenca, below is an English Service Update. Friday, before we left for Cuenca, we did Cumbaya service with two other sisters from the English Congregation.

Friday English service consisted of meeting at 7am and standing in twos at the front gate of various gated communities, stopping each car as they left for work to ask if they speak English. An affirmative response granted them an envelope “with an invitation inside”. We could not speak with them further as they were blocking the exit for the rest of the quickly escaping cars. So that took about an hour to deliver 40 envelopes. 60% of the English speakers found appeared to be Ecuadorians and the rest European with a couple Americans thrown in for good measure.

The only way to reach English-speaking people in the hundreds of gated communities in Cumbaya alone is to leave these letters and the ball is in their court to respond if interested. After doing this over the entire territory once (the territory is all of Northern Ecuador, however we are focusing on the entire city and its valleys), which will likely take a year or two to complete, we will have a better idea of interest in the community and then we will be able to go through is all over again and try to search out interested people and cultivate that interest. But for now, the territory is so huge and the publishers so few, this is the best we can do to reach and find all the English speakers.

Two of the English supporters who joined us for telephone service later. Dora, who is deaf and could not participate and Nelly who doesn't speak English yet. You can see the need!

From there, we went to the University where a ton of foreigners are attending. We did the same thing with the students as they entered the campus, leaving them an envelope if they spoke English. Everyone accepted it and some even immediately opened them to read what was inside. We did not stop them to talk further as they were on their way to classes and there was no time for us to chat either as we had hundreds of these letters that needed to get into as many hands as possible. Are you wondering what the envelopes contain yet? They contain a tract, an invitation to the meeting and a short letter inviting them to take advantage of a free bible study program in English.

After blitzing the Universtiy, we went to a sister’s home for breakfast and to do our first telephone witnessing attempt. Telephone is actually a really practical and efficient way of searching out foreigners that speak English as their names in the Directory pretty much give it away. We mostly found German, American and Russian names in the book and began making ourselves a telephone territory.

We began by asking if the household or someone in the house spoke English and when we found someone, we would give a short presentation. The experience and photo below is one of the first calls we made.  The conversation pretty much went like this…



Pierrette: Good morning. Do you speak English?

Man : Yes

Pierrette: Wonderful, we are looking for English speakers to offer them free bible classes that will answer questions such as… (read off Teach book table of contents). Would you be interested in learning more about the bible?

Man: Yes, I would definitely like to learn more about the bible. I have a lot of questions. But, where do I have to go for the classes?

Pierrette: We can make personal arrangements to meet wherever would be convenient for you.

Man: How about Corfu? (a local ice cream shop with ample seating to study)

Pierrette: That would be great. When would you like to meet?

Man: How about today at 4:00?

Pierrette: We can do that. I will bring the book that I mentioned before and you can choose what topic you’d like to learn about first. My name is Pierrette. I am wearing a white sweater and I’m blond. How will I recognize you?

Man: I will be in a green t-shirt, black pants and I’m... very short.

(We about lost it when we heard the short part! It was so funny!)

So that’s how the conversation went. Very exciting.



Then it was Hannah’s turn and the house cleaner answered the phone and said that “Gaby Walter is not home, but I will give you her cell number.” Hmmmm, ok. Could be a little awkward calling someone on their cell phone and explaining why we’re calling her on her personal cell, but hey, foreigner or not, this is Ecuador! So she called and Gaby’s mom who also speaks English answered the phone and said Gaby wasn’t available. So Hannah explained why she was calling and the mom was totally interested in the topic of security that Hannah brought up and wanted a Teach book. She gave us her address and we made arrangements to leave the book at the gate of her house and call back next week for the return visit. She doesn’t get home from work until night, so phone is the only way to get in touch with her. We left the book, after searching 6 different neighborhoods with the same name, on our way to the airport.

Also, worth noting… during our phone witnessing sessions, we received a call from a man who received one of our envelopes and letters that morning. He said he and his family are very Catholic and not interested in the bible classes but he appreciated the thought and the invitation. Wow, people actually calling the number at the bottom of the letter! How novel! So that was cool too, goes to show that they are actually reading the letters and getting the message. Mission accomplished!

So that's the latest English news. Stay tuned for Cuenca pictures and stories. We've got some good ones!

________________________________________________________________

Ecuador volcano erupts again! (click to see news article)

We're in it now! We have officially committed to 2 days a week exclusively devoted to the English Group. Fridays will be interesting, as our job is to do the census of our entire valley, beginning in Cumbaya, just 4 of us sisters who live here in the valley. We will meet up at 7am at Juan Valdez Cafe to get our letters and literature together. The census is tricky here because most English speakers live in gated communities, which we cannot enter. So the idea is to speak with the front guard and ask him how many homes have foreigners living there, and ask him to deliver an envelope to them containing a note, a piece of literature and a meeting invitation. If the guards will allow us to enter or if each house has their own intercom, we can speak with them directly. Otherwise, besides doing the communities that way, we also hang out where the foreigners hang out and try to start conversation with them to be able to reach them with the bible's message and invite them to the meeting.

So that will be our Fridays. We begin this Friday, before heading off to the airport in the afternoon to catch our flight to Cuenca where we'll be spending a few days visiting friends.

Saturdays we meet in Quito and do a long day, a combination of census, RVs and studies. Then we attend the Public Talk and Watchtower study. After the meeting, we normally end up doing something with the group and don't get back to our valley until late. It's a pretty close-knit group as there are only about 19 publishers and so they are always getting together which is nice. Everyone seems very excited that we'll be joining them, at least part time. After a few weeks, we will decide if we want to permanently switch to that congregation. The group is a blast though, we really enjoy hanging out with them, especially the gals we're friends with. It is hard to go between Spanish and English so much, very confusing at times, but being able to express ourselves in English again is a very nice change of pace. They are eager to learn and we try to help them as much as we can so that when we leave, hopefully they will be even better prepared to conduct bible studies and teach people in English. 

Anyway, between all that has been going on, we weren't able to cook anything special this week. The following weekend, we'll be out of town, so we'll have to put it off another week, but we will do it! Here are some pics of our weekend with English.

Waiting for the immigration office to open at a cafe next door early Saturday. We went srtaight from there to meet the group. Nice cafe with good breakfast actually...

Our preaching group for the day. Nelly, the sister in pink in the middle is the wife of the Branch's representative here in Quito, also an elder in the English. Anyway, I will begin giving Nelly English classes tomorrow, twice a week.

Hannah and Jisella looking for English speakers and Dora keeping track of not-at-homes, something we haven't done for a while. Dora is the only one with a car who lives close to us, so we rely on her for rides when available. (Even if it does cut our chances of survival here in Ecuador down by half. Crazy driver...)

Good old coffee break, real American style, although it was a Swiss cafe.  From left to right, we have: Marilyn, Hannah, Dora, Jisella, Connie, Me and Francisco Andres.

The Swiss Cafe serves coffee with a small cup made of chocolate filled with heavy cream. You dunk the choco cup right into your coffee like a shot. kind of fun...

Marilyn and Connie pretending to be dogs left in a hot car... It's a long story.

This is how espresso is served to go here.

Spanish Pictionary after meeting

K-hall in Quito

Hello!!!! from Quito English Congregation