Congregation Service Report

We had a service meeting report last week reviewing last year's activity that we wanted to share with you. Unfortunately... we accidently threw away the paper that had the stats on it. haha. oops.

A couple things we do remember are as follows:
We currently have 29-33 publishers, depending on how you count. There are a few who are in the process of switching over permanantly from Spanish, a few who are here temporarily, and a few who are soon to leave.
As of now, the congregation is made up of the following:
10 local English-speaking brothers/sister
16 foreigners serving here (2 who speak English as a 2nd language)
6 local brothers/sister who are supporting the meetings and learning English
A handfull of regular visitors who come to support the meeting and are enrolled in the TMS, even though they are not publishers in the congregation.
At least 4 Bible studies who attend regularly.

The congregation's average monthly hours in service is 49. (WOW!) That is with 12 pioneers, but still.
We have currently about 35 bible studies being conducted. We used to have much more, but that number dropped significantly over the last year because they turned all their Spanish studies over to the Spanish congregations.

Last week, we also had our circuit pioneer meeting. Every year, the kingdom hall is so full, they have to bring in extra chairs, and even then, some are left standing. It was announced this year that beginning next year they will split the meeting into 2 meetings due to the growing number of pioneers in our circuit. Great news! Of course, we have no pioneer meeting in English, so the pioneers who didn't speak Spanish felt that they missed out. And they really did because the program was very, very good. I think they used the work "horario" more than any other word in the Spanish language. Oh, btw.. that means "schedule" :) So a good schedule was definitely the stressed point this year. Not just a good schedule, but a flexible schedule. Times are changing, circumstances are changing for all of us, and if we don't make our schedules felxible, we might end up quitting when circumstances change. The brother mentioned that when times get tough for pioneers, Jehovah can help us make our schedules extremely felxible to bend around any circumstance that comes up as long as we are creative.

I must say that the singing, as always, gave me goose bumps this year. The singing at pioneer meetings back in Hillsboro is quite loud too, but the difference here is that they don't turn up the music very loud, so the singing is actually what you hear. It's very nice. Oh and you might already know from back home that Celeste and Fernando were reassigned from Quito to Cuenca. We are neighbors once again! It's so nice to see them and hear all of Fernando's wonderful talks. We got a double dose with the assembly 2 weeks ago, and then the pioneer meeting last week.