The Dedication

Hi all,

Sorry it has taken so long to give you an update on the church dedication. We have been experiencing some computer problems lately.

The dedication of the El Tablon church took place on Aug 25th. We had a great crowd turn out for the dedication. Most of the visitors were people from outside El Tablon though. The churches in the towns of Pifo, Mulauco, Papallacta and Chaupimolino were all invited as they had all helped in one way or another with the construction. We estimate that between 400 and 500 people were in attendance based on the amount of food we served. The church was built to fit 200 people so needless to say there was standing room only. In fact, some people just stayed outside and looked through the windows or helped cook the food.

The service lasted about 3 hours, but by the time the food was all served it stretched into 5 hours. We had a great time of thanking those who had helped with the construction and ministry including work teams from Costa Rica, Northland U.B. (Michigan) and College Park U.B. (Indiana). We had lots of music as two of the churches brought along their Christian folkloric music and dance groups. (Dancing in the church??? I know, I know.... Its a cultural thing...) Then we did some reminiscing about the early days of the ministry when we had to tread through 6 inches of mud every week just to get to the house we were meeting in. Rachel put together a video chronicling the history of the ministry including the building of the church. We even sang Happy Birthday to Rachel, our daughter, who turned 18 that day.

Not everything went right though. My laptop computer picked the day before the dedication to decide its useful life was over. So Saturday morning I was scrambling to find another laptop to use. Then as we were about to the start the service, one of the Power Point music presentations became corrupted, so we couldn't use it. Someone brought a sound system, but the microphones they brought were not compatible with the sound system mixer. So we didn't use that either. Fortunately, these were relatively minor things in the big scheme of things and Ecuadorians are used to improvising.

All in all it was a great day though and we dedicated the building to the Lord and His use there in the community. One of the exciting things about the day was that we saw some of our people take some leadership in organizing the food for the day. It was good to see them step out and do that. We are encouraged about the future in El Tablon and trust that the Lord will use that building to bring more people to him. Thanks also to many of you who came to Ecuador to help us build the church. Our folks in El Tablon wanted to make sure we especially thanked you...

Doug