Cost-Effective Compassion: The 10 Most Popular Strategies for Helping the Poor | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Cost-Effective Compassion: The 10 Most Popular Strategies for Helping the Poor | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Feb Praise and Prayers

It’s nice to say we’ve been busy with water projects the past month! Eric Fogg arrived in Shell to work with us at the beginning of January and he’s already seen a prospective project, two jungle communities and two mountain projects. Wim and Nienke finish language school on the 24^th Feb and will be in Shell to join us by the end of the month.

We had a great three-man team come from Calvin College, USA to research for the student project they are doing for us. They spent a week in the jungle, along with Alfredo, our boss martin, Wim and Eric reviewing the Iniayua project we finished 4 years ago and surveying Washintsa to produce a more accurate design report for the system construction.

I have finished teaching my first semester of classes and have been in exams all last week (hence the late email update!) I am pleased that students seemed to have learned something as they have done better than I expected in my hard final tests!

Alfredo was asked to return to the Mera church youth group, and helps out on the Saturday afternoons he can. The group is currently getting 30-40 youth each Saturday, a huge increase from the original group of 6! Pray that we can maintain the interest of the new non-Christians without the group turning into a ‘hangout’ and losing its influence.

Football season is starting soon and Alfredo is busy deciding who is in the team or if they can have two teams as they have 35 people interested!

Camila is walking beautifully now and is a real explorer; I often find her outside in the garden playing with the dog or on top of the table as she loves climbing!

Praises

· Trip to the jungle with Calvin team, Wim, Eric and Martin

· Alfredo received a tourist visa for the USA without having to show any documents!

· The Fogg family have arrived in Shell

Prayers

· For Wim and Nienke as the finish language school and move to Shell. Pray they can quickly find a house in town

· For us as we say goodbyes to a few missionary families leaving in the next few months including British Lizi who leaves this week.

· For finances for the Iniayua tower, Washintsa water system and project in Centro Yuu.

· That Alfredo can get his British tourist visa without hassle for our trip in April/May.

Thank you for your interest and prayers for us

Alex and Alfredo, Benjamin and Camila

TEACHER and PRINCIPAL NEEDED!

Nate Saint Memorial School, a small K-8 school for missionaries’ children in Shell, Ecuador, needs a teacher and a principal for the 2012-2013 school year.
We typically have a staff of five teachers and average 25-35 students.
Each teacher is responsible for all course work for two grades. We require that our teachers are credentialed, and raise their own support.
We would prefer that the principal position be filled by someone with a teaching background and they would also need to raise their own support.

If you feel called to serve missionary children please contact Margie Grant at rgrant@maf.org for more information.

November Praise and Prayers

Dear friends,

Sorry this month I’m late in sending out our report... Ecuador always has the 2^nd and 3^rd November off as ‘bank holiday’ and as it was Wednesday and Thursday, they extended the holiday to make a very long weekend! We went to Quito and got back yesterday.

My main news is that I have started teaching at the local university. I am teaching English, part time, to the tourism and environmental engineering students. It is a wonderful opportunity to be in a non-Christian environment (as the past few years I’ve been in a Missionary bubble as I’ve not been travelling to communities) and we feel it is God who opened the doors as the director of languages invited us to his house to ‘beg’ me to work! With the salary I receive, our monthly support is now up to the HCJB recommended level (we’ve been at about 50% for the past few years). I will still help in the water projects office, especially with the two student design projects we have on at the moment and with communications.

Alfredo went to The Ecuadorian coast in October to see the projects our colleague has been doing. He travelled with a long-term HCJB missionary Larry Buckman who is Brazilian/American and enjoyed lots of conversations about community development work (and offers to work in Brazil!). A date for the trip to the mountain communities never got agreed on by all the parties involved, maybe this month.

Alfredo helped the hospital with a medical caravan in Banos, an hour up the mountain from Shell. They were late getting home because so many people came to see the doctor and ophthalmologist and the local government organised the promotion and gave them lunch! Pray for more opportunities to promote the hospital and work in partnership with local government.

Alfredo is currently in the jungle helping our friends, the Mead Family, with a camp for the high school’ers in Makuma. Alfredo is translator for the American visitors who came and they are encouraging the students to consider science careers. I have their daughter, Karina staying with me for the week as she couldn’t miss school.

This weekend our Quito church is bringing a mission team down to Shell to help at our little church in Mera. They are planning to bring 40 people (almost more than our whole congregation here) and help with the children’s club, put on a youth event and paint the church property. This is exciting, as we have been trying to get Inaquito church to visit us for 5 years now!

Camila will be 1 on the 17^th of November. Hasn’t this year flown by! I have finished my first quilt for her present.

My parents are coming out to visit us in December. If you’d like to send anything (Christmas/birthday cards/presents!!) please contact me if you want to send something. It needs to arrive by the 3rd December.

Praise

Wim and Nienke De Groen arrived in Ecuador and are now in language school in Quito.

Fellow Brit, Lizi, is working in the Shell hospital for the next few weeks

Praise that the first month of teaching has gone well and I can juggle teaching, mothering and ‘wife’ing.

Praise that I got to attend most of the HCJB women’s retreat here in Shell. Alfredo looked after the children.

The Harrogate work team passed through Shell and we got two nice meals listening to people with ‘funny’ accents!

We have put down a deposit on a car and it will be available to us in March.

Prayers

Pray for the camp in Makuma this week. Pray that the students will be inspired by science and by God.

Pray for the Inaquito mission team this weekend. Pray for us as we are responsible for the logistics and keeping everybody busy and happy!

Pray for the conference Alfredo will attend on rural water and sanitation. Pray for good networking opportunities.

Thank you for your love for us and interest in our lives and work here in Ecuador.

Blessings

Alex for Alfredo, Benjamin and Camila.

Some images and thoughts from Haiti

Alfredo visited the north of Haiti, where they didn't receive much damage from the earthquake but received all the people escaping the devistation. He travelled by bus from the Dominican Republic and crossing the border was a huge difference... DR was clean, organised streets, electricity, shops and businesses... cross the border and everything is dirty and dusty, there are no organised steeets and just the one main road that is full of potholes.

The rubbish impacted Alfredo, everywhere is dirty. There is no rubbish collection and no sewers, everything ends up in a canal on the edge of the street (makes me think of London 100yrs ago!)

The people don't have much, but they are resourceful. everywhere there are little street sellers selling the little they can - petrol by litres, biscuits, handicrafts, cooked food.

Alfredo travelled in a pick-up with 20 people and 5 sacks of materials. The only nice cars are owned bu the very rich or the NGOs and missions working there.

The Ecuadorian army were working near where they visited. They have been working with the UN, helping police the area.

The OMS mission compound where they stayed was beautiful, an oasis in the middle of a desert. green and well-kept, it shows what can be achieved. They employ lots of people to look after the guesthouse and grounds, trying to help as many people as possible with work.

The community has a water system that was built years ago (maybe upto 50 years ago!). Water does get to the community, but there isn't enough and isn't clean and only a few connections receive water, the peoplel have to go and collect water still.

no one has latrines or bathrooms. This explains why Cholera has spread so quickly and is so difficult to stop.

The families live in little groups, with the grandparents with the house at the front and children and grandchildren have the houses behind in the 'garden'. There are no organised streets, just groups of fmaily houses with little trails leading to each. Designing a water system will be difficult!

the Haitian women cook amazing food... Alfredo put on weight while there!

As in all places, despite the poverty there are rich people. They live in luxury houses with high walls and security. The nice restaurants are on the seafront (so the diners can look out to sea and not at the poverty while they eat). The top hotel is on a hill and built like a fort.

NGOs and Missions and Foreign governments are still treating Haiti as though they are in need of relief, giving them everything for free and doing everything for them. Haiti needs recovery and development now, help the Haitians think, plan and build their own water systems and letrines and schools. Help them develop the soil and grow food, build new houses and leave the tented camps.

But Haiti was in a bad way before the earthquake... Haitians need a transformation of the mind before the country can change.

Alfredo felt spiritual oppression while he was in Haiti. Vudoo offerings can be seen everywhere and the cemermonious drumming can be heard in the mornings. The community they visited is a few miles from one of the main vudoo religious sites.

Vudoo has the Haitians trapped. It is the main religion and relies on people believing in curses and pacifying the gods. The saying goes that Haiti sold its soul to the devil to get inderpendence from France and are now a cursed nation.

Haiti needs Jesus and the freeing spirit of the Holy Spirit. The church is growing, the key is that Jesus isn't added to the vudoo collection of saints and gods but belief in Jesus breaks the chains of the Vudoo.

Keep Haiti in your prayers.

HCJB Global article about Alfredo's trip

Ecuadorians in Haiti: Making Water System Repair a Community Rally Point
(Sept. 16, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach)

Haiti’s reconstruction needs loom large after damages inflicted by the devastating January 2010 earthquake. But in the country’s north, Ecuadorian civil engineers César Cortez and Alfredo León anticipate going deep with one specific community by helping reconstruct its water system.

Cortez, who has worked with HCJB Global Hands for many years, is surveying the area about six miles south of Cap-Haitien. He is being accompanied by León who joined the team a few years ago. They are collaborating with Lifewater of Canada and One Mission Society.

“The water projects team we have sent is on the ground with two purposes,” said Martin Harrison, director of community development for the Latin American Region, who has had satellite phone contact with the engineers who are in Haiti for 10 days.

“Firstly, they want to build relationships and confidence with the communities that have expressed interest in a water project,” he explained. “Secondly, they will be collecting information and conducting topographic surveys with a view to producing a long-term solution to the community’s water and sanitation needs.”

The Sept. 12-23 trip objectives are similar to those of Cortez in January 2011 when he surveyed the Cap-Haitien area’s wells and documented his findings. “There are about 100 wells in that area,” he said. “Really, the first option is to rebuild one of the water projects that, maybe 50 years ago … the Red Cross had built.”

“Right now it is completely destroyed,” Cortez added. Reestablishing Cortez’s ties to the community is key to the Ecuadorian duo’s visit. Just as the Vozandes Community Development team’s efforts emphasize community involvement and empowerment in Ecuador, so too Cortez and León are seeking to guide a Haitian effort, not eclipse it with foreign intervention.

“A key element is relations,” said Cortez. “Everything is based on relations—relations with God, with churches, with leaders and with the people in these communities. So the best way to pray for us is that God can help us in these relations.”

During three weeks in Haiti earlier this year, Cortez was also able to teach in a seminary and in local churches around Cap-Haitien.

Carta de Haiti, Jueves 15 septiembre

Hola,

Estamos bien, un poco cansados despues de caminar muchos kilometros haciendo la
evaluacion de la comunidad. No hay recoleccion de basura, no hay calles (excepto la de
ingreso) ni letrinas. la gente sobrevive vendiendo chitos, aguacate y cargando celulares
( no hay electricidad) es trsite y desafiante ver como simpre hay maneras de ganar
algunos centavos.

Regresamos en una camioneta junto con 20 personas en el balde y cinco sacos de cosas.
recibimos muchiiiiisimo polvo.

Es un poco dificil empezar en un lugar en donde siempre reciben todo gratis por parte de
ONG, ya que siempre nos estan pidiendo dinero, incluso en ingles!!! Y nos llaman Blanc
(blancos) por no ser de raza negra, que ironico!!! jajaja.

Es un buen momento para relexionar de la forma de llevar un evangelio renovador y difente
a la gente, valorando su autoestima y haciendoles ver que ellos MISMOS pueden hacer
todo...

Bendiciones desde Cabo Haitiano, Haiti

Alfredo (y Cesar esta ya desacansando )