Newsletter
JUNE 2021
This newsletter keeps our donors and prayer partners up to date on what is happening with TKoG Missions. It will have a prayer list for you on the needs of the Ecuadorians. As many know, we were just in Cuenca, Ecuador. Thank you all for donating to the needs of Ecuador. Here are some of the pictures and what you can pray for.
Spent extended time with Pastor Carlos Gonzalez from Ecuador Assemblies of God.
From Pastor Carlos email: The pandemic has been a changing event for our community, since it has allowed us to see the hand of God operating powerfully. We have seen our limitations in many aspects, now we have to resume the work that has remained, in other church ministries to rebuild, and in other areas, raise up new ministries for the glory of God.
Last January visit, Deborah and I discussed with Pastor Carlos our heart to support from monthly donations what we all call “micro business” that can be quickly started and become self supported.
Testimony: Cristian Fajardo is a young man from Carlos’s church who before the pandemic worked as a kitchen assistant in a restaurant in the city. His desire was to be able to have his own restaurant specializing in Ceviches (shrimp or seafood soup). At the beginning of the pandemic, he was fired from his job and he was left devastated and in need. After 10 months, Pastor Carlos started promoting his product online delivery, when the government allowed the opening of restaurants with a few people. He rented a place to fulfill his dream after approached Pastor Carlos and asking for prayer. Through your donations, the church help pay for 2 months of basic service (rent electric, water, telephone, marketing). Now his restaurant is stable, he has clients. The restaurant is called CrisSol Cevicheria (https://www.facebook.com/cevicheriacrisol/).
I preached at Pastor Carlos’s church one Sunday. When we asked to pray for those that are unemployeed or underemployeed, we notice a serious reduction (since our last trip in January) in the number of people who stood for pray (about 40% less). This is a huge “Praise God” in a country that currently has 33% unemployment.
Deborah and I had coffee at Pastor Weldon (Trinity – Vineyard) and his wife’s apartment in Cuenca. It was great to catch up with them. We also discussed starting micro businesses to be built within the coffee shop in their church lobby.
We also met with Elizabeth who is an U.S. economic refugee in Cuenca. We started to understand the issues facing U.S. refugees and the need for more church and expat community support.
We also gathered together several times with our Spanish book translators (Antonio Risa CCNations). They had difficulty translating western Christian slang, U.S. lingo, idioms and made up words. We laughed our way through the Spanish equivalent. It is now online (https://www.tkogmission.org/handouts) . just click the PDF icon for download.
We also now have 3 good translators to use in Cuenca. They have read the book and can translate this apostolic Kingdom message when we preach.
We discovered while talking with everyone, 3 new re-opened Cuenca churches to contact. We will reach out to them and setup coffee time to greet and meet. During these times we try to determine if they are Kingdom minded or not.
We discovered a wonderful Airbnb located at Parque de la Madre. It is close to the Mall and SuperMax (important for Deborah), running track in the park for Chris and lots of walkable restuarants.
There are other testimonies of God moving amoungst His children but we will stop here.
Cuenca churches are asking for the Plague Blessing (Ex 8:22-23). That the members of the Church and the ministries will not be affected by the pandemic as a sign of God's favor and that they can reach out to those around them.
Please pray for:
1) Jobs and promotions. We are seeing an increase in employment and promotions within the church members.
2) Great bulk discounts and timely delivery of food.
3) Members start micro businesses.
Pastor Carlos asked directly for prayers for these short-term project:
1. Reactivate the children's ministry that has not worked since the pandemic, our sister Sandy de Lopez will be in charge of this ministry, she has already been sporadically, due to lack of space, but she is starting well
2. We will begin the leadership training to have people available for the Lord's work, although many are still slowly wanting to work out of fear of contagion, but we trust the Lord that there will be free in the Lord's work.
3. Brother Marco Tenecora, will be the brother to work in the Llacao parish (church plant), we have two strong families, baptized in the waters. We need support there to give an offering to Brother so that he can work winning souls and can travel from Cuenca to Llacao, which takes 30 to 45 minutes by car. He is going to start first doing worship in homes and then later, he will be renting a place to do the services.
4. The other sector where we want to start a second church plant is the parish of Ochoa Leon. In this sector we have three firm families baptized in the waters, we need a worker to help us work in this sector.
5. In our central building in Baños we have the need to rent a larger place, we have been doing 2 services on Sundays and both meetings are almost full because it is small, Pray that God gives us a bigger meeting place with rooms for ministries (babies, children, prayer, etc)
6. Please pray that Pastor Carlos’s church Iglesia Cristiana la Fuente (Fountain Christian Church). legal paperwork to the Ecuadorian government will approve his application for being an independent church with the ability to ordain and plant churches They started the process 3 months ago and the lawyer say 6 more months.
7. Adding one more meeting later on, Mondays for Bible study. Also pray for current meetings: Prayer service and testimonies on Thursday: Discipleship Sunday: first celebration service 8:30 AM Sunday: Second Celebration Service 10:30 AM.
8. Pray for micro food business by Sister Maria. In future newsletters, she will give her testimony.
The peoples in the pictures are the ones that your donations this month have touched. They are very grateful for the assistance. Many gave video testimony giving God the Glory and were very emotional.