She INSISTED that these were COWS, not lions...

 In the summer of 2000, we had a splendid chance to have our kids back in Ecuador...without having to wait until Christmas!  Dan organized and brought down a group of students on a short-term mission trip.  (And Debbie, who was also at APU, was with them!)


During the three weeks that they were here, farmed out to different Ecuadorian families, they got a taste of a variety of ministry opportunities, some of them involving things they had never seen up-close before.                                                                                                                                                              

   
They worked for a few days at an orphanage, having brought down a TV and some videos like Veggie Tales and Focus on the Family cartoons . (The orphanage wasn't a Christian organization, so they hoped this would plant seeds in little hearts...and big ones.)   They treated the kids to a day at the zoo, a very special occasion for them.  Dan was with one little three-year-old girl who, when she saw the lions, insisted that they were cows!  She refused to hear anything to the contrary.  They were cows, not lions!

Then the group went out to Machachi, a town about an hour away from Quito, where one of Germán's brothers pastored a church.  Their objective was to help, in both a financial and a practical way, with some construction being done for the church.  They provided a barbeque for everyone so that, after working together, they could all eat together.

On Sunday they took all of our church (Nueva Creación) to spend the day up at the hot springs in Papallacta.  Besides enjoying the springs themselves, they had a service, and Germán baptized almost a dozen people.
                                                                                                                                                    

Back in Quito, the next "adventure" was hard for some of the kids to experience.  They went out to one of the city dumps, where people who live there try to make a living going through garbage to find recyclable items.  The conditions those people live in really impacted the group. They took food, cut and washed hair, played soccer with the children, etc.

The final stretch of their time here was spent in the eastern jungles.  Flown in and out by Missionary Aviation Fellowship, they stayed several days in a Waorani village.  (You have probably heard them called "Aucas" - the ones that

martyred the five missionaries in 1956.)   Going in with a Colombian missionary,  the students helped with some construction, had some VBS activities for the children and joined the villagers for a nightly service in which the sermons were spoken in three languages!  The missionary used Spanish, a bilingual Waorani translated into their indigenous language, and Dan translated into English for the student group.

This turned out to be only the first of several summer mission trips that Dan, and later Debbie, would lead.  We were not only grateful that we could watch the way God was using our children, but also joyful  for the extra opportunity to see them and welcome them home!
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There was another Father who watched His Child work, as we did ours (although on a much larger scale!). Human mission trips do what they can to help, alleviate suffering, encourage believers...but God's Son came on a "mission trip" that provided ALL that we would ever need: help in any area of life, the comfort of His arms around us in our pain, the incomparable encouragement of knowing that His power and strength are available to us whenever we need them.  God watched His Son give the finishing, vital steps to complete this amazing plan for our salvation... the Cross  (during which He had to turn His back on His Son for just a moment - how terrible it must have been!) and then the Resurrection... and then had the immense joy of welcoming Him back to Heaven...welcoming Him Home!
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The fruits of Jesus' mission trip to Earth are eternal; they never change or expire or run out of stock.  "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order than in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus."  (Ephesians 2:6-7)
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Have a wonderful week!