Honestly, this month was hard
After a short reprieve, the drought has continued and then worsened. The water stores in Quito are dangerously low. Now, we are experiencing 12 hours/day of power cuts, and we could also be having water cuts soon too. You can’t go anywhere without people talking about it, and it’s become a hot topic in political conversations as well. Moral is starting to fall, and it’s beginning to feel like things may never change. Please join us in praying for rain as well as keeping high hopes in the waiting.
Additionally, work was really busy this month. We started preparations for the ESE Christmas parties that will be in early December, and we also started planning the EsperanzArt sales and holiday events! These are all such exciting things, but my days have been busy to say the least.
But God is faithful
But through it all, God is faithful. Even with all the bad and hard things happening, we’ve been able to see God move in really incredible ways. On October 30, we had a special outreach with a specific group of women in prostitution. During this time, we were told that four different women had left prostitution and decided to pursue other vocations! Wow, God is good! It is so encouraging to hear the stories of the lives that have been changed due to God’s amazing work.
Additionally, we are already seeing results from the Cafecitos we started in late September! Women who had never opened up before are starting to tell us more about their lives. We are able to listen to them, talk with them, and disciple them. It has been amazing to see their hearts soften towards our team and to the Lord. We’re even seeing improvements with the women who aren’t a part of this program due to the way the women talk to each other when we’re not there. God is good and he is working in the lives of our women and our team.
Upcoming Christmas Parties
I wanted to give a little more information of the upcoming Christmas parties!
The ESE Christmas parties are one of the four main events that we host (in addition to our daily operations), and it is a great opportunity for us. It is the largest event that we host seeing between 150-400 women over the course of four days. This is a great time of connecting, encouragement, and celebration with the women.
We start the day with welcoming the women to the event. Then we have tables for crafts, prayer, snacks, and a small gift basket for them. In the basket we provide a certificate for groceries along with some hygienic and household materials, as well as a small piece of EsperanzArt jewelry. Through this, they know we want to help them meet their material needs. From there, we can build a relationship and strive to meet emotional and spiritual needs as well. This is one our most important events.
If you would like to get involved, we are trying to raise ~$7000 to provide for everything needed for our parties. We are so excited for this time with our women, and I can’t wait to tell all about it in my December newsletter!!
Click to make a donation to support our Christmas Parties
Answered Prayers
• We had four women decide to leave prostitution this month!
• EsperanzArt has grown a lot, and we’ve had several pop-up shops all over the country as well as several big orders in the upcoming months!!
• The women who are coming to the Cafecitos and opening up to us
• We launched ESE’s new website, you can visit it here!
• The ability to work despite power cuts
• Continued health, friendships, and growing language ability
Prayer Requests
• I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but please continue praying for rain in Ecuador. If we don’t get lots of rain before January things could get really bad :(
• Please pray for financial support for ESE and our Christmas parties
• For the women to continue to be open with us, share their stories, and allow us to help them how we can and, most importantly, be open to the Lord and his help
• Please pray for one of our Amadas who discovered she was pregnant and is worried about the future
• Please pray for another Amada, whose father recently passed away. She never knew her mother and is grieving a lot right now. It is also causing her to question a lot about what happens after death.