Quito Trip
Last week I was about 30,000 feet in the air flying over South America on my way to Quito, Ecuador. It was was probably the lack of oxygen, but I thought to myself "I need to start a blog". So this is my first blog entry. The following paragraph are some thoughts I wrote down in that crowded Continental airplane.
What a great
feeling. I'm several thousand feet in the air somewhere over South America.
My 18 year old son Josiah is sitting next to me happy to be out of school. Ozzie 19, who I'm mentoring, is
sitting two seats over. Eduardo, fellow New Life Pastor is sitting across the
aisle. We are on our way to minister at a High School-Alliance Academy in Quito, Ecuador. Josiah
and Ozzie will both be helping me do the teaching to about 300 students. What a great opportunity to
share ministry and experience time with these two young men that I am pouring into to be next generation leaders. We are
expecting some divine appointments. We are hoping to leave some divine
impartations and expecting to receive some divine deposits. We will also be scouting out Quito in our quest to find 10 cities to plant movements churches
in. We are asking God to go before us.
The Lord's favor did go before us. We sensed that God had prepared the students at Alliance for our time together. The students opened their hearts quickly to us. At the first chapel teens came forward for prayer with many tears and sincere hearts wanting more of God. Throughout the week we had dozens of conversations with kids that were struggling with their past, wrestling with spiritual issues and wanting to move forward with God. Several students and faculty told us they had never seen this kind of spiritual openness before among the students. The final day a good number of students made public commitments to follow Jesus . We carried back to Chicago a burden for our new young friends at AAI fighting to live for God in a difficult culture.
(The picture below was taken in front of an active volcano known as Pichincha 15, 696 ft high. In October of 1999 this volcano erupted and covered Quito with several inches of volcanic ash.)
