We wanted to pass along the wonderful report we received about the “Children’s Bibles For Ecuador” mission!  Andrea Brenneman’s vision for children in her home country to receive Bibles, as she had received one as a child, resulted in an amazing Christmas experience for many young ones in Ecuador.  Our church family contributed $1625 to the effort, as well as cards and drawings from some of our Zion children, which were handed out along with the Bibles.  Pastor Daniel Avila, good friend and former pastor of Karsten and Andrea, wrote a detailed account of the experience, which we have included below, and you will definitely be blessed to read through.  Praise God for this special work, and thanks again to Andrea, along with Karsten, for having the heart and vision to make this happen!

Here are just a couple pictures of the kids receiving their Bibles and cards.  Watch the church website photo section for more pictures — coming very soon!

From Pastor Daniel Avila:

On December 15, we gave God the glory for this enormous Christmas gift for the children of Santa Rosa, a fishing neighborhood in Salinas, Ecuador. We deposited $1,700 for buying 200 Bibles specially made for children and started the preparations in Guayaquil to get this Christmas gift to Salinas.

On Saturday, December 19, a team of 3 people started to walk around to the houses of Santa Rosa, explaining to the adults that children in reading age were going to receive a gift, but due to government regulations on number of people gathering, we couldn’t do a massive children program, as we would like to.

We started to walk around the neighborhood, telling the children they were going to receive a gift, but they had to stay home, and we would go house by house. Many children still called out their friends to come but as sweet as it was, each one of them received a Bible for children, a special letter from kids in the US and some of them even had the chance to listen about Jesus in three different houses.

They all understood those Bibles were a gift from heaven and friends from USA made it possible for them to receive it in their own house.

Some parents even cried when they said they didn’t have money to buy a Bible for their little ones. We couldn’t get the number of 200 Bibles as the store ran out them, so we completed the order with other children material and some Christian literature and evangelistic tracks, which we gave to some parents.

The letters with drawings and pictures were a significant touch, made it more personal, not just a Bible giving, but a true Christmas gift.

At the end of the night we gave out 175 Bibles to children, 195 letters (some children who don’t read yet, still a letter), and many evangelistic tracks for adults who were open to talk about Jesus.

The rest of the Bibles that we didn’t give that day were left for two local churches in Salinas, some of those Bibles were given for Christmas and some of them are to be delivered soon. It didn’t happen before as two leaders got COVID, and they are planning to do it in the next days. We will send pictures when this happens.

THANK YOU to all donors who made this special Christmas gift possible. God bless you!