And we are going to Ecuador

      For the past 10 months two young men have been working in a small village in Ecuador called Ahuano. Ahuano is downstream from Misahualli on the north bank of the Napo river. From what I have read we will be right on the edge of the jungle. For those of you who have read Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot, Ecuador will bring to mind the five men who gave their lives to convert a tribe in the jungle of Ecuador. For those who have not read the book, I highly recommend it.

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We have committed to this mission post for two years and the whole family is very excited! We are excited to learn Spanish and Quechua. Some of you may recall of our Visa difficulties in the Philippines and their high cost. It seems that Bishop there in the Diocese of Tena has a much easier time getting Missionary visas (the other Missionaries have two year visas already) and the cost is significantly cheaper, so this does not seem like it will be a problem. The Bishop has picked a house for us to live that is right next to a church. There are two priests in Ahuano with more than 50 little villages, where we hope to help them (and possibly a couple teams of other missionaries)  reach out with the Good News of Jesus Christ!

The church is to the left and our house to the right! The Missionaries there, Matt Holland and Ryan Lawless sent us other pictures of the inside of the house. 5 bedrooms and 3 baths, wow!
Hope you enjoy our first look! It looks great to us! The Bishop was excited that “the father knows carpentry” because he thinks the house needs some repairs, well Praise the Lord that I do! I plan to take a good amount of tools as these skill have been useful in every mission post we have been to.

Please Pray for the Eckstine Family Mission to Ecuador!

An appeal

As we have reflected on this blog post and our appeal we believe this was a poor choice. Part of being a missionary is assuming a level of poverty to be in solidarity with the poor. That can mean forgoing some of the things we want to do, but are not needs. It is hard to admit when you make a mistake. We are not removing the blog post because we don't want to pretend we did not make a mistake, when we did.

     This is Lora making an appeal on behalf of our children.  Every summer the youth division of Family Mission Company reaches out to middle school children with the gospel through a week long camp called “Faith Camp” http://www.bestweekofyourlife.com/Best_Week_Of_Your_Life/Home.html .  There are a lot of fun packed days that draws children every year but more importantly the focus is giving these kids Jesus.  Everyday has a message about faith, evenings of praise and worship, small group discussions, all culminating throughout the week.  We had the opportunity to send three of our girls last year and we can attest that it is a life changing week for them.  Read about Abigail’s experience here http://veritasspelndor.blogspot.com/search/label/Faith%20Camp .  We would love to send our oldest four this year.  We were blessed with a sizable tax return this year that we were originally going to put towards the airfare to send them.  However, due to a couple of reasons we will not be able to use that money for them.  One of them is that we have not kept in contact with our benefactors through thank you’s and newsletters.  So our monthly support has gone down.  We know that it is vitally important for missionaries to let their benefactors know what the Lord is doing and we failed at that.  The second reason is we feel like the funds we do receive from our benefactors are not for us but for doing God’s work.  Therefore, when we see a need, we give.   When Mark sees something in a person’s house that he can fix or we can buy that improves their living we do.  We also give a lot of food away through parcels as well as feeding.  The Lord has always supplied for our needs for the last 17 years of our married life and we know that He will continue to do so. 

  If this camp was just a fun kid camp, we would not even be considering this.  However, I feel like it is important for other reasons.  1^st Abigail and Gabriella would be on the staff side.  This means they are giving their week to serve and make every effort possible to lead others closer to Christ.  I think that this camp will enhance all four of their lives as missionaries and give them training for their futures.  Also, for all four of them, I think it will be  refreshing, encouraging and an opportunity for them to draw closer to Jesus.  The cost of the airfare for the 4 of them is almost $4000.    

If all this was not selfish enough, I also would like to send Abigail and Gabriella to Jamaica to the Missionaries of the Poor for a Retreat.  They would get the chance to work alongside the brothers giving their lives to the abandoned and forgotten.  They have a center with separate quarters for handicapped men, women, children and babies.  Then the girls would also be a part of a retreat given by the MOPs to help in their discernment for what God is calling them too.  Here is their website with more information. http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/ The airfare would be around $2000

If you would like to sponsor either of these trips you can send a donation  to Family Missions Company earmark it as Eckstine’s Faith Camp or Eckstine’s – MOPs and the funds will be used for those purposes.  On behalf of the children and from me, Thank you and the Lord bless you.

Lora

We pray this will not deter our benefactors from giving to the truly good causes we share in the future.

Special Thanks!

Especially since we have been able give away so much of it! More than a few of you have sent boxes. They have been full of books, chocolate, religious items, a coffee maker, spatulas, Tony's Cajun Seasoning, cookie cutters, and many other amazing things. Easter has presented us with special opportunities to give away so much. The books have been great. Staff here at the nursing home come to us to see if we have a book, like on the subject of prayer. I gave a copy to a staff member then a few days later she tells me she gave it to her daughter who really enjoyed it and wonders if we have another copy. Still looking.... which is one of the reasons I wanted to give this quick update to say "Thank you!" and that your support is being put to good use! I really need to update what our needs are but books are so great and people seem to really appreciate them. Here is the link to what we can use: http://rooftopmissions.blogspot.com/p/supporting-us-in-missions.html and I will update it soon! Paper products seem to be hard to get items here.

New wheel barrow we were able to buy because of donors sending money for specific needs!

Here we are working on the back board for the Basketball hoop! One is now up and we have visitors to play very often!

    Some of you sent money for the Basketball project, which we are still working on. (I am going to do a big post with lots of pictures on the progress). Some of you sent money for tools and stuff for the Marian Home. This has allowed me to fix and repair things for the Sisters without charging them for materials. I now even have a book with little projects the Sisters and staff at the Marian Home write things that need fixed. If someone feels the Lord is leading them to fund this ministry regularly that would be great. We are praying about how to maybe start a ministry to teach the young people practical skills, like how to repair a faucet (the pipe as it is called here) or how to make bread. 

Please continue to pray and make sacrifices for our ministry here. 

God Bless you all!

Mission Formation: St. Lucia style

North and West from here in St. Lucia, at Big Woods every Wednesday night, people in the community, as well as state-side missionaries in Louisiana, join together for Mission Formation.  This is a wonderful evening of food, fellowship and worshiping together.  At least once a month they have mass and the other weeks they have...well the formation of missionaries.  We give testimonies,sharing what the Lord is doing in our own lives, in the lives of those the missionaries are reaching and then there is a topic pertaining to the missionary life (which by right of baptism we are all called to be) that encourages, teaches, and inspires.  In another word, catechesis. 
Since our experiences from living at the Big Woods last year during Intake (our missionary training time) we have desired to have a night like that in our mission post.  A lot of times our desires are brought to fulfillment but not always the way we had originally thought.  Now that we have been here for a couple of months, we are starting to see the fruition of having a Mission Formation night come to pass.  Instead of Wednesday night our family tradition of Sunday night desert is morphing into Mission Formation.  Praise the Lord!

The Food

Tonight Mia made pineapple upside down cake.  Yum Yum Mia!

The Worship

                                                     

The Testimonies

Jessica sharing a testimony

Our mission formation night is small, well considering our own family still outnumbers those who come, but it is still a blessed time of talking about Jesus and encouraging one another.  We pray to see this grow.  Pope John Paul II on Catechesis in Our Time writes:

"If catechesis is done well, Christians will be eager to bear witness to their faith, to hand it on to their children, to make it known to others, and to serve the human community in every way.”

And, as missionaries, this is always our job; to work ourselves out of a job

Trip to Family Missions Company down South

We had an amazing time in Abbeville, Louisiana. The Family Missions Company (FMC) truly is a people of Praise and Prayer. I will write more about our time there soon, all went well and we feel confirmed in our calling, not because they said "yep, you are called to Missions" when in fact they did not say this at all. In fact they said they would welcome us but only we can decide if God is truly calling us.

Sending in our application....

Whether it is faith or foolishness I don't know but we have made many moves in our short 15+ years of marriage trying to follow God and draw near to Him and His perfect will. We usually sense His calling slightly stirring us, then it gets stronger and things fall into place,(though not everything when we think it should), we make the move or prepare to then God provides as we do. He is such a Good Shepard! There are no mistakes in God's plans, because we are on a journey to the New Jerusalem, and as we humble ourselves(this can be hard) and constantly seek His will He uses all things for His purposes. This is a lead up to saying I sent my application into Family Missions Company on Friday and Lora will finish hers soon so we really asking for prayers for the Lord's will to be done. A few people have asked: "You have not been accepted and you are telling others you are going to be missionaries?" The answer is "Yes". We feel God is calling us to this life change. I have had more than one person tell me that this is not a poll and if you believe God is asking this of you, say "Yes".
I know we have made mistakes in our lives, we have not always waited on God's Providence and at times we have even said "no", but at this stage in our walk with Him we are seeking Him and trying to say "yes" more than any time before....atleast I hope and pray we are.

So please pray for us.

Mark