Good-Byes Are Hard to Do

Some of the folks of "Amigos en Cristo" church recently held a luncheon to welcome Pastor Walter and family and to say an early good-bye to our family.

Here Maru and Fanny are checking the guinea pigs.


The weather was beautiful on that Sunday afternoon.



Enjoying the food together with the other children.

And adults too!

Joel, Beate and Daniela

Volleyball here is played by teams of three persons, which involves hustling, and they used a soccer ball to play.  Ouch!


Then the next day was a good-bye celebration for Andy, Donata and family (who already left for their furlough in Germany), Kimberly (an MK who graduated from high school back to the States to study), Eli (who was here helping Kevin and Kathy for the year), Lauren (our niece) and us.  Also a time to welcome new pastor Walter, wife Pamela and daughter Neus to the Liebenzell Mission of Ecuador.

We started off with a few songs.

Then the games.  We had to say a tongue twister in Spanish.  I WON!

Putting cotton balls on our nose with cream to put snow on the volcanoes.  It was a very fun game.  Here are contestants Walter and Pamela.

The Farnsworths also competed.  I think we won!

Then Lauren played the trompo (Ecuadorian top) game.  Joel took close-ups of Lauren and "missed" the tops.

For the kids there was a game to stomp on the plastic insects to "kill" them and then pick them up with a clothes pin and carry them to a bucket.

Elias enjoyed this game so much that we needed to buy some plastic insects to play at home!

Kevin shared a devotional with us.

Followed by a prayer time for all of us who are leaving.


The Impact team shared a beautiful song in German.

Then some of the kids and adults hit the hot tub.



The following week we invited the Impacts over for dinner.

We enjoyed our fellowship with them and looked at Farnsworth family photos together.

The soup kitchen staff surprised me one day with a good-bye celebration one morning after breakfast.  It has been a blessing to work with them over the past year.  They moved their center into our church in May 2015.

At the same time the group also welcomed new pastor Walter to Cotacachi.

Saying good-bye is hard for me and for us as a family.  I am sure that some more of these times will continue in the weeks to come.  A month from today we will be traveling to USA (PA) for one year.  Please pray with us that we can get everything done.  Thanks.

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