Farnsworth Family Forum July 2020

Life goes on for all of you and also for us in Ecuador.  The past 3+ months have proved challenging, but we have survived so far by the grace of God, even recently receiving a few visitors.  Please pray for our neighbors Edith, Carolina and Patricio who visited us for the first time.

“Zona de Vida” Church will be three years old this month, and we have pressed on despite the challenges.  We lost our church building earlier this month, and we needed to clear everything out as the owner is hoping to obtain new renters.  We must admit that it was a bit sad to see the empty rooms.  The Church does not consist in walls and floors and ceilings.  God knows what He is doing and perhaps He realized that it was time for “a new beginning.”  Join us in praying for the church’s future.

We continue to meet on Zoom for our Wednesday night cell group, and we join our mother church in Ibarra for the Sunday morning service, also on Zoom.  Sadly, we needed to cancel our Summer English Camp that the group from PA and VA was going to help us with in July.  Our English Camp has been a yearly highlight of our ministry in Otavalo, and we will miss it greatly and the fellowship with the mission team.  We hope to hold a revised camp online.  Please pray for this endeavor.

Joel, Amelia, Jacob and Elias all successfully passed another school year.  Of course, the year finished differently than it began.  In September Joel and Amelia entered the Ecuadorian public school system for classes, then in October there was a 12-0day national strike during which we did English home school with them.  Starting March 13, classes were suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis and online learning was instituted shortly thereafter.  Although not always easy, both Joel and Amelia survived and thrived.  Jacob and Elias continued home school during the whole year and performed well academically.  On June 0026 we celebrated at home with an end-of-year program followed by nachos, pizza and cheesecake.

We plan to home school all four of our children next year, since classes will continue online in Ecuador indefinitely.  Joel is a high school senior, and we want to optimize his learning in his final year in preparation for college.  Lord willing, our furlough to the USA will begin in summer 2021, and we want all four to be “on-level” with their peers in PA.  Home school is the best means to accomplish that goal.  We need your prayer for this.

The Ecuador postal service closed permanently, a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.  Kindly discard our mailing address.  You can always contact us by email.  Thanks for your interest and support.  We appreciate your faithful prayers for our family.  Please keep it up.  God bless you and keep you close to Him!