An Overdue Update
- Andy DVarga
- Feb 24
- 4 min read
Greetings from Ecuador!
We pray you are all doing well! We are hanging in there. It seems like we’ve lost track of time, and have really slacked on getting news out! Since our last letter, we were able to have a Christmas outreach that we all felt was successful as far as events go! As to whether or not it will bear spiritual fruit, only the Lord knows. We certainly pray it will. We had a carnival-style Christmas party and between adults and children probably 150 or so people came. Please continue to pray that these types of events would show our community how much Christ loves them.
Two months of the year have almost passed already and we are gearing up for a very busy time. We have a woman, Charlene, from Oklahoma due to arrive less than a month from now and she will be here until the first week of June! She is going to focus on English classes and discipleship. We are really excited to have our first volunteer coming and ask you to pray the Lord uses her to reach the people of San Pedro for Christ! Please pray that the Lord sends the right people to her classes, and that she is able to enjoy her time here. She is coming to Ecuador for these three months sight unseen, and we are so thankful for her heart to serve where she feels God is calling. There are already quite a few people from town who’ve signed up to learn from her, and we are praying it not only blesses them but blesses Charlene as well. Our ongoing English classes for kids have had a bit of a hiccup since resuming after the Christmas break. We’ve been told there’s a new wave of lies coming from the religious authorities in town saying that we are brainwashing the kids, that we’re teaching anything BUT English, and even that we’re charging for the classes. Unfortunately in this small town, that kind of discourse can really work to discourage people from coming around. Please pray that the light of Jesus would expose the truth.
Last week we had a few visitors come to San Pedro for the weekend. Yulier Licea and his wife and young son are Cuban missionaries currently serving in the jungle town of Misahualli. They’ve been in their current location for around ten years but are feeling called to the province of Loja. In case you didn’t know, the province of Loja is the most unreached area in Ecuador for the Gospel, and some statistics say it is the least reached area in all of South America. The Licea family are currently praying about coming this way. Please pray for them; that the Lord would guide them in His will. Whether they work closely with us or not, we welcome any mature believers to come to this place that desperately needs the Lord.
As we mentioned in a past letter, we are still working on getting the fence around the property (needed here to prevent theft and vandalism). We have an inspection from the City this afternoon (February 24th) and ask for your prayers that the permission goes smoothly. If everything goes well, we should be able to start putting up the fence and then the playground very soon. We have narrowed the playground down to a few options but still haven’t made any final decisions. Please help us pray for wisdom in finding the right distributor/fabricator, and to get the best possible price so we can be good stewards of this amazing gift. It will most likely take a few months to complete it all (nothing happens very quickly here) and we are just hoping it is done and ready for the big VBS we have planned for July of this year. Please pray for wisdom in picking a contractor and the exact playground set and fence options!
Speaking of our big VBS, we currently have 2 churches in the USA committed to coming and 1 other church in serious consideration. We are planning each church group to come for a week at a time and to fill up most of the month of July with VBS activities! If you are interested in coming and want more details, please let us know and we can pair you with a group. If you’re interested in coming, aren’t into working with kids, but want to see the ministry at work you can still come and get involved with the adult side of the mission during that time. It is going to be exhausting on our end, but I believe the Lord is in it. We ask you to please keep this in your prayers over the next 5 months or so! There is so much prep work to do to try and make this all seamless, and also a lot of decorations we’ll be making to turn our church into a wonderland, haha! In all seriousness, trying to make an American-style VBS designed for the land of plenty, work in a place with no postal system can be tricky. Pray for patience as we try to source supplies and get everyone on the same page! We are praying that the Lord uses this outreach to save the lost, draw people to the church and want to get involved, touch our American visitors with a calling to long-term missions and generally draw everyone involved to Himself. Please help us pray!!!
May God bless each of you mightily in Christ,
Priscilla, Andy, Jude, Sam, and Elena
Please send all monetary contributions to:
Acts 1:8 Mission Society
PO Box 212
Harrison, OH 45030.
You can continue to make all checks payable to: “Acts 1:8 Mission Society” with “DVarga” in the memo section (All funds donated in this way will continue to go entirely to the DVarga family AND our mission work in Ecuador and are tax-deductible).
You can also write checks to Priscilla or Andy DVarga with "gift" in the memo section, but you will NOT receive a tax-deductible receipt at the end of the year for funds given this way.
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