Highs and Lows

Well, I honestly can’t believe it’s already fall; it seems life is going by too fast to even catch my breath! As many of you know by now, one of my best friends passed away last month and the Lord provided me the opportunity to go to the States for two weeks and be with his son and wife and help preach his funeral. It was a tough trip and at the same time God helped me so much through it all. Priscilla had to stay in Ecuador and continue life with our three musketeers and she did great at handling things while I was gone. Please keep the Prychidko (and extended) family and me in your prayers as we now deal with the hard part of losing a son, husband, father, and friend! Also, please forgive me if I didn’t get by to see you, and understand I spent most of my time with the family thus didn’t have much time to visit.

On another note, I am amazed at God’s mercy and grace to answer prayers. I don’t know if you remember, but I asked for prayer two letters ago about the problem with directores (Wardens in English) in the prison. They keep firing them and replacing them at a very fast rate which causes lots of instability and problems; not to mention the fact that some of them do not want a Christian in there teaching the Bible! Well, I want to let you all know God has answered our prayers in a big way! A new director was hired in August and when I arrived he looked at me very seriously and said, “Please follow me sir.” He led me in his office and said, “Please take a seat.” Then he said, “Ever since I saw you I have wanted to give you a hug! I am a Christian and I am so thankful you are here working in our prison!” Wow!!! I was stunned! Now we just need to keep praying that God keeps him there! Please keep praying with us! God is SO good!!!

We have felt used and successful in and around this new province (new to us 3 1/2 years ago), but as many of you know in our home town it has been very difficult to say the least. We don’t believe there has been one person in the town we have lived in for almost 3 years be born again. It is easy to let that be discouraging and depressing until we look at it spiritually. God is in control and we keep praying. Well, over the last several months we have had a few glimpses of hope. Due to social media, a true disdain for evangelicals here, and the general consensus around town to use anything and everything to discourage and render us useless, we cannot share any details… but God is moving! Please keep praying for us and the people of San Pedro. Seeing souls saved in all the other places we work and not in the town we live in has been hard, but we know God is faithful and working in the hidden places!

As if things haven’t been challenging enough over the last few years, we were robbed last Thursday while gone in the big city working in the prison. Thursdays have been our day of the week for three years now to go to Loja (about an hour away from our house) and preach while Cil runs errands. Someone knew we weren’t going to be home! They took some expensive electronics (one being Cilla’s brand new laptop that was integral to the kids homeschooling) and such. Please pray for wisdom, peace, and grace as we now deal with not feeling very safe and needing to put more costly security in place.

Also, I wanted to mention that some of our best friends are coming down in less than two weeks and will be here to work with us for about a month. They have given us a place to live (among MANY OTHER THINGS) for the last 6 years whenever we are visiting the USA. They are on the board of our mission and are praying about moving and working here full time. Please pray for our time together here in the month of October!

We love you all so much and are so grateful for your prayers and support of the work in Ecuador! We say it all the time, but we could not do this without you - we are so grateful to have a "team" of people back home praying for us and carrying the load with us. You may not be the "boots on the ground," but trust us, prayer is the most important part of reaching people for Christ! Thank you for sticking with us!!!

With love in Christ,

the DVarga Family

P.S. You can now give through Kroger Community Rewards by registering your Kroger Plus Card online through their Community Rewards program. This works just like AmazonSmile (which you can also use to support the mission), Kroger will give a small percentage to Acts 1:8 Mission Society for every purchase made, all you have to do is shop like normal! Use Acts 1:8 Mission Society's Code - GJ195 - and click "Enroll." For more information go to https://www.kroger.com/topic/kroger-community-rewards-3

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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. If you need a quarterly tax statement or just want to contact us, please just write to the address above or call

our phone #:(513) 334-8281

To donate through PayPal electronically please scroll to the top of the page and click the "Donate" tab.

Phone: Magicjack#: 513-334-8281 Our local Cincinnati phone number that we are able to receive in Ecuador. It works through the Internet and is just like calling any Cincinnati phone number.