Chinese Assembly and Spanish & English Conventions

Hello again! Sorry it has been so long...I will be publishing a series of posts to catch you up with what has been going on (It's much harder when I'm the only one left!!)

In July and August we went to a series of assemblies and district conventions. First in July we had to travel to Santo Domingo (10 hours away from Cuenca) to attend the Sunday of the Circuit Assembly that was going to be translated into Chinese. (Our trip was actually a bit longer since Ariel, Amanda and I were coming from Peru). Santo Domingo is a jungle city so the weather was pretty hot and humid. 

This was the end of Kha-Mei's trip with us, but she got a nice treat. The Saturday before the assembly, most of the Cuenca Chinese group, and some brothers from Quito, Guayaquil and all the way from Columbia got permission to preach in a Chinese hydro-electric work camp. Since they could only preach at night when the workers were on break, they were preaching by flashlight/phone.  

Luis (Quito), Kha-Mei (NV) & Chinese brothers from Guayaquil and Austrailia

 

We arrived late that night...ready for my first ever Chinese assembly!!! It was a pretty interesting setup. Since there is only 1 Chinese congregation and a couple groups there weren't enought speakers to do all the talks. What the brothers and sisters (!!!) did was translate the Spanish talks into Chinese. We were all in the elder's room behind the stage with a big screen tv (but no Spanish sound). We didn't all fit in the room. Poor brothers outside got burnt :(

The assembly hall is a really nice open space. Lots of flowers everywhere and places to sit. There was a whole van full of brothers and sisters from Columbia that came down 20 hours in a bus to support this assembly. They were all really sweet!

 





We all had lunch at the cars. We made friends with the little kids giving them Amor cookies...I think the littlest girl took the most...smartie!!

 

a sister visting from Columbia

painted by the one and only Randy Fiske!!

At the end of July we went down to Guayaquil for the English District Convention. It's so nice for so many reasons!! It is an opportunity to see friends from all over the country and catch up. Also, it's nice to have 3 days of English and get all the new releases. :)

The following week was our Spanish District convention. Last year we had over 1200 on Sunday, so this year they split us into 3 instead of 2 weekends. The attendance was a lot less, but we were the last assembly and unfortunately there were not enough brothers to do the talks. They had to import many of our speakers either from Quito or Guayaquil. 

I was really excited because my Bible student Evelyn came Saturday and Sunday. She is 15 and all of her family comes to the meetings. They have been studying for a year and a half, but the brother that was studying with them wanted the kids to have their own studies, so he asked me to study with her. She's really sweet and she was able to get the new brochure to learn about the organization. 

I love convention season so much! All the info is so timely and shows how well Jehovah knows both us and exactly what we need! :D