Well, we are back in the good old US of A now and we’re enjoying the holidays with family. Please keep us in your prayers this holiday season as we are needing to raise our monthly support so that we can go back to Ecuador where we have plans for next year waiting for us. We’re hoping to get back within a couple of months, but really are planning to go back with the monthly support we need so that we can plan on working with the ministries and really be a lasting benefit to the work that is going on there.

Although we are excited to see where God leads us this next coming year, we are really glad to be back. To have hot running water, carpet, signs and menus in english, spicy food, family, and all the other comforts that we have here!

We look forward to getting together with you so make sure you get a hold of us so we can set a date to go out to coffee, lunch, or dinner! We pray you have a wonderful Christmas today and eat lots of good food with a lot of great people!

Please pray for us as we are getting ready to come home for Christmas and to raise more support. We are really seeking God’s will and provision when we come home. We’re excited to see all of our family and friends, drink egg nog, and make muddy-buddies!

We’re reviewing how much we can pack, when we can go, and which neighbor that owns a car can take us at the ungodly hour of 4:30 in the morning. Looks like we can bring one carryon and one checked bag, even for international. Bummer since we’re bringing back a bunch of presents for people. … er, um, actually Caylin just told me that we can bring 2 checked bags, yay!

Ruby - a.k.a. Bad Dog

Well for now, I need to clean the floor for the 5th time  in 3 days because of our lovely dog that seems to be addicted to mud. And now since the rainy season has come in with full force, she certainly doesn’t have a hard time finding more of it. Not only that, but last time we looked out front, our neighbor Arturo was pointing out that she had dug a tunnel under our fence and was running up and down the street parking and playing. And since since 4 our Arturo’s 6 dogs were poisoned along with two other neighbor dogs, he was a little worried about Ruby running up and down. This led to a good conversation with him and hopefully we’ll be able to build a deeper relationship with him and his family when we get back.

Taking it at a slower pace today. Replied to a few emails, made leftover Thanksgiving food for lunch. Mmm, turkey. Also called to find out what it would take to get our dog back to the states. And during our daily 3 hours of no power, we took a couple of pretty good pictures of her. She’s 5 months old, growing like crazy, and nonstop energy.

We’ve got some pretty exciting news for you all on this cold and foggy morning! We’ve recently set up an online number with a Utah area code (above) which only will cost us about $20 bucks a year and we can call/receive as much as we want from anywhere in the world! We just have to have an internet connection, so if you call us and we don’t answer, that is probably why. So just leave a message and we’ll get back to you once we’re back online and the phone adapter is plugged back in.

Also, we are at a staff retreat/planning weekend planning for this next upcoming year and evaluating our goals, vision, and call. We’ve got a lot coming up, and are excited to see how the Lord is going to work, so please keep the ministry here in your prayers!

We are also getting to come home in about THREE WEEKS! We’re excited to see all of our family and friends and spend Christmas at home. We really want to meet up with you personally to share with you our vast collection of pictures, videos and stories (although we’ll try not to make it seem too boring!) but we’re sure that our schedule will fill up pretty fast, so be sure to shoot us an email so we can block it out on our calendar!

“I thank my God fin all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began ha good work in you will bring it to completion at jthe day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:3-6

Anthony & Caylin Lagoon

Shuar Church Planter from Anthony Lagoon on Vimeo.

God is working in a mighty way here in Ecuador! Our recent church planting conference was a huge success with potential pastors and current pastors from the jungle, the coast, the sierra, and other Latin American countries too!

This man, Octavio, explains what he went through to get to the conference in order to get training, and get our help with the different ministries to come to his region.

Help us in the ministry be getting involved at www.aclagoon.org.

La Mama Negra festival from Anthony Lagoon on Vimeo.

The Mama Negra festival was a complete mixture of Catholicism, indegenous mythology, shamanism, alcohol, and sacrifices and offerings.

We went to it this year to see what we are up against as a team for Compassion Connection will be moving to Latacunga in about 2 years. Pray for us as we start ministering in this area.

Photo by jpereira

Although I’m not the type of person to point out spiritual warfare at the drop of a hat, I can definitely say that we were being distracted at the meeting by things beyond the norm. It started with us sitting down waiting for everyone to arrive. The restaurant was quiet, and things looked good. Then, after everyone arrived and right when Steve started to talk, it was almost immediate that tons of abnormally loud cars started driving by outside, then groups of people making tons of noises outside (which echoed in through the window), then the church bells to the nearby cathedral started ringing, and then, when things started to die down, then the server came and brought one plate at a time, then 2 sets of silverware at a time… It was horribly distracting! So I immediately started to pray and ask God to take control of the evening.

Later on, after we ate, I felt impressed to speak about sexual purity and serious accountability, but for one reason or another I decided not to. But after everything was said by Steve and the other guys, Steve looked at me and out of the blue said “Is there anything else you would like to add?” I thought that was very strange because I hadn’t been saying much the whole evening and was really there to tag along. So I decided to say what God had impressed on my heart to say, but when I started to speak, I felt as if I couldn’t catch my breath, or as if I was talking the whole time with my lungs full of air and I had to really focus on forcing out what I was trying to say. I have never felt anything like it, and I’ve spoken at much larger groups than that before, so it was very out of the ordinary. So I continued to pray.

Over-all, the night was a huge first step and we are excited about helping these guys plant a church in the near future. We are being cautious to go slowly and make sure that these guys are very grounded because we want everything we do to last and be strong. Be praying for us as we try to encourage, motivate, train, and equip leaders here to plant more churches with a missional mindset to plant more churches. And thanks for bearing with me as I wrote my most lengthy blog post yet!

PS. … so I didn’t have any pictures of the dinner, but I figured you would enjoy the one posted above!

So, I think Cotopaxi gave me frostbite… one of my toes has black on the tip of it. I first thought it was just a bad blood blister, but its still there. So, without doing any homework what-soever, do any of you readers out there know how to deal with frostbite? Should I cut off my toe? … or at least the black tip of it… sorry if it grosses you out!