“Flat Paul” or, Our life in an Easy-Reader Format

A few months ago, we were asked if we’d be willing to participate in a school project. An elementary school teacher in a Christian School was looking for overseas Christian missionaries for her students to write to. They are studying Paul’s missionary journies and are looking to expand that to what the Lord is doing around the world today. (If you are familiar with “Flat Stanley” geography/penpal projects, this works off of the same idea, mainly that a flat paper cut out “travels” the world and is photographed in various locations.) Anyway, since I had to wrap my head around how to answer the question of what our life and service here is in a way that was clear and (hopefully) interesting for a ten year old, I thought I might as well share my letter here as well. Most of this is not new if you have read other writings in this space, but I thought you might enjoy the fresh perspective.

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Hello! We were glad to get your letter! “Flat Paul” had to learn Spanish for this part of his travels. He joined our family as we live and work here in Puyo, Ecuador.  We’ve lived here for the past 12 years. Many of those years, we weren’t “missionaries” in the way that most people think. We were just Christians that lived in Ecuador. For the last year and a half, we have lived on money we have saved and gifts from other Christians, so we could spend more time on ministry. Though some of our life may look different to you, some of it is similar. For instance, we spend a lot of time being an active part of the local church. For my husband, sometimes that looks like preparing for and leading Bible Studies, and spending a lot of time talking to people!  For our kids, it is often helping with hymns and worship music, but sometimes it is by just being friends, whether that means helping someone with their homework, or offering to pick them up to play basketball or go swimming!

Here is a picture of our kids making music with the church on Sunday.

Though we love to explain what the Lord has done for us to someone who doesn’t know the good news yet, most of our work is helping the church to grow stronger by helping them to understand the Bible better. Like Christians everywhere, we try to show we are in the same family with other believers in many ways, like sharing a meal or praying with someone who is sad.

Even though we moved here to help strengthen the Ecuadorian church, God sometimes surprises us by letting us get to know people from other places, too! Ecuador is pretty small, which means you don’t have to go very far before you are in another country. (Almost like going to another state in the U.S.A.) Because of that, we know a lot of people who live here, but are not Ecuadorian. They might be from Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, or maybe Argentina. Sometimes we meet people from really far away. A few months ago, we made friends with this man and his family. They recently moved here from Ukraine and started farming just down the road from our town. They are Christians and it has been good to encourage one another. 

This picture is of my husband and a good friend of ours. (And “Flat Paul” of course, holding his Spanish “God Loves You” sign!) Our friend is building a house for his family; you can see part of the building behind them. We are glad to have the chance to help him and his family in any way we can. 

Last year, we started working on opening a little library, because there isn’t one in our city. Most schools here don’t have a library either, so if you want to read a book, you have to buy one, and they are pretty expensive. Our library has books in Spanish, both Bible study books and other kinds of books, for people who want to borrow them. It also has books written in English. A lot of people here want to practice English. We hope we can help them think about the Lord in a new way by the books we recommend. 

 Every Friday, we have school with other families in our homeschool co-op, so on that day, I teach a class in Spanish at the library. Do you see the book we are reading? Maybe you have read it in English!

A new idea we just recently started working on is a project called “MenTe“,  which stands for “Mayordomia en Technologia” or “Technology Stewardship”. The idea is to help Christians understand how important it is to use the internet carefully and for good reasons. We want to help them build godly habits and set family guidelines about when and how to use it. We pray that God gives us wisdom so that we can encourage the Church in this way. 

Thank you for writing to us! You asked some good questions. We love living in Ecuador and we are very glad that we get to serve the Lord here. It is hard to live far away from other members of our family; that has been one of the hardest parts. We are thankful for the friends God has brought to us to help it not be so lonely. There are hard parts, but if you are a Christian, there will be hard parts for you, too. I hope you learn to love and serve the Lord Jesus. Maybe someday you will live far away from where you are now, but whether he asks you to move or to stay, he has a plan for you and a place for you to work for Him in this world. 

Be happy to obey Him. He is worth it! 

In Christ, Alesha H.