¡Bienvenidos! ~ Welcome!

We are starting a new blog as we start a new season of our lives. This picture is from July 2014, our first time to Quito, Ecuador as a family. Now, we are making plans to move there in July of this year. As James tells us in his letter, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." We have heard his call on our lives to live as pilgrims and move when he tells us to "go" and stay when he says, "stay."

We've stayed in Columbus for almost 12 years. Now, we see have sensed the King's call to go to Quito to live, serve and share in the community around Alliance Academy International. AAI has been living out it's core values of eternity, excellence and community to train children to be globally competent disciples of Jesus since 1928.

Naty visited this international Christian school in January and sensed in her spirit that God may be calling us to go there with our family. After a month-long process of applications, interviews, prayer and discernment. We came to the conclusion that yes, God is calling us to go and we are trusting him and others in the Kingdom to provide.

Dion will be serving as a second grade teacher at Alliance and this will provide free tuition for Gabriela and Marcus to study there in 9th grade and 7th grade. Naty will be a full-time mom for the first year while she prays and investigates what jobs or business opportunities she can develop.

AAI will also provide reimbursement for some of our living expenses such as rent and utilities, but we need to find people like you to sponsor us financially to provide for all of our needs. You can help us go by giving tax deductible contributions through Resourcing Christian Education, the missions agency that is facilitating our service.

We are very excited about this new assignment for several reasons:

• We will be living and working in Latin America where our kids can connect to their Latino roots and Naty and Dion can make disciples and mobilize Latinos for global missions.
• The school community is very international and very Jesus centered. This past year there were students from 43 different countries and about half of the 550+ K-12 student body are not-yet-believers, but receive Bible instruction every day. Dion can't wait to work with students and parents in this international Kingdom centered environment!
• We will be able to connect more closely with the Iglesia Evangélica Menonita Ecuatoriana (IEME) churches that we have been walking with over the past five years as Latin American Missions Partnership (LAMP) representatives for Rosedale Mennonite Missions (RMM).
• We will be closer to other nations in Latin America where we have connections and would like to keep training others to be Contagious Disciple Makers and plant simple churches similar to the work we have started in Columbus, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.
• We will also be closer to Naty's family in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Brazil.

Pray right now that God would lead, guide and direct our steps for each of the many decisions we need to make on this journey. We are pilgrims putting one foot in front of the other.

¡Bienvenidos al peregrinaje! ~ Welcome to the pilgrimage!