Post by Get off of TMB on May 27, 2020 13:25:34 GMT -5
Word came through late Sunday night, of the passing away of another of our friends in Ecuador, Patricio Navas, aged 64. He was in ICU because of COVID-19. He’s the third of our friends in Ecuador to die from the virus. Like the other man, Patricio was also the elder of the church in his home. It was Patricio that God used to get the Gospel taken to Ipiales, south Colombia, where he’d been a preacher in a church. A lot of people professed there at that time and the Gospel still progresses there. He and his family moved back to Ambato, a city in the mountains in Ecuador, in 2012.
FOOTNOTE: Patricio Navas's Testimony "A story "
My story begins in 1986 when I came to an evangelical church looking for help because something allowed me to see for the first time what had happened with my life up to that moment and I did not like what I saw and I began to feel a need to live differently and I started looking for God without knowing where to find him. When I got there,I thought everything was fine because my life did have certain changes for good and just after 8 months I started to preach. I spent 8 years in the evangelical church and at that time I met many ministers and I went to many places where I verified the zeal that each one has for his place and they take care that their sheep do not go elsewhere. I once met a minister named Gilbert Carrillo who came from Los Angeles and later had a lot to do with what I'm going to tell.I liked to read the Bible a lot, although it was because I had a greater knowledge and felt more important than the others. I read many hours and had several versions, but all out of pride and vanity. I remember that sometimes I felt very bad because my life did not go hand in hand with what I learned and what was worse, I began to see clearly the mistakes that were made within the evangelical church and the way of living that the leaders led. In 1994 I started to feel very bad about all this and I could no longer bear everything that happened there, it was so rare to start seeing the true Church and noticing that the difference was enormous with the real one. In September of that year I left that church and took refuge in my house alone. Veronica continued attending there because she told me that it was not possible that I was right and so many ministers were wrong. All I could think to do was pray and I did it in a strange way. I would get on my knees and pray with the Bible open in Acts and I would ask God in my ignorance to allow me to meet people like those in Acts, that I was tired of living in the midst of people like the one I had known for 8 years. In January 1995 I saw an advertisement in the Ambato newspaper. It said: Do you want to study the Bible with us? We do not belong to any denomination. And there was a phone number. Reading that they did not belong to any denomination was what made me call that number and they told me that they were going to visit me in the warehouse we had and that was it. I asked them to come at 5 in the afternoon and that day that we agreed, two young ladies appeared at 4:45 pm. They were Miss Ookyoung and Miss Viviana Mendoza. When I saw that they were women I didn't know what to do and I told them that I had asked them to come at 5, at 5 they come back. That was because I did not know what to do.In the evangelical church women are of little importance and they always repeated the verses that women should not speak in the congregation, etc. They returned at 5 and I knew that the best way to ask them to leave was to ask them what they think of God's government in His Church. Miss Ookyoung remembers that I had said to her: I am looking for The Truth, not a truth and that is what caught her attention. Why did I ask you this? Because I had read a lot about this. He had been able to see the apostles, the true ministry of the Church. When Miss Ookyoung started talking, I was stunned because she was talking to me about everything she had read, in perfect order, just like it says in the Bible. I realized right away that she was speaking like someone living that experience while I had only read about it. I could not ask them to leave and when they told me that if I wanted they could visit me again, I could not refuse because of the evidence of their words, so they started to visit me but in the warehouse, because Veronica was still attending the evangelical church. But one day, something happened there,and Veronica was very disappointed by everything that happens there and finally she also decided to leave and not return. It was then that I asked the ladies to come to the house and the strange thing about this was that Veronica received them better than I did. She understood the ladies much better while it was so difficult for me to accept everything they told me because of what I had inside my head about the doctrine of Christ and that I still struggled with it because during all those years it was true for me. I remember something. I greatly bothered Ookyoung to allow me to meet with some male worker and finally one day he sent me to Quito to meet Max and Henry. I took a friend with me who was still meeting me at the house where we were studying the Bible. Along the way we were thinking of asking them many things and trying to find some error to stop receiving them, despite the fact that,it had already been several months since the visits of the young ladies started. The impression made by meeting the workers and seeing the way they lived made me forget all the questions I had prepared and when we returned,we came in silence with Richard because of everything we went through with them. We ate and talked a lot, but everything within what we had seen in the Bible. LeRoy had to come and visit me several times trying to get rid of everything I had as true, it was very costly. Veronica had professed and I was still struggling with all of this. One day Miguel arrived and while he was listening to me speak to LeRoy in silence, I think he was thinking a lot about what to say to me. When he addressed me he told me that I was ignorant in the things of God and he asked me many questions, if what you say about this is true, why does it say in the Bible like this and like this? When they left I was very uneasy. I could not sleep at night and I got up to read the verses that Miguel had told me once again. Everything was there and it was true. I started to spend hours thinking that it couldn't be possible that I had preached many people as true and now I was facing the possibility that everything was a lie and that I had been wrong. It was not easy but I think God helped me open my eyes to all this and finally one day we spoke with LeRoy and I told him that I wanted to profess and that I no longer wanted to continue fighting against something that was stronger than me and everything that I thought I knew. We had a meeting at my house,and I invited the people who met with us in the studies we did in the house and there LeRoy spoke and then I stopped every thing to make my decision known and profess. You can imagine, everyone present almost passed out when they heard me. They always thought of me as wise and now they looked on me as ignorant. Unfortunately,in those days we had been robbed. A customer took a lot of leather and paid us with post-dated checks and we were never able to cash them. We had to ask the bank for a loan and that led to a terrible problem. There was the war with Peru and suddenly we owed twice as much,and we couldn't pay because the interest was set at 130% per year. I struggled trying to fix all this,but I couldn't do it and until now we still owe money to the bank. LeRoy was very close at all times and he advised me to surrender to reality and go to the bank to tell them that I could not pay. I remember his words a lot: Patricio you are like in a mud pit and no matter how hard you fight you have nowhere to hold on, it is better to let yourself fall. When you touch the floor, although it is hard and it hurts, it can also be used to propel you to go out and go up. I thought that these words were very hard and that I could not accept them. At the beginning of 1996, I asked LeRoy to help me go to the United States. I already had a visa, but it was a tourist visa. He told me not to wait for someone to give me work because I would be illegally in the country and did not have a visa for work. I could never understand that, it took me years after being able to understand it. However, he agreed to let me go and I arrived in Los Angeles and was welcomed by Richard Wulf with whom I spent 16 days. He took me everywhere to apply for a job because I wanted to work to start sending money to pay what we owed to the bank. Nothing happened and Richard advised me the same as LeRoy, to come back and face the situation differently. One day Richard told me that the workers had spoken about me and that if I wanted to stay they would pay me a motel for a month until I tried to find work but I had decided to return and I did it, but inside my heart there was resentment because I thought they didn't want to help me. I think I left thinking that while I was there,they would help me when I looked desperate,but it didn't happen. This economic situation was accentuated and although I kept going to the meetings, I began to feel that God had abandoned me,and I began to resent God enormously. I think it was in 1998 that I stopped going to meetings. When LeRoy arrived at Ipiales, the first thing I did was ask forgiveness because I never told the workers why I stopped attending and went away. I remember taking my Bible and putting it in a drawer thinking I would never read it again. For me everything turned into a lie because I saw that our economic situation was getting worse every day and I had the audacity to ask God to take my life. I was constantly asking myself, why didn't the workers help me? Why couldn't someone let me work in the United States and thus be paying this debt? I couldn't understand. At the end of 1998 the minister Gilbert Carrillo returned to Ambato and came to visit me at my house and told me that if I needed help one day, I should go to Los Angeles where he would help me. That was worse for me because I thought about how it was possible that people who lived in error were willing to help me and true Christians did not want to do it? May 1999 came and something very special happened. One day I couldn't take it anymore and at dawn I went to the living room and cried a lot and told God to forgive me and I no longer wanted to continue in that situation and if he wanted something with my life, let him do it. I took my Bible out of the drawer and re-read it, I prayed again but I didn't think about going back to the meetings, strange that, I never thought about doing it. Perhaps I was still resentful of the workers for "not having helped me." Impressively, two weeks later they took out a catch slip. At the bank we owed, they asked me to present the industrial pledge of the debt, which was a dump truck that we had brought from the United States to sell. We imported that dump truck on behalf of a partner of my brother-in-law José Camacho and this man handed over my dump truck to pay a debt he had in the east. As I could not present it, they took that capture ballot and suddenly I was on the verge of going to jail. Since I had already made that decision with God, I was not angry or anything for this, I just went to a lawyer and he recommended that I leave the country until they take charge of the situation. That ballot lasted 5 years and we talked to Veronica about me leaving and not coming back, that all of this was going to be worse in the future and that's how I had to leave the country. I came to Ipiales at the end of May to stay with my sister Marcia because on June 1 I was going to the United States where the minister Gilbert Carrillo who supposedly said he would help me and he agreed to receive me. When I was in Ipiales, Mario found out that I was there and asked me to teach young people in a hotel where they were going to hold a watch. I had met Mario 10 years ago when I was going to preach in the Ipiales alliance church,and he was co-minister there. Then he got out of there and started his own church and invited me at least once a year to go preach at Ipiales. On that occasion, as I was passing through, I agreed to do it and went to that hotel at night and there I met Fidel Bolaños, Jorge Rojas, etc. That was a Friday day. On Sunday I went to Cali to leave Colombia for the USA and on June 1 I arrived in Fontana, California where Gilbert Carrillo lived. Curiously, he asked me first if it was true that I had turned away from the gospel because I was meeting with a sect of some Koreans. It was admirable to be able, just arriving, to tell Gilbert that it was false, that I met with this kind of people and that they preached like this and like this, and I asked him: tell me where is the false? Gilbert said that it seemed to him that they were preaching the truth and that he saw no falsehood in everything that I explained to him and that we do something: that we don't talk about those things that could separate us and that we only talk about the Bible in those things that we have no differences. Two days later he took me to get me false papers so that I could work. There I began to realize the difference with the truth and what LeRoy had told me. It was very funny, in those days I prayed a lot and when I went to the amusement park where they could give me work, the manager asked me for the papers and I told her that those papers were false and that they had been sold to me so that I could apply for a job. She stared at me and told me that it was fine, but that she had to pay me by check and that since it was not my real name, someone who cashed my checks would look for me. So,I started working there. In the evenings, Gilbert asked me things from the Bible,and I would say to him: once a servant spoke about this and taught like this. He was always amazed at the true doctrine,but I don't know why he always responded that way because I didn't even remember the workers and I never thought about calling them or looking for the friends there in California.One day he told me that I should "give" to others what I had in my heart. That I had to preach again, that it seemed selfish for me to keep having all this understanding for myself and I agreed to do it. I preached in three evangelical churches, in Fontana, in Ontario and in Rialto, California, that was for 6 weeks or so. I don't remember what it felt like to do it, but what I do remember is that they invited me to have studies with the ministers of the region and we did it once every week and I made them notice their mistake and told them what I had already learned with the workers but, although they were amazed at everything that is written, I never saw in them any intention to change. When I was about 6 weeks at Fontana, I can't explain why I started to remember those I had met at Ipiales, they came to mind,and I felt like I should go to Ipiales. I spoke to Veronica and she said to me: What are we going to Ipiales for? Stay where you are and work until we pay what we owe. However, that was repeated every day and a week later I told Gilbert what was happening to me; He told me that I should think about it very well, that he would like me to stay but that if my place was in Ipiales I should go. I was making money, I wasn't spending anything because Gilbert gave me everything,and in the house, so I don't know why this was happening. A week before I returned, I spoke to Veronica again and she told me that if I had decided go, I should go alone because she did not plan to follow me on another adventure like the ones we had already had in the midst of our problems. I called American and asked them for a ticket for August 3, 1999. I spoke with my sister Marcia about the possibility of going to Ipiales and they told Mario why he didn't "take advantage" of having me at Ipiales to help him in his church. As he already knew me, he accepted that request from Marcia but sent me a message, that if I went, that he asked me to help him but that they had no money to pay me and I told Marcia that I would never charge to teach others Truth and Mario accepted, then that if I went to Ipiales, that I go to his church as his collaborator. The people who knew me that last Friday, Fidel, Jorge Rojas and others, upon knowing that I was going to return felt pleased and I found out that they had even pressured Mario to receive me.A few days before going back to Ecuador and going to Ipiales, I spoke with Verónica and asked her to come with me and once again she refused. However, I had made the decision to return and my sister Marcia told me that they were already seeing a small apartment where I could live and a part-time job to take care of and have for a living. I asked Veronica to take the children to the airport to see them and be with them for a few moments and as she arrived at night, that we go to sleep in a hotel and the next day I would travel to Ipiales and she to Ambato, and she accepted that. Those few days I prayed in my ignorance, because I did not understand anything that was happening to me, that God touch Veronica's heart and accept to go with me to Ipiales. I arrived in Quito on August 3, 1999 at night and Veronica and the children were there. We went to a hotel and to my amazement, Veronica told me that she had already left everything packed in Ambato and ready to go pick up our things in a truck and take them to Ipiales and that she did agree to go live in Ipiales. That moment was very nice,and I enjoyed it in silence and without telling Veronica what I had been praying for. When we arrived at Ipiales there was neither an apartment nor work. We had to sleep in a room at Marcia's house and sleep on two mattresses that they lent us. Mario appeared after 3 days to speak with me and asked me to help him doing many things in his church. I had to preach, do discipleship studies,and give counseling during the day but he stressed that they had no money to pay me. Two weeks later Veronica went to Ambato to bring things in a truck because we got a small apartment in Ipiales. When we were already located, I began to do everything Mario had asked me to do and until now I cannot understand why he never complained to me for a year because of what I said in the preaching. Once again, I did not think about the workers nor about the true way, I thought at that moment that I was doing well and that I could help others with the knowledge that I had acquired at that time in The Truth. People quickly got used to us and I always admired seeing how they came to my house bringing us shopping baskets of food for us to eat. They came to give us money, I think behind Mario's back. I never had to ask anyone for anything because we always had what we needed and the boys started going to a free children’s school,but we got Daniel accepted in the first grade because we didn't have the money to pay for him in a private school. About two months later, I spoke with Fidel Bolaños and Jorge Rojas and I told them that if they wanted to study the Bible with me in the morning and they started coming to our home, and for the first time I began to tell someone directly what The truth was. They were amazed and began to read the Bible in a different way. Time passed and one day we had a meeting at the house where we had moved and they were Fidel, María Eugenia, Jorge Rojas and Marlene, Gloria Jaramillo. Without knowing why, I took some copies of some hymns from my hymnbook that I had kept,and I made them sing and then I asked them to each participate. I told them that these were the meetings that we had been accustomed to do with those professing. When Maria Eugenia's turn came, she was unable to speak and only said that she was ashamed to speak because God had not yet done anything in her life. Every Thursday night we started to have these meetings but Mario found out and ordered us to stop having them and he forbade us to have meetings outside his church and if I wanted to teach something to someone that I would do it inside the building. A year had passed,and I had to study at 6 in the morning and many attended. One day LeRoy asked me what I had lived on all that time and I didn’t have a good answer, I just remember that the people who had studied with us, brought help. After a year of being there, Mario came and told me that he no longer wanted me there because there were sheep that no longer recognized him as a minister. The deacons, in this case, Fidel, Jorge Rojas and others found out and told him that they did not accept that. Mario felt very bad about that and they asked me what was the government of God like in the Church? Mario was told that he should also be in this study so that he could correct me if I said something wrong. I always remember this because that was the question I asked Miss Ookyoung the first time I saw her and it was to check what she had already read in the Bible. Those days were very tense. What I remember was that I was saying everything I had heard from the workers during the time I had met with them. Mario felt very bad and rejected by all his deacons who when they read the verses told him that he should also submit to them and not be like a boss on a farm. A few days later he called me to a private meeting, asked me to take Veronica and he was with his wife and they asked us to leave and we did so. When they found out, the people who had come to my house told me that they wanted to continue meeting with me to read the Bible. One day Carlos Freire and Campo Elías Burbano came and they told me that they had found a place to start in a Biblical academy. I went to see it and even though I didn't want to, I ended up accepting. In those days, Javier Ruano began to receive letters threatening to kidnap his children and asked me to take over his company. Javier was the treasurer of Mario's church and later he told me that he was struck by the fact that he always told me to go to his business to give me some things,but I never went. He said that I was like someone who didn't need anything when he knew that I lived on what they gave me. I began to have the daily sustenance of this work and when we started in the academy, we never asked anyone for anything and if someone wanted to collaborate financially, we paid the rent and bought with the money that was left over from some markets to take to people that needed it. Until now I think it was another madness of mine. The first night at the academy about 60 people showed up and I was amazed. Four months passed that we met 3 times a week until one night someone asked me who was attending why we did not appoint deacons and elders. I was very sad,angry,and surprised. The only thing that crossed my mind was that we were going to end up as another Evangelical Church. I arrived home, silent and not knowing what to do. At that time, something had happened that I didn't know. Veronica had been praying one day and she felt this question in her heart: What will become of our children? They are also souls and where will they go if you are not in something? Veronica later told me that this question distressed her soul and she began to think about The Way and the Workers,but she didn't say anything to me because she thought I was happy with what I was doing. But that night, I told Veronica that I did not know what to do, that these people seemed sincere to me, that in truth it seemed that they needed God and they were sincerely looking for him, seeing me so sad she asked me: Patricio, is it not the right time to call the workers? All my sadness disappeared at that moment. Now I know very well that no human being can carry a burden as heavy as the one you worker scary each day if he has not been called and equipped by God to do so. The next day we started looking for the workers and it was not possible to find them. In August 2001 we went to Quito and we were still thinking about how to find the workers. Being on the 10th of August, about 200 meters away Veronica told me: Patricio, it's Max !!! He was crossing the street and I don't know why he stopped and started crossing it back. I accelerated the car and arrived next to Max and asked him to get in. I told him what was going on in about an hour and then he took us to Warren's house. He told us that LeRoy was in Chile and that we wait for him to arrive but that he promised to speak to him. That waiting time was terrible but at last, hoping that the workers would come, I began to tell the people who attended that it was better for them to leave, because real workers were going to come and that none of those who were there were Christians because the Bible taught in a different way than they believed in many things. At last we talked without hindrance and I was amazed again to see that they were not leaving. It was a very nice time. Later they told me how in their hearts they began to feel not only curiosity to know the workers but a need for them to arrive. He made them sing a few verses of hymns and they liked to do it. Finally, in November LeRoy assured us that on January 18, 2002 LeRoy Lerwick and Robbin Pettersen would arrive at Ipiales. The two last months I answered all the questions that were asked. It was very nice, now they read the Bible and came to the academy many times to say to the others: I found this in the Bible,and they shared it. At the end of November more or less, Veronica went to Ambato's meetings and Alicia Mera and Gloria Jaramillo asked her to take them, because they wanted to meet the workers. Something very special had happened with Alicia Mera. One day she came to my house to tell me that she wanted to give me the tithes that she always took to Mario's church and I refused to receive them; she later said that this helped her to look at the Truth because she saw that behind me there were no financial interests. Of course,that makes me happy but at the same time it is another facet of my madness of that time. When they returned from the meetings, they told those who attended the academy everything they had lived and experienced, and their anxiety to meet the workers grew daily. On January 18, 2002 the first two workers arrived at the academy and the history of the Church in Ipiales began. There were many reactions between them,but they were all very positive. The night the workers arrived the first thing I did was tell LeRoy to forgive me for never having told them the real reason why I had moved away from The truth. Many times I thought that I had done well in that time but later I could realize that I had not had life in that time and I compared myself with a laptop that could be useful but without the cable and electricity (like the workers and God) thereit was rendered useless and was of little use although it still retained its value. LeRoy warned me not to expect everyone to keep on because something similar had already happened to us in Ambato when we invited those who were meeting with me and after a while they did not return. But I knew that this time it was different because we had several months until the workers arrived, to read the Bible with them and they found that the Truth of God is unique and they wanted it, but I did not say anything to LeRoy. Within a few months, and seeing the fidelity of the people in Ipiales, the workers decided to hold the first Special meetings in early June,and it was such a precious thing. At last I was sitting in my rightful place. At last I had true peace and I am still here because of the mercy of God and because I am convinced that I have nowhere else to go to take me to a safe place like the one that God offers me. In closing, I want to tell you about something that happened to me in Merced, at Russel Osborne's house. In one night, while I was crying silently in my room because of how bad I was doing in Ambato and for having left my family, perhaps forever, he looked for a pretext to enter and he hugged me and cried with me and said: Patrick, if you don't take off that preacher spirit you still have, you will never prosper on this way. In the academy I still had that spirit, but when the workers arrived it disappeared, because God had dealt with me in an impressive way at that time. Today I like to be quiet and paying attention so as not to miss the preciousness of the heavens. When I came to the United States in 1996, I inadvertently overheard a surrogate asking another: And who is he? (referring to me) and replied, He is the preacher who has been converted to Christ. Precious ............ Right ?10 years have passed,and we are still thankful in Ipiales that God has had mercy on all of us.
FOOTNOTE: Patricio Navas's Testimony "A story "
My story begins in 1986 when I came to an evangelical church looking for help because something allowed me to see for the first time what had happened with my life up to that moment and I did not like what I saw and I began to feel a need to live differently and I started looking for God without knowing where to find him. When I got there,I thought everything was fine because my life did have certain changes for good and just after 8 months I started to preach. I spent 8 years in the evangelical church and at that time I met many ministers and I went to many places where I verified the zeal that each one has for his place and they take care that their sheep do not go elsewhere. I once met a minister named Gilbert Carrillo who came from Los Angeles and later had a lot to do with what I'm going to tell.I liked to read the Bible a lot, although it was because I had a greater knowledge and felt more important than the others. I read many hours and had several versions, but all out of pride and vanity. I remember that sometimes I felt very bad because my life did not go hand in hand with what I learned and what was worse, I began to see clearly the mistakes that were made within the evangelical church and the way of living that the leaders led. In 1994 I started to feel very bad about all this and I could no longer bear everything that happened there, it was so rare to start seeing the true Church and noticing that the difference was enormous with the real one. In September of that year I left that church and took refuge in my house alone. Veronica continued attending there because she told me that it was not possible that I was right and so many ministers were wrong. All I could think to do was pray and I did it in a strange way. I would get on my knees and pray with the Bible open in Acts and I would ask God in my ignorance to allow me to meet people like those in Acts, that I was tired of living in the midst of people like the one I had known for 8 years. In January 1995 I saw an advertisement in the Ambato newspaper. It said: Do you want to study the Bible with us? We do not belong to any denomination. And there was a phone number. Reading that they did not belong to any denomination was what made me call that number and they told me that they were going to visit me in the warehouse we had and that was it. I asked them to come at 5 in the afternoon and that day that we agreed, two young ladies appeared at 4:45 pm. They were Miss Ookyoung and Miss Viviana Mendoza. When I saw that they were women I didn't know what to do and I told them that I had asked them to come at 5, at 5 they come back. That was because I did not know what to do.In the evangelical church women are of little importance and they always repeated the verses that women should not speak in the congregation, etc. They returned at 5 and I knew that the best way to ask them to leave was to ask them what they think of God's government in His Church. Miss Ookyoung remembers that I had said to her: I am looking for The Truth, not a truth and that is what caught her attention. Why did I ask you this? Because I had read a lot about this. He had been able to see the apostles, the true ministry of the Church. When Miss Ookyoung started talking, I was stunned because she was talking to me about everything she had read, in perfect order, just like it says in the Bible. I realized right away that she was speaking like someone living that experience while I had only read about it. I could not ask them to leave and when they told me that if I wanted they could visit me again, I could not refuse because of the evidence of their words, so they started to visit me but in the warehouse, because Veronica was still attending the evangelical church. But one day, something happened there,and Veronica was very disappointed by everything that happens there and finally she also decided to leave and not return. It was then that I asked the ladies to come to the house and the strange thing about this was that Veronica received them better than I did. She understood the ladies much better while it was so difficult for me to accept everything they told me because of what I had inside my head about the doctrine of Christ and that I still struggled with it because during all those years it was true for me. I remember something. I greatly bothered Ookyoung to allow me to meet with some male worker and finally one day he sent me to Quito to meet Max and Henry. I took a friend with me who was still meeting me at the house where we were studying the Bible. Along the way we were thinking of asking them many things and trying to find some error to stop receiving them, despite the fact that,it had already been several months since the visits of the young ladies started. The impression made by meeting the workers and seeing the way they lived made me forget all the questions I had prepared and when we returned,we came in silence with Richard because of everything we went through with them. We ate and talked a lot, but everything within what we had seen in the Bible. LeRoy had to come and visit me several times trying to get rid of everything I had as true, it was very costly. Veronica had professed and I was still struggling with all of this. One day Miguel arrived and while he was listening to me speak to LeRoy in silence, I think he was thinking a lot about what to say to me. When he addressed me he told me that I was ignorant in the things of God and he asked me many questions, if what you say about this is true, why does it say in the Bible like this and like this? When they left I was very uneasy. I could not sleep at night and I got up to read the verses that Miguel had told me once again. Everything was there and it was true. I started to spend hours thinking that it couldn't be possible that I had preached many people as true and now I was facing the possibility that everything was a lie and that I had been wrong. It was not easy but I think God helped me open my eyes to all this and finally one day we spoke with LeRoy and I told him that I wanted to profess and that I no longer wanted to continue fighting against something that was stronger than me and everything that I thought I knew. We had a meeting at my house,and I invited the people who met with us in the studies we did in the house and there LeRoy spoke and then I stopped every thing to make my decision known and profess. You can imagine, everyone present almost passed out when they heard me. They always thought of me as wise and now they looked on me as ignorant. Unfortunately,in those days we had been robbed. A customer took a lot of leather and paid us with post-dated checks and we were never able to cash them. We had to ask the bank for a loan and that led to a terrible problem. There was the war with Peru and suddenly we owed twice as much,and we couldn't pay because the interest was set at 130% per year. I struggled trying to fix all this,but I couldn't do it and until now we still owe money to the bank. LeRoy was very close at all times and he advised me to surrender to reality and go to the bank to tell them that I could not pay. I remember his words a lot: Patricio you are like in a mud pit and no matter how hard you fight you have nowhere to hold on, it is better to let yourself fall. When you touch the floor, although it is hard and it hurts, it can also be used to propel you to go out and go up. I thought that these words were very hard and that I could not accept them. At the beginning of 1996, I asked LeRoy to help me go to the United States. I already had a visa, but it was a tourist visa. He told me not to wait for someone to give me work because I would be illegally in the country and did not have a visa for work. I could never understand that, it took me years after being able to understand it. However, he agreed to let me go and I arrived in Los Angeles and was welcomed by Richard Wulf with whom I spent 16 days. He took me everywhere to apply for a job because I wanted to work to start sending money to pay what we owed to the bank. Nothing happened and Richard advised me the same as LeRoy, to come back and face the situation differently. One day Richard told me that the workers had spoken about me and that if I wanted to stay they would pay me a motel for a month until I tried to find work but I had decided to return and I did it, but inside my heart there was resentment because I thought they didn't want to help me. I think I left thinking that while I was there,they would help me when I looked desperate,but it didn't happen. This economic situation was accentuated and although I kept going to the meetings, I began to feel that God had abandoned me,and I began to resent God enormously. I think it was in 1998 that I stopped going to meetings. When LeRoy arrived at Ipiales, the first thing I did was ask forgiveness because I never told the workers why I stopped attending and went away. I remember taking my Bible and putting it in a drawer thinking I would never read it again. For me everything turned into a lie because I saw that our economic situation was getting worse every day and I had the audacity to ask God to take my life. I was constantly asking myself, why didn't the workers help me? Why couldn't someone let me work in the United States and thus be paying this debt? I couldn't understand. At the end of 1998 the minister Gilbert Carrillo returned to Ambato and came to visit me at my house and told me that if I needed help one day, I should go to Los Angeles where he would help me. That was worse for me because I thought about how it was possible that people who lived in error were willing to help me and true Christians did not want to do it? May 1999 came and something very special happened. One day I couldn't take it anymore and at dawn I went to the living room and cried a lot and told God to forgive me and I no longer wanted to continue in that situation and if he wanted something with my life, let him do it. I took my Bible out of the drawer and re-read it, I prayed again but I didn't think about going back to the meetings, strange that, I never thought about doing it. Perhaps I was still resentful of the workers for "not having helped me." Impressively, two weeks later they took out a catch slip. At the bank we owed, they asked me to present the industrial pledge of the debt, which was a dump truck that we had brought from the United States to sell. We imported that dump truck on behalf of a partner of my brother-in-law José Camacho and this man handed over my dump truck to pay a debt he had in the east. As I could not present it, they took that capture ballot and suddenly I was on the verge of going to jail. Since I had already made that decision with God, I was not angry or anything for this, I just went to a lawyer and he recommended that I leave the country until they take charge of the situation. That ballot lasted 5 years and we talked to Veronica about me leaving and not coming back, that all of this was going to be worse in the future and that's how I had to leave the country. I came to Ipiales at the end of May to stay with my sister Marcia because on June 1 I was going to the United States where the minister Gilbert Carrillo who supposedly said he would help me and he agreed to receive me. When I was in Ipiales, Mario found out that I was there and asked me to teach young people in a hotel where they were going to hold a watch. I had met Mario 10 years ago when I was going to preach in the Ipiales alliance church,and he was co-minister there. Then he got out of there and started his own church and invited me at least once a year to go preach at Ipiales. On that occasion, as I was passing through, I agreed to do it and went to that hotel at night and there I met Fidel Bolaños, Jorge Rojas, etc. That was a Friday day. On Sunday I went to Cali to leave Colombia for the USA and on June 1 I arrived in Fontana, California where Gilbert Carrillo lived. Curiously, he asked me first if it was true that I had turned away from the gospel because I was meeting with a sect of some Koreans. It was admirable to be able, just arriving, to tell Gilbert that it was false, that I met with this kind of people and that they preached like this and like this, and I asked him: tell me where is the false? Gilbert said that it seemed to him that they were preaching the truth and that he saw no falsehood in everything that I explained to him and that we do something: that we don't talk about those things that could separate us and that we only talk about the Bible in those things that we have no differences. Two days later he took me to get me false papers so that I could work. There I began to realize the difference with the truth and what LeRoy had told me. It was very funny, in those days I prayed a lot and when I went to the amusement park where they could give me work, the manager asked me for the papers and I told her that those papers were false and that they had been sold to me so that I could apply for a job. She stared at me and told me that it was fine, but that she had to pay me by check and that since it was not my real name, someone who cashed my checks would look for me. So,I started working there. In the evenings, Gilbert asked me things from the Bible,and I would say to him: once a servant spoke about this and taught like this. He was always amazed at the true doctrine,but I don't know why he always responded that way because I didn't even remember the workers and I never thought about calling them or looking for the friends there in California.One day he told me that I should "give" to others what I had in my heart. That I had to preach again, that it seemed selfish for me to keep having all this understanding for myself and I agreed to do it. I preached in three evangelical churches, in Fontana, in Ontario and in Rialto, California, that was for 6 weeks or so. I don't remember what it felt like to do it, but what I do remember is that they invited me to have studies with the ministers of the region and we did it once every week and I made them notice their mistake and told them what I had already learned with the workers but, although they were amazed at everything that is written, I never saw in them any intention to change. When I was about 6 weeks at Fontana, I can't explain why I started to remember those I had met at Ipiales, they came to mind,and I felt like I should go to Ipiales. I spoke to Veronica and she said to me: What are we going to Ipiales for? Stay where you are and work until we pay what we owe. However, that was repeated every day and a week later I told Gilbert what was happening to me; He told me that I should think about it very well, that he would like me to stay but that if my place was in Ipiales I should go. I was making money, I wasn't spending anything because Gilbert gave me everything,and in the house, so I don't know why this was happening. A week before I returned, I spoke to Veronica again and she told me that if I had decided go, I should go alone because she did not plan to follow me on another adventure like the ones we had already had in the midst of our problems. I called American and asked them for a ticket for August 3, 1999. I spoke with my sister Marcia about the possibility of going to Ipiales and they told Mario why he didn't "take advantage" of having me at Ipiales to help him in his church. As he already knew me, he accepted that request from Marcia but sent me a message, that if I went, that he asked me to help him but that they had no money to pay me and I told Marcia that I would never charge to teach others Truth and Mario accepted, then that if I went to Ipiales, that I go to his church as his collaborator. The people who knew me that last Friday, Fidel, Jorge Rojas and others, upon knowing that I was going to return felt pleased and I found out that they had even pressured Mario to receive me.A few days before going back to Ecuador and going to Ipiales, I spoke with Verónica and asked her to come with me and once again she refused. However, I had made the decision to return and my sister Marcia told me that they were already seeing a small apartment where I could live and a part-time job to take care of and have for a living. I asked Veronica to take the children to the airport to see them and be with them for a few moments and as she arrived at night, that we go to sleep in a hotel and the next day I would travel to Ipiales and she to Ambato, and she accepted that. Those few days I prayed in my ignorance, because I did not understand anything that was happening to me, that God touch Veronica's heart and accept to go with me to Ipiales. I arrived in Quito on August 3, 1999 at night and Veronica and the children were there. We went to a hotel and to my amazement, Veronica told me that she had already left everything packed in Ambato and ready to go pick up our things in a truck and take them to Ipiales and that she did agree to go live in Ipiales. That moment was very nice,and I enjoyed it in silence and without telling Veronica what I had been praying for. When we arrived at Ipiales there was neither an apartment nor work. We had to sleep in a room at Marcia's house and sleep on two mattresses that they lent us. Mario appeared after 3 days to speak with me and asked me to help him doing many things in his church. I had to preach, do discipleship studies,and give counseling during the day but he stressed that they had no money to pay me. Two weeks later Veronica went to Ambato to bring things in a truck because we got a small apartment in Ipiales. When we were already located, I began to do everything Mario had asked me to do and until now I cannot understand why he never complained to me for a year because of what I said in the preaching. Once again, I did not think about the workers nor about the true way, I thought at that moment that I was doing well and that I could help others with the knowledge that I had acquired at that time in The Truth. People quickly got used to us and I always admired seeing how they came to my house bringing us shopping baskets of food for us to eat. They came to give us money, I think behind Mario's back. I never had to ask anyone for anything because we always had what we needed and the boys started going to a free children’s school,but we got Daniel accepted in the first grade because we didn't have the money to pay for him in a private school. About two months later, I spoke with Fidel Bolaños and Jorge Rojas and I told them that if they wanted to study the Bible with me in the morning and they started coming to our home, and for the first time I began to tell someone directly what The truth was. They were amazed and began to read the Bible in a different way. Time passed and one day we had a meeting at the house where we had moved and they were Fidel, María Eugenia, Jorge Rojas and Marlene, Gloria Jaramillo. Without knowing why, I took some copies of some hymns from my hymnbook that I had kept,and I made them sing and then I asked them to each participate. I told them that these were the meetings that we had been accustomed to do with those professing. When Maria Eugenia's turn came, she was unable to speak and only said that she was ashamed to speak because God had not yet done anything in her life. Every Thursday night we started to have these meetings but Mario found out and ordered us to stop having them and he forbade us to have meetings outside his church and if I wanted to teach something to someone that I would do it inside the building. A year had passed,and I had to study at 6 in the morning and many attended. One day LeRoy asked me what I had lived on all that time and I didn’t have a good answer, I just remember that the people who had studied with us, brought help. After a year of being there, Mario came and told me that he no longer wanted me there because there were sheep that no longer recognized him as a minister. The deacons, in this case, Fidel, Jorge Rojas and others found out and told him that they did not accept that. Mario felt very bad about that and they asked me what was the government of God like in the Church? Mario was told that he should also be in this study so that he could correct me if I said something wrong. I always remember this because that was the question I asked Miss Ookyoung the first time I saw her and it was to check what she had already read in the Bible. Those days were very tense. What I remember was that I was saying everything I had heard from the workers during the time I had met with them. Mario felt very bad and rejected by all his deacons who when they read the verses told him that he should also submit to them and not be like a boss on a farm. A few days later he called me to a private meeting, asked me to take Veronica and he was with his wife and they asked us to leave and we did so. When they found out, the people who had come to my house told me that they wanted to continue meeting with me to read the Bible. One day Carlos Freire and Campo Elías Burbano came and they told me that they had found a place to start in a Biblical academy. I went to see it and even though I didn't want to, I ended up accepting. In those days, Javier Ruano began to receive letters threatening to kidnap his children and asked me to take over his company. Javier was the treasurer of Mario's church and later he told me that he was struck by the fact that he always told me to go to his business to give me some things,but I never went. He said that I was like someone who didn't need anything when he knew that I lived on what they gave me. I began to have the daily sustenance of this work and when we started in the academy, we never asked anyone for anything and if someone wanted to collaborate financially, we paid the rent and bought with the money that was left over from some markets to take to people that needed it. Until now I think it was another madness of mine. The first night at the academy about 60 people showed up and I was amazed. Four months passed that we met 3 times a week until one night someone asked me who was attending why we did not appoint deacons and elders. I was very sad,angry,and surprised. The only thing that crossed my mind was that we were going to end up as another Evangelical Church. I arrived home, silent and not knowing what to do. At that time, something had happened that I didn't know. Veronica had been praying one day and she felt this question in her heart: What will become of our children? They are also souls and where will they go if you are not in something? Veronica later told me that this question distressed her soul and she began to think about The Way and the Workers,but she didn't say anything to me because she thought I was happy with what I was doing. But that night, I told Veronica that I did not know what to do, that these people seemed sincere to me, that in truth it seemed that they needed God and they were sincerely looking for him, seeing me so sad she asked me: Patricio, is it not the right time to call the workers? All my sadness disappeared at that moment. Now I know very well that no human being can carry a burden as heavy as the one you worker scary each day if he has not been called and equipped by God to do so. The next day we started looking for the workers and it was not possible to find them. In August 2001 we went to Quito and we were still thinking about how to find the workers. Being on the 10th of August, about 200 meters away Veronica told me: Patricio, it's Max !!! He was crossing the street and I don't know why he stopped and started crossing it back. I accelerated the car and arrived next to Max and asked him to get in. I told him what was going on in about an hour and then he took us to Warren's house. He told us that LeRoy was in Chile and that we wait for him to arrive but that he promised to speak to him. That waiting time was terrible but at last, hoping that the workers would come, I began to tell the people who attended that it was better for them to leave, because real workers were going to come and that none of those who were there were Christians because the Bible taught in a different way than they believed in many things. At last we talked without hindrance and I was amazed again to see that they were not leaving. It was a very nice time. Later they told me how in their hearts they began to feel not only curiosity to know the workers but a need for them to arrive. He made them sing a few verses of hymns and they liked to do it. Finally, in November LeRoy assured us that on January 18, 2002 LeRoy Lerwick and Robbin Pettersen would arrive at Ipiales. The two last months I answered all the questions that were asked. It was very nice, now they read the Bible and came to the academy many times to say to the others: I found this in the Bible,and they shared it. At the end of November more or less, Veronica went to Ambato's meetings and Alicia Mera and Gloria Jaramillo asked her to take them, because they wanted to meet the workers. Something very special had happened with Alicia Mera. One day she came to my house to tell me that she wanted to give me the tithes that she always took to Mario's church and I refused to receive them; she later said that this helped her to look at the Truth because she saw that behind me there were no financial interests. Of course,that makes me happy but at the same time it is another facet of my madness of that time. When they returned from the meetings, they told those who attended the academy everything they had lived and experienced, and their anxiety to meet the workers grew daily. On January 18, 2002 the first two workers arrived at the academy and the history of the Church in Ipiales began. There were many reactions between them,but they were all very positive. The night the workers arrived the first thing I did was tell LeRoy to forgive me for never having told them the real reason why I had moved away from The truth. Many times I thought that I had done well in that time but later I could realize that I had not had life in that time and I compared myself with a laptop that could be useful but without the cable and electricity (like the workers and God) thereit was rendered useless and was of little use although it still retained its value. LeRoy warned me not to expect everyone to keep on because something similar had already happened to us in Ambato when we invited those who were meeting with me and after a while they did not return. But I knew that this time it was different because we had several months until the workers arrived, to read the Bible with them and they found that the Truth of God is unique and they wanted it, but I did not say anything to LeRoy. Within a few months, and seeing the fidelity of the people in Ipiales, the workers decided to hold the first Special meetings in early June,and it was such a precious thing. At last I was sitting in my rightful place. At last I had true peace and I am still here because of the mercy of God and because I am convinced that I have nowhere else to go to take me to a safe place like the one that God offers me. In closing, I want to tell you about something that happened to me in Merced, at Russel Osborne's house. In one night, while I was crying silently in my room because of how bad I was doing in Ambato and for having left my family, perhaps forever, he looked for a pretext to enter and he hugged me and cried with me and said: Patrick, if you don't take off that preacher spirit you still have, you will never prosper on this way. In the academy I still had that spirit, but when the workers arrived it disappeared, because God had dealt with me in an impressive way at that time. Today I like to be quiet and paying attention so as not to miss the preciousness of the heavens. When I came to the United States in 1996, I inadvertently overheard a surrogate asking another: And who is he? (referring to me) and replied, He is the preacher who has been converted to Christ. Precious ............ Right ?10 years have passed,and we are still thankful in Ipiales that God has had mercy on all of us.