Week in Quito

Quito, Ecuador appears to be a beautiful city with its mixture of colonial and modern. It would have been much nicer if it had been sunny. 95% of our time touring various places with our guides, Carlos and Becki Pinto was spent dodging raindrops. There is so much rich history in the city. One of the highlights the second day was going to a local church. Carlos spoke and we were invited to stay and eat lunch with the church body as they celebrated their 29th year. It was great to be able to fellowship with other brothers and sisters. After that, we headed up to “la mitad del mundo” (the middle of the world. That is where the equator is. Of course we had our photo taken there as all good tourists would do.

On Monday, we took a bus (which was really quite nice) 5 hours to Shell. There is a lot of missionary history there. That of course is where the Saints used to live when Nate Saint and 4 other missionary men went in to make contact with the Waorani tribe. The Indigenous Conference started on Tuesday morning with worship and prayer. Again it’s always amazing to have this time with other believers and realizing that one day we will forever be able to be together and praise our Father. There were 60 participants (men and women). A speaker from each of the 3 waves of missions (foreigner, national and indigenous) had time to share. Subjects such as alliances, leadership roles and churches doing missions were presented. There was also a time for church reports and then evaluation on the progress or lack thereof spiritually. It was a time to be transparent so that solutions could truly be sought.

Becki and I were able to, along with local pastor’s wife, Sofia, to have time to share with the women in a relaxed setting. After introductions, the women began to share some of their struggles with us. Many spiritual questions were also asked. Praise God that all the answers come from His Word. We also were able to help out in the kitchen which was fun!

On the last day we had a cultural presentation night. It was fun watching groups sing, dance and show some different cultural things.

On our way out we stopped to take a tour of the Saint house which has been turned into a museum and see the airport where all the airplanes go into the jungle.

All in all it was a great week. Now onto Lima for the second leg of the trip.Thank you all for praying, please keep up the good work!