Congregations

In the beginning, we arrived in Ecuador in April, 1990. Team Expansion asked if we would be interested in having an internship group of college students that summer. We felt that it was too soon as we had to find a place to stay, register visas, setup house and decide where in this place of a couple million people we wanted to The first meeting place for the Samanes congregation with the intern Matt Higgs directing the singing.start.

Somehow this message was never understood or received by the person organizing the summer internships. We were informed that there was a group of 8 interns on their way down. Obviously our Sovereign God’s plan was different from ours.

Something had to be done with these interns that resembled “missionary” work. So it was decide that we would pass out flyers in our subdivision to a movie in the park. We had no idea what to expect. We also planned a second movie in a park in the next area over. As the result of the movies we had nearly 400 people attend between the two movies and a lot of cards to follow up for visits. The visits lead to weekly home Bible studies. To be more specific 18 weekly studies. The interns soon left leaving just our family and Matt Higgs, an intern to cover all this.Orquideas first meeting place.

Seven months later the people from these studies came together to form the Los Samanes church. This church grew and helped with settling our fellow team families that came language school who arrive a year to year and half later.

Five years after the Samanes congregation began, they worked with us to reach out to begin another church in Las Orquideas. The bamboo structure for Orquideas before starting the present building.This daughter church has now caught up with Samanes in size.

After getting on their feet, the other team families branched out to begin the Guayacanes congregation called “La Fuente”. Then in a couple more years two of the team families began the Alborada congregation called “Torre Fuerte”.

In 2007, our teammates, Mike and Jill Hook returned to the States to minister in a new work in Louisville, KY. Since that time we have been mentoring the leaders in the “La Fuente” congregation and their daughter church “Los Vergeles” that was started about 5 years earlier.