Remember that ‘Vision Team’ that came down…?

It seems like a long time ago now since our friends and fellow visionaries left Ecuador.  Especially in blog life since we are usually pretty timely in getting our posts up regarding what is going on in our lives.  Some of it may be that so much happened during our time and then so much is happening for us right now in transitioning back to the U.S. that we really haven’t had good time to process our experience together enough to do justice to what happened during our time.

Group picture in Ibarra. From left to right-Marcela tapia, Jeff and Kristi Lundblad, Zach and Janae Stevens, Tim and Angie Eberhard, Joel, Kim and Simeon and Paul Thomspon

Most of you know that we have had a dream of starting a center for at-risk children and a medical clinic for over ten years now.  Many things have developed in contributing to the growth of this dream over our last two years in Ecuador.  However, in mid-September, we literally had dreams coming true when we had a Vision Team from the States come to visit.  As you probably remember, IPEE (the Covenant Church of Ecuador) made a decision about the location for the center and medical clinic to be in a ministry of two districts of churches and specifically in the area of Otavalo.

The Vision Team that came was made up of people that are interested in supporting our future ministry in Ecuador by serving on the Board of Directors of the U.S. based non-profit organization.  This Vision Team did not include all of those on the Board of Directors, but the majority were able to come.  We had a great time from the beginning where the team got to know Ecuador, its customs and nuances and just experience the beauty of the country.  Towards the end of the week, we made a trip to the North of Ecuador and the team was able to see and get to know ministries and pastors in the two Covenant conferences that are close to Otavalo.  As well we visited two orphanages in the Quito area.  After all of these visits, we were able to debrief a little bit and really started dreaming and brainstorming about possibilities God may be giving us for the future.  This was a very exciting time.  Hopefully, now that we have had their visit we can begin to work with IPEE and FACE (the social outreach branch of IPEE) to figure out the exact details of how things will look.  Please pray for the Board of Directors and the future of this ministry.

Enjoy some pictures from our trip…

Joel laughing with kids in 4 lote

The Lundblad's

Pastor paul, Simeon and Joel looking at some land close to Karabuela

Janae, Kim and Kristi at a church visit in Ibarra

Kristi visiting an orphanage in Quito

Angie and Jane in 4 Lote

We had to put an IV in Zach close in Karabuela...but more on this in another post...

Tim and Zach discussing things