As you all know, we met with 5 other couples on the weekend of January 11-13th in Marion, IN. This is our first meeting to begin the process of starting a non-profit organization which will be the development organization for the center for at-risk children and the medical clinic. We have named the organization the Santiago Partnership. The name Santiago Partnership comes from the book of James. The name “Santiago” in Spanish is the name “James” in English. We may come up with a particular theme verse but at this point the idea is being taken from the book of James that we want to have a faith that is alive and active, one that is lived out, not one that dead and has no good works to show for it. We are also using the word “Partnership” instead of “Corporation” or “Project” so that we can emphasize the idea that everything we are doing is in partnership with the local church in Ecuador (both on a local and national level). At this point we do have our mission statement which says, “The Santiago Partnership, as an international team of followers of Jesus Christ collaborating with the local church of Ecuador, South America, seeks to transform the lives of at-risk children and their families, as well as serve underprivileged communities.”
All of this will take a while before we can be official with a 501c3 status. We have seen God working amazingly through this entire process of bringing each couple to be a part of the team and as we have others that will be helping out (a lawyer and website designer agreeing to help for free).
Please pray for us as we continue this process and become official. We have broken up into subcommittees and have begun the work that needs to be accomplished to get up and running. Here are the couples names so that you can pray for them individually: Tim & Angie Eberhard, Scott & Sara Hallam, Jeff & Kristi Lundblad, Janae & Zach Stevens and Paul & Mary Thompson. Our Board of Directors also includes four advisory members which is one representative from Covenant World Mission and 3 representatives from I.P.E.E. (the Covenant church of Ecuador) who are Henry & Olguita Burbano (Henry is the president of I.P.E.E.) and Marcela Tapia (the director of F.A.C.E.). It’s exciting to have I.P.E.E.’s participation on our highest level of the Board.
The Santiago Partnership