The Church in Guayaquil Ecuador

Last Thursday, Scotty, Tommy, and I, along with our good friend Brent jumped on a plane to begin our journey to Guayaqul, Ecuador. It is not a terribly long flight, but with the layover and plane-change in Miami, it makes a long day of travel. Guayaquil is an enormous, bustling city of 2 million people. There was very little presence of the Church of Christ there until 2 1/2 years ago when 5 native Ecuadorians graduated from the Quito School of Biblical Studies and made a journey of faith to the huge city. They prayed for much of their final year of studies about planting a church in Guayaquil and moved as a team some 200 miles from Quito, the capital city in the cool mountains of Ecuador to Guayaquil, a coastal city with a climate like Houston in August! The team has been dynamic and busy. They are already on their second rental building, having outgrown their first one very quickly. We had the joyful pleasure of worshipping with them this past Sunday. Of course, the service is conducted in Spanish. But we recognized many of the songs and sang them at the top of our lungs in English as the Ecuadorian brothers and sisters, numbering about 90 that day, sang at the tops of their lungs in Spanish! It was glorious. The people we met are very patient and kind about our limited Spanish. They are also very affectionate. We had the privilege of being invited to two different members' homes. The architecture is heavily Spanish -- much concrete and stucco. Iron gated, tiled courtyards are very common. We saw no beggars or street people the places we went. The river walk, not far from our hotel, was modern and vibrant. Scotty, and our great friend, Hal, were in meetings with the team much of Saturday. So, Betty, one of our party who is from Oklahoma, and I joined some of the ladies and kids and we walked to the markets along the river. It was fun. Some of the boys got Cokes in gold plastic bottles, and as they went along they shook them really hard. This activity is boy behavior the world around! We stopped at a busy McDonald's situated right on the river. There was much techno-style salsa music playing with ear-throbbing decibels in the markets and on a riverboat cruise that we took and thoroughly enjoyed. We even got a tour of a private academy where our wonderful interpreter, Maria, teaches school. I loved the great, green iguanas that roamed around the campus grounds and in the park near our hotel. They reminded me of ponderous dinosaurs or Oxfordian professors. The Lord blessed us with a safe, grand trip. We came home with a joy that comes from having all of our senses filled with a people and culture so different from our own. And yet, the common bond of loving our Lord -- Ecuadorians often call Him "El Senor" -- and Christian worship and fellowship is a thread that runs so truly throughout the world.