On Location in Ecuador

To get to the Palmira church plant above Rio Verde, it's a 6-mile hike through the mud — or you can hitch a ride with missionaries Kevin and Kathy Bruce.

What is travel like between different parts of Ecuador?

Chris: When you leave the city of Ibarra and go down towards Rio Verde, you descend from 8,000 ft to 5,000 ft elevation. Along the way, you have to deal with rock slides – great boulders can come down and crash into vehicles or block the road. There’s also police checks, where you might be stopped to check for smuggling. But you also pass by beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous valleys, and tall mountain ranges. Condors fly overhead, and one day we saw toucans on branches. And you’ll see Kichwa people in indigenous clothing — ponchos, or skirts with bright colors. Each tribal group has distinctive dress according to the area where they live. Our missionaries amazed me by identifying all of them.

Renatto: It was beautiful. Palmira and Rio Verde especially — I loved that place, kind of a jungle and far away from everything. Ibarra is more busy, with cars and so on.

Mike: Our trip up to the mountains where the Awa people live was just outside of Ibarra, and I remember the roads there were pretty rough. At one point I joked, “My kidneys started in the normal place, and by the time we got to where we were headed, they were in my back pocket!”

Who were some of the people you visited?

Chris: Besides visiting with our Liebenzell USA missionaries, we also met 20 national workers in Ecuador, who are native Ecuadorian pastors or church leaders taken on as full-time workers. We heard stories from Alfonso, a native Kichwa man who rides a motorcycle up to the villages in the mountain regions to share the gospel.

In the mountain of northern Ecuador, there are many villages populated by the Afro-Ecuadorian people group.

When you met with the missionaries and national workers at Ibarra, what was your message, and how was it received?

Chris: I spoke from Colossians 2, about how God moves and leads us to the cross not just for salvation, but on a daily basis. People were a little surprised because my accent is from Spain, but they could understand and were pleased to hear from us.

Renatto: I shared my testimony, that I fell in love with music very young, and how I had my encounter with Christ when I was 18. At that time, I wanted to study music and wasn’t feeling supported by my family. I realized that some friends were very intentional to invest time in me, and shared the gospel with me. It was powerful, simple. My perspective started to change. A simple devotional in the morning can make the whole day make sense.

I also shared how I got into Liebenzell. When [Communications Team Leader] Henry Warner was looking for a videographer in 2018, I saw the announcement, wrote him, and started sharing some emails. I did remote editing work, and last year we started planning for this trip to Ecuador.

What was something challenging about this trip for you?

Renatto: Weather was challenging — I didn’t know it was going to be changing all the time. Mornings could be sunny, but in the afternoon it could be raining and cloudy. But at the same time, I’m really thankful to God because he already provided someone to help with video. We met, and I figured out he had a studio and he offered to use it if the weather was cloudy. I saw God in those people He provided, because I was worried my idea for an interview would not work. I had to trust God that He would provide. And everything went smooth.

[View more of Renatto's photos and videos on our Instagram or Facebook]

A joint Sunday morning service between the two Rio Verde churches ministered to by missionaries Kevin and Kathy Bruce.

How do the needs differ between some of the churches you visited? 

Chris: I was really impressed with how well-built their buildings were. They’re planned with a large worship area, and always a kitchen and sometimes a pastoral house attached to the building, with extra space for housing interns who typically come from Impact Germany. The versatility was great, and they were built to last a long time. That’s due to persistent investment from German and US donors. The congregations seem to be growing, and have active youth groups and children’s ministries with many ethnic groups.

The Palmira church that missionaries Kevin and Kathy Bruce help lead is a little different, as half the congregation typically meets at the Rio Verde carport for the first service, and then the Bruces hike or drive 6 miles to the second service, at the recently constructed Palmira church. For our visit, they organized a service up at the Palmira church plant with everyone from both services, about 50 or 60 people. They cooked lunch over an open fire, since they don’t have a kitchen built yet.

[Help build a kitchen with the Palmira Church Construction Project]

Mike: The biggest need for larger churches, like the 500-member Puente de Amor (Bridge of Love) church in Ibarra, is pastoral training. Financially, it’s a little bit challenging — it takes money to become a full-time pastor, and it takes money to receive pastoral training.

Other churches are a lot smaller. The Zona de Vida (Life Zone) church where the Farnsworths minister is rather new, and had a building but lost it due to decreased funds from COVID-19. There’s no longer much money coming in because people can’t meet, but they can’t meet until they have enough funds to rent another space, so it’s kind of a catch-22.

Others are even smaller than that, like where missionary Rainer Kroeger goes. The Afro-Ecuadorian groups he ministers to meet in community center buildings in the middle of villages. They’ve made some good in-roads – they have Christians, but not necessarily churches. Some of the communities don’t want churches; others don’t mind you coming in, but aren’t very receptive to the message.

Chris: The Afro-Ecuadorian population is originally from Africa but was taken to Columbia as slaves. Some fled down to Ecuador and hid in the Andes mountains. Today, some villages remain quite impoverished, and our missionaries share the Gospel with them and take food and clothes to those who are desperately poor.

Whenever Rainer Kroeger drives up to an Afro-Ecuadorian village in the northern Andes, people know he's coming. "All the kids nearby come running up shouting 'Rainer, Rainer!' It was impressive to see the relationships built in these places over the years," Mike Branch says.

How has your visit changed the way you think about and pray for Ecuador?

Chris: It kept occurring to me, where would Jesus be if He were walking around Ecuador? He would probably be in the villages and mountains, where we kept coming across desperately poor people — some folks missing legs, hands, or feet, or blind people living alone. Liebenzell missionary Rainer Kroeger has proposed a new fund to provide material needs for those who are sick or disabled, typically those attached to churches. If you have $25 a month to give, consider becoming a part of this project helping the infirmed among the Andes Mountains.

[Help provide for disadvantaged with the "Ecuador: Step In" fund.]

Renatto: I realized it’s hard for German and American teams to go there and connect. But most of the people, when I told them, “I’m from Guatemala,” they always had something to say. Like “Wow! How is Guatemala?” Something changes in their face. We’re both Latinos, coming from kind of a similar context, so it’s easier to connect with people better. They’ve had a lot of people from Guatemala come and work in Ecuador, and I pray that more Latin teams can come and work there.

Mike: I think a lot of missionaries here have been plugging away for years, and are wondering how to take their ministry to the next step. Now I have a list of people in mind that I know to recruit and help in Ecuador.

What resources can the work in Ecuador use?

Chris: Prayer is a great way to search for resources from heaven. And so is the financial giving that comes from earth — we deeply appreciate donors’ sacrificial giving towards our trip, which allowed us to join our workers fighting spiritual battles on the front lines.

Two needs struck me — first, there is a need to train the national workers in more Bible, theology, and practical skills. We hope to fill that need by connecting them to the Sevilla Theological Seminary online program. Secondly, there’s a need to recruit more missionaries in youth missionary. We need specialized folks to help train up some really great leaders on the national scale.

Mike: There’s just so much opportunity — in Quito the capital, among the Kichwa Indians. Ned and Marisol are returning for a year on furlough mid-June, so there will be a gap to fill there. We need people that will come alongside Rainer and work alongside the Afro-Ecuadorian groups. They have a wonderful retreat center there, and could use someone to help set up camps for kids. There’s also a lot of social turmoil, with dysfunctional marriage, drugs, and alcoholism. We could really use someone with counseling experience. And we need dedicated church planters as well.

Outside Kevin and Kathy Bruce's home in Rio Verde.

What is one memory of your trip that stands out to you most?

Chris: The Awa people, some of whom live in Palmira where the Bruces work, have a lot of mythology and teachings passed over generations. One story that was strange to me was that whenever a rainbow appears, it’s a symbol of the fish goddess who splashed her tail against the sky. Parents believe that if children see it, they will get dysentery and die, so they rush their children inside. So instead of enjoying God’s creation, they hide inside in fear. There are many examples of cultural habits like this due to the belief in animism, where the people will try to appease spirits of water, earth, rocks, and so on.

Mike: One of the things I was impressed with was the weekend we spent with Kevin and Kathy Bruce. I was just thinking, as we drove up to the house they built, with a garden and some chickens — when they first started their ministry, they didn’t have a car, so they had to hike up. I was impressed with the amount of work, faithfulness, and commitment they put in to get to where they are today.

This article was published in the Spring 2021 issue of the Provision Press.