This weekend Susie set off for Ecuador to start laying the foundations for the project before Lydia and Mark arrive shortly. You can find out more about the project on our new Ecuador page. Here's her first update:
*Brilliant* day here today. Day 1: Up early, quick walk around Quito, got the bus to Santo Domingo and - thankfully - was on the right bus and got met by Jill. Had really useful meeting all afternoon about how the project might fit with the needs here. Jill took me to church in the evening and I had to fight to stay awake all through the 40 minute sermon (which was embarrassing as I was on the front row!) as it felt like 2.30am to me! The church meets in a covered parking lot, so the fact that cars were noisily entering the service complete with flashing lights and reversing bleeps roughly every 10 minutes, helped to keep shaking me out of sleep! It was all very refreshingly un-British.
Day 2: SUPERB day. Went to an Indian settlement in the morning which was totally fascinating and incredibly beautiful, then met Pastor William, the co-founder of the charity Jill set up here, for a lunch meeting. It couldn't' have gone better! He is totally brilliant. He couldn't have been more engaged or helpful. He loved hearing about Neema Crafts and Craft Aid, and immediately rejoiced in the idea of doing something similar here. He says the needs of disabled people in Ecuador are huge, and that we couldn't have come to a better place to start such a ministry. The next thing I knew he was driving us 20 mins out of town to piece of land with a couple of great structures on it that we could use as an office and workshop 3 days a week, disabled toilets and showers, an outdoor sink perfect for screen washing etc, and enough land to build a perfect paper-making and screen printing workshop on! Next he drove us to meet a local disabled man, who told us there is one deaf person and 5-6 disabled people living nearby to the plot, all desperate for work. So, potentially: land, premises and a workforce, all in the space of an afternoon!!! Obviously it's very early days, but it feels like an extremely promising start. I couldn't be (cautiously!) happier!
Tomorrow we're going to meet to sort out all the legalities which is fantastic. William says it should be straight forward to register it as part of the church's practical community work, so that's brilliant. If you are someone who prays, please pray for the rest of my time here that I get everything done that needs doing and build good relationships with everyone here. SO glad I came, would absolutely not have wanted to send Lydia and Mark here without having come first to start laying the right foundations. EXCITED. God is good!
Day 2: SUPERB day. Went to an Indian settlement in the morning which was totally fascinating and incredibly beautiful, then met Pastor William, the co-founder of the charity Jill set up here, for a lunch meeting. It couldn't' have gone better! He is totally brilliant. He couldn't have been more engaged or helpful. He loved hearing about Neema Crafts and Craft Aid, and immediately rejoiced in the idea of doing something similar here. He says the needs of disabled people in Ecuador are huge, and that we couldn't have come to a better place to start such a ministry. The next thing I knew he was driving us 20 mins out of town to piece of land with a couple of great structures on it that we could use as an office and workshop 3 days a week, disabled toilets and showers, an outdoor sink perfect for screen washing etc, and enough land to build a perfect paper-making and screen printing workshop on! Next he drove us to meet a local disabled man, who told us there is one deaf person and 5-6 disabled people living nearby to the plot, all desperate for work. So, potentially: land, premises and a workforce, all in the space of an afternoon!!! Obviously it's very early days, but it feels like an extremely promising start. I couldn't be (cautiously!) happier!
Tomorrow we're going to meet to sort out all the legalities which is fantastic. William says it should be straight forward to register it as part of the church's practical community work, so that's brilliant. If you are someone who prays, please pray for the rest of my time here that I get everything done that needs doing and build good relationships with everyone here. SO glad I came, would absolutely not have wanted to send Lydia and Mark here without having come first to start laying the right foundations. EXCITED. God is good!
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