Wrap Up from Calacali, Ecuador

While technically, we are in our “slow” season, many things have been happening here at El Refugio, both on the operations and programming side of things.

First, at the end of January we experienced our first Youth World Annual Meetings. The speaker spoke each day from Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. I would encourage you to find a copy of “The Message”; this translation provides an interesting perspective on a timeless message.

Each day we heard reports from the different areas of ministry, which was both encouraging and sobering to hear the events of the last year. I would encourage you to look up www.youthworld.org.ec and browse around the website to learn about the various ministries we serve with here in Quito. One interesting note, our team now has 54 members with a projection of 60 by the end of this year. This number includes full time missionaries, term missionaries and interns. As you can imagine, with that many people, this provides countless opportunities for ministry to happen in diverse ways.

The month of January and first of February were a blur for our operations team. They worked fast and furiously to finish up the PTC (Professional Training Center). As you know they have been working on this project for the last seven months. The goal was to finish it by the Leader Mundial Global Summit. They came really close. In fact many from the team came out and pitched in with sanding, varnishing and painting. By the time the meetings took place, the great room was pretty much done, with only some minor things still needed to be done. The result was that 26 men from 9 different countries came end enjoyed a week of instruction in their very own training center.

Programming has been equally as busy. They started the month of January with a team of young women from Gordon College who came to train in emergency procedures both for themselves and our team here. They also worked on cutting some new trails, down in the cloud forest near our property which will be used by future teams. Last week a group of Ecuadorian leaders from a church in Guayaquil came and trained with our team. Then this week they returned with 30 youth from their church to participate in the full camp activities. Several Saturdays we have had groups out here and today, in fact, we have a Quito Quest group from Northern California doing a work project.

Next week we will celebrate our one year anniversary. Hard to believe a year has passed and yet, at times it feels like we have been here a life time. God is good and eternally faithful. Please realize how much we appreciate each of you and understand we could not be here without your support, spiritually, emotionally and financially. Remember, we love to hear from you and about your lives as well.

As God is our Refuge, Mary for the Scholl Family