FBCE Trip to Ecuador

My dear wife and I went on a mission trip to Ecuador in July. We were part of a team from First Baptist Church Euless. We went to our international missionaries annual conference and did a VBS for the kids. We went down there a day early so we could get acclimated. Quito is about 9500 feet above sea level so the air is thinner! This is the view from our hotel. It was beautiful. This was taken in the morning from the top floor of Hotel Quito.

The Annual General Meeting consisted of 150 missionaries from Venezuela, Columbia and Ecuador. Our job was to teach the missionaries' kids while they were meeting, planning and experiencing corporate worship. The worship was lead by Dr. Al Meredith and a team from Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

There were eight members of FBCE on our team. We had children from ages 1 1/2 to 12 years old. The children in my class were five and six year olds. Three accepted Christ as their Savior. The theme of our VBS curriculum was a sports theme which really worked nicely in South America. They are very sports-minded and especially partial to soccer. The picture below was taken in the lobby of our hotel.


On several afternoons we were able to go sightseeing with the missionaries. We chose to go to Mitad del Mundo. This is a monument on the Equator. Lat/Long 0 degrees. The monument is actually a museum that showcases the many different people of Ecuador.



The traffic is wild here. Taxis are reasonable and everywhere it seems. Don't try to find one at rush hour though. The drivers are very nice, in fact, the people are very nice and have wonderful manners.


These are the wonderful kids we got to teach at our VBS. The kids were all really sweet and had a really great bond between them all like a close family. We were nervous the first day of how things would go and by the last day we were disappointed we had to leave them.


If you have a chance to go on a mission trip that you feel like God has called you to go on - DO IT! It is hard to leave your family for even a week but it will be worth it to be part of reaching the world.