Ecuador: Ministering to Missionaries

While in Ecuador, we were able to minister to the missionaries serving with MAF. My church in Rochester supports the DiCrastos, but we spent time with other missionary families as well.

This is Robby and Becca DiCrasto. They were fun to spend time with throughout the week. The young adult group from my church had gone to Ecuador almost 2 years ago, and these two remembered many of them by name! It was neat that we had some common friends. Robby and Becca go to the Nate Saint School - a school for the missionary kids at MAF. After school, they helped us with the VBS and sports camps.

One night, our group split up and went to different missionary homes for dinner. This was my host couple - Ron and Margie Grant. We had a great meal, and they shared a lot about the culture of Ecuador. I learned about holidays and traditions and the long war Ecuador had with Peru. Those yellow roses are a very common sight in Ecuador - any color actually! If I remember corrected, Ron said you could buy 20 roses for $1.50! Interesting, because I had just learned how Ecuador was known for roses in my International Business class.

We were able to lead two worship nights for the missionaries. The first night I shared a testimony - I will have to do a blog post with those thoughts! The second night I spent time with the missionary kids, doing crafts, singing songs, teaching a Bible story, and playing with glow sticks. The little boy above was so cute! He walks in and says to me, "What's your name?" I tell him and ask his name so I can make a name tag. He responds, "Josiah! Do you want me to spell it?" Then I noticed that he had a polar bear, and I asked if we should make a name tag for him. Josiah said, "His name is Polie, but I don't know how to spell that!"

It was neat to be able to minister to the missionaries, and one mentioned that it was refreshing to have a worship service and sermon in English!

This is Lynette DiCrasto - she ministered to us throughout the week with her encouraging words and home-cooked meals! I gave her my grandpa's last wooden cross as a way to say Thank You and leave her with a reminder of our group and our week in Ecuador.