Photos from Ecuador Trip

What we’ll be doing

Our family has heard the call of God to become resident missionaries to Quito, Ecuador. We are making preparations and plan to move to Quito in January 2008! We are currently seeking those who God calls to partner with us to make this possible. We need both prayer partners and financial partners.

About the work in Quito…

Poverty runs rampant in Ecuador. Our vision for the outreach in Quito is to work with many of the street children who live in the trash dumps and on the streets. These children face many overwhelming issues due to the harshness of life in a developing country. Our hope is to offer weekly church services that are child centered and allow them to truly be innocent children for a few moments. We will also offer meals and other physical needs as we are able to provide them. Through these efforts we hope to build relationships with the adults in these families and offer Bible studies and worship services for them to attend as well. Our prayer is that entire families will find salvation and be transformed through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Church of God has a seminary in Quito (nicknamed SEMISUD) which instructs pastors and missionaries for all of South America. There are over 100 students enrolled in this school who are passionate about learning God’s Word and becoming better ministers. These students are primarily from countries across South America and all have a strong call of God on their lives to either return to their native land or to become missionaries elsewhere. Some of the current students have callings for Kenya, Morocco, India, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and tribes in the Amazon of Peru and Ecuador.

Bobby will be volunteering as a professor at the seminary; teaching various Bible courses. We will also work closely with a select group of students who are enrolled in the Transcultural Studies program which focuses on urban mission work. With these students, we will be leading mission outreach to the destitute in the city of Quito. Through these efforts, God’s work will progress in Quito while these students gain invaluable, practical field experience for their future ministry endeavors.

Please be in prayer about how God might use you to help share His love with the most unfortunate in Ecuador. We know that He has called us to this work and are excited to see who He calls to partner with us.

Ecuador Mission Trip 2007

This is a long journal describing the phenomenal events of our mission trip to Ecuador from August 14 through 30.

Our first exposure to Quito was quite nerve-wracking but it all ended well. After our flight had been delayed a total of 4 hours at 2 different airports, we finally landed at 10 PM. We walked out into the airport lobby anxiously looking for our ride to the seminary and ready to begin this great adventure. We were met by a sea of joyous faces all ready to greet their friend or family member who arrived with us… but none of those faces were looking for us! After several minutes, we realized that something was wrong and there was no one there to pick us up. Now remember that we only knew a few phrases in Spanish, had never been to this country before and were really very helpless. Fortunately, Tamitha had brought the seminary’s address along for the immigration purposes. With this, we were able to arrange a cab ride with the help of an English speaking woman. The taxi driver was very nice, only he had no clue where the address was that we gave him. After stopping 4 different times along the way, we finally drove past the seminary gates and recognized it from the photos. Tamitha shouted “Aqui! Aqui!” (Here! Here!) and the taxi screeched to a halt. Then, in a practiced effort at the best Spanish we could muster, we spoke to the seminary guard and found ourselves escorted to our room within moments. With this first challenge successfully mastered, we slept great that night. (more…)

Quick Facts

15 Million Inhabitants … Only 6% Evangelical Church Members

Located in northwest South America, Ecuador is bordered by the Amazon forest in the east, the Andean mountain range in the center, and the fertile plains on the Pacific coast.

Ecuador has an ethnically diverse population, the largest group being descendants of Spanish colonists who mixed with indigenous Amerindians. Quechua Indians account for more than 40% of the population. Spanish is the official language with another 22 spoken languages. The past 25 years of civilian governance has been marred by political and economic instability.

70% of the population lives below the poverty level. 41% are considered to be in extreme poverty. More than 3 million children live in families lacking basic necessities such as housing, nutrition, healthcare and education.

60% of the children in Ecuador under the age of five are malnourished.

A third of the population has not completed the first part of their education, and three quarters have not completed the second.(Source: SIISE) The principal reason for children not being registered in school is because of the cost of tuition.(Source: INEC 1999) The cost of registration is 10 to 30 USD per year.

In Ecuador, which has 3.7 million children, nearly 900,000 children are believed to be working – about half of those are in Quito, where they shine shoes and sell newspapers for pocket change. Many live on the streets – some with their mothers, other have left home or been abandoned. The majority of these children are simply working to help supplement their family’s meager income to help provide their basic needs.

How it began

Things happen quickly in the Lynch family sometimes. It seems just yesterday that we left Atlanta to follow our next path and now we are already moving down another. But when God is in charge of something, He can move mountains and moves at a speed that is only His. So many things have happened that can only point to His divine guidance in our lives.

It all began with a stirring… Bobby and I both felt that stirring deep in our hearts to be more radical for God… to do something more sacrificial. We began to look in our current context for what that meant, but that wasn’t what God had in mind. We began to look at the world missions scene – something we knew we would be doing all along, we just thought it was later down the road. We had a couple opportunities to go to Kenya or Jamaica to live and work, but nothing seemed to be the right fit.

One phone call changed all that. Bobby was discussing our situation with a professor friend and he threw out the possibility of going to work at the seminary in Quito, Ecuador (SEMISUD). I was listening to Bobby’s end of the conversation only and within 5 minutes of discussing how the opportunity might fit our family, I was asking “Where do we sign?”. It was truly God… that feeling that without a doubt, THIS IS IT!!! THIS IS WHERE WE ARE SUPPOSED TO GO!

We did take time to pray and fast just to make sure we weren’t doing something on our own without God’s leading. But our passion for the people of Ecuador grew like a wildfire out of control almost minute by minute. Within days, we began to make preparations to move without ever having visited the country. We said a tearful goodbye to our beautiful friends at Pineview Church and left with their blessing even though they wished we could stay.

The timing of everything was almost comical is at was such a typical Lynch marathon. We had a yard sale to sell as many of our possessions as we could before moving… the next day we began kids crusade (which is amazingly taxing)… 5 days later, at the end of kids crusade, we loaded the UHaul van and headed for Anniston. We moved into a rental home, got the kids into the Weaver school and then left them in the charge of the grandparents for Bobby & I to visit Ecuador for 3 weeks. I look back and laugh at the hilariousness of it all because there is no way all of that should have been physically possible to accomplish in such a short time. But, as I said, God’s timing is its own time zone!

The remainder of this year will be spent visiting churches to secure funding for our missionary budget and making other preparations to move. We plan to move to Ecuador in January and ask for your prayers to help all of this be accomplished in this short time.

We are thankful beyond words to everyone who has helped us so far and can’t wait to share this adventure in Christ with you all.