Several weeks ago Bishop Ramos and the coordinator for the Diocesan youth asked Chris to be the chaplain to the diocesan youth group and the youth leadership, accompanying the youth group both as a counselor and teacher.  Through this we attended a retreat here in Quito for youth from all over the Diocese of Central Ecuador, about 110 young people from 9 churches. Today, the first Sunday in Advent, we had a wonderful service to end the retreat, with wide participation from the youth and Bishop Ramos preaching.

These last two weeks have seen Chris away from home a lot, with late meetings and traveling – he has visited Episcopal and former Episcopal communities
both in the Andes and in the Amazon.  Our work here for now involves quite a bit of travel and late nights on Chris’s part while Trish holds down the fort at
home for the moment (the kids really can't go into yellow fever territory yet).  From these and other experiences, we are convinced that we are in the middle
of exactly where the church should be in its better moments, says that it wants to be, and in its very best moments actually is - in the middle of serious class
issues, racial and ethnic divisions, issues around past and continuing conquest and colonization, the misuse of power and privilege. 

These are not abstract but very concrete realities of the work here.  The struggle is, yes, to help facilitate personal healing and communal reconciliation here but also very much to help the church be church, to help this Diocese be a place that can embrace us all and respond faithfully to the challenges of fragmentation and inequality.  This should not be much different from the challenges faced by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts or any other organization seeking to follow Jesus, but the edge seems much sharper and rawer here (quite possibly because we are new to the situation).  What is happening here can be a window into the challenge and struggle we face as church, but without some of the finery and affluence that much of the church experiences in the U.S and which can certainly cloud the vision there.

In addition to the work in the Diocese, we feel very fortunate and well-placed in our work through CLAI.  We are the only North Americans and, in addition to an Ecuadorian Episcopalian intern, the only Episcopalians working at CLAI in Ecuador. 

Three weeks ago Chris spent two days at the General Assembly of the ALC (Agencia Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Comunicación, http://www.alcnoticias.org/).  Almost all of the attendees were Argentinean or Brazilian and Methodist or Lutheran.  Trish also did a great deal of editing and translating on CLAI’s English language newspaper, Latin American Ecumenical News (LAEN), which is published three times a year.

Another unique opportunity is work that we have been invited to do with CLAI and the Council of Ecuadorian Indigenous Evangelical Villages and Churches (FEINE, http://www.feine.org.ec/).  FEINE has a new 3 year training program for indigenous evangelical pastors (“evangelical” is basically another word for Protestant here, contrasted to the word's usage in the U.S.).  It is like an M.Div. program of sorts and provides much needed training to these leaders. 

There are over 2,300 indigenous churches in Ecuador and only about 500 indigenous pastors.  Many of these churches are unique in that they do not identify with particular U.S. denominations but instead have their own identity, developing theology, and activism based upon their indigenous roots. This year they will begin to train 140 pastors at the first level. The plan is that after this program the leaders themselves will train others. 

Along with indigenous leaders, FEINE, CLAI, and a Colombian Mennonite missionary couple, we have been asked to help with this program as facilitators and teachers.  With the rest of the facilitators, we will have two weekend trainings on indigenous pedagogy and worldviews/cosmovision.  Most of the participation is indigenous, some key participation is mestizo, and we are the only white and/or North American people involved.  We are also the only Episcopalian/Anglicans involved. 

This is an incredibly unique opportunity for us in our own growth and understanding, and we are very fortunate.

Peace,
Chris, Trish, Claire, and Isabel

For more updates and photos from Chris and Trish, visit:
http://www.stjames-cambridge.org/morcks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/morck