Life in Abundance (Ecuador) Trust
For more information on the work of LIAT, please see our website: www.liat-ecuador.org
Thursday, 7 December 2017
Earthquake Appeal +
Dear
Friends,
I am
writing to thank you for your donations to the “Earthquake Appeal” by Life in
Abundance (Ecuador) Trust (LIAT) on behalf of the victims of the 2016
earthquake in Ecuador. The earthquake caused great devastation and many
hundreds of people lost their lives. There is now some returning to normality,
but it will take years to rebuild the housing stock and much longer to rebuild
lives devastated by the loss of dear ones.
Your
donations were a great help in alleviating the suffering
Altogether
$5550 was received from LIAT in Ecuador.
It was
spent on
1. Basic food supplies. We bought rice,
pasta, dried milk, pulses, sugar, oil, tins of fish and other essentials and
packed them into bags. These were designed to last a family for a week. They
were distributed to refugees living around the earthquake zone. The area
covered was around Pedernales, a coastal town which took the brunt of the
quake. We spent around $1000 on these provisions.
2. Building reconstruction.
· We gave $900 to a church in
Pedernales to help with their rebuilding work
· We helped an elderly lady in
Pedernales with her house rebuilding project. Her daughter, Anita, has looked after young
volunteers staying on short term mission with Latin Link (STEP teams) I visited
the family earlier this year with a team from the charity; needless to say,
they were very happy with the help they had received and with their new home.
We gave $2650 for this project.
· We also helped Martha Monar in Quininde
(another town affected by the earthquake) with repairs to her house. This lady
hosted a STEP team in 2012. We gave her $1000.
· This makes a total of $4550.00 donated
to building projects.
Earthquake Damage in Pedernales |
Thank you once again for your
help with this appeal. Your donations have made a real difference.
May I wish you all a very Joyful
Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Jill Ball
7.12.17
Monday, 4 September 2017
Ecuadorupdate2017
ECUADOR UPDATE 2017
Dear Friends,
Thank you to everyone who reads this letter and for
your ongoing support. We appreciate it very much indeed. I returned from
Ecuador at the beginning of April after a most exciting and full two-month trip.
There was hardly a dull moment and it seems incredible to me that so much has
been achieved since the starting of Vida en Abundancia.
Education
As the
charity is not registered as a school, the education side has had to be reinvented as
a “Skills for Life Programme”, in order to comply with current Ecuadorian law.
I was keen to see how the actual workings of the ministry had changed as a
result of this re naming and restructuring. There were four classes, teaching
children with disabilities from the ages of four to twenty in two cycles, with
four teachers, four assistants, a speech therapist and an art teacher. It was
great seeing the children show off their skills in the end of year closure
ceremony at the end of February.
With great
regret I had to announce to the Director,
Luzcelli, and the President, Danny
Espinoza, that we could no longer fund the Skills for Life Programme at the
same level, as Brexit and the fall of the pound seriously affected our finances
here in the UK. Such a shame as the forty plus children and adolescents showed
that they were gaining skills and developing self-esteem and a sense of purpose
in their lives.
However,
all was and is not lost. Danny Espinoza and William Solórzano, co-founder, committed to do everything possible
to fundraise for the charity, beginning different initiatives to help make the
education side self-funding. There are plans to cultivate yucca, a root
vegetable often eaten with barbecues. There are also plans to use a substance
called abaca, a bi product of another plant, and recycle it to profitable
purpose.
Another
outcome of the changes in funding was that there was a general restructuring of
the education side of the charity’s work, and in the process Sharon Wilcox, from CMS, decided to
move on, and is now, sadly, no longer working with Vida en Abundancia. We are
grateful for her pioneering work with adolescents, which we hope can continue
and develop.
Women’s
ministry
The charity works in Santo Domingo’s outlying
areas with groups of women who receive handicraft and dressmaking classes. The
underlying aim is to identify and help those suffering from, or at risk of
Domestic Abuse(DA). It is estimated that 70% of women in Ecuador experience DA
at some time in their lives.[i]Blanca and Rodrigo pour God’s love into
these women. Many become Christians; they are able to sell the goods they have
learnt to make and construct a better future for themselves and their children.
When I visited they were working in two districts, and the women showed great
commitment to the programme, which always includes a Bible reflexion. Together
with larger church conferences that Luzcelli undertakes, we estimate that we
reach over 500 women a year. It was great to see how Blanca and Rodrigo also
engage with the children in the areas they work in, and we had the privilege of
giving out Bible Study certificates and Samaritan’s purse boxes to over 100
children.
[1]
The Economic Burden of Intimate Partner Violence in Ecuador: West J
Emerg. Med.2013 Aug:14(4):347-353
Earthquake
Relief
One of my jobs was to visit the sight of last year’s earthquake,
Pedernales, and to see how the money raised by LIAT [Life in Abundance (Ecuador)Trust]
in the UK had been spent. By early March I was joined by Heather Lucy, a new member of the Board of Trustees in the UK and
long -standing friend. With Katy Griggs,
Head of Latin Link Ecuador and our Administrator, and William, we drove to
the sights of the earthquake. We visited a house in Pedernales which we had
helped finance. It was moving to see the happiness on the faces of the family who
had lost their home, and were now rebuilding their lives, reopening their
business and moving forward. Lamentably, although the government has built a
few houses, general progress of rebuilding is slow
Eliana
We were so
happy that we could help Eliana get the funding from overseas she needed to
enable her to travel to Argentina to get a liver transplant. The father is
hoping to be the donor.
A New
Ministry
In the
final week of our stay in Ecuador we welcomed Susie Hart from CMS who has come out to set up a craft ministry
with Disabled Adults and Mark and Lydia
Tresize, also with CMS who will be developing the crafts under her
direction. They will use our land in San Pablo de Chilla, where there is
already a house for them to occupy, which needs some finishing touches. They will build a
workshop to train adults with disabilities to make paper products from recycled
materials. Initially the hope is to sell the goods within the country, but
later to prepare products for export.
Later this
year, in July Bishop Henry Scriven
will visit the charity to see the progress.
Prayer Points
1.
That
the education side of the charity’s work will continue. That the fund raising
taking place on both sides of the Atlantic will be sufficient to save this
wonderful work.
2.
For
Sharon Wilcox as she embarks on a new ministry
3.
That in Ecuador there will be a real
sense of ownership of this work, so there can be long term sustainability.
Thanks be to God for
all He has done.
“Teach us dear Lord, to number our days
That
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom
Oh,
satisfy us early with Thy mercy
That
we may rejoice and be glad all our days
And
let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us
And
establish Thou the work of our hands
And
let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us
And
establish thou the work of our hands
Dear Lord” (Celtic
Prayer)
Jill Ball 7/6/17
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