Covenant News - Team Helps Build Clinic Foundation in Ecuador

Covenant News

Team Helps Build Clinic Foundation in Ecuador

EL CHACO, ECUADOR (April 13, 2000) - Approximately a dozen individuals recently participated in constructing the foundation for a medical clinic in El Chaco, part of a team led by Wayne Weld working with North Park Theological Seminary (NPTS) in Chicago and assisted by the national church of Ecuador. El Chaco is a small village located three hours east of the capital city of Quito.

kid on wharf Team members included Ruth Hill, executive director of Covenant Women Ministries (CWM), who visited the country as part of a three-pronged mission. While there, Hill visited the site of the new Covenant Bible College-Ecuador campus, met with CWM national leaders, and visited a possible work site for a future CWM project. National CWM leaders requested translated copies of CWM Coordinators Summit manuals, which are being introduced to Covenant conferences.

After the NPTS work team left El Chaco, Hill traveled to Guayaquil to visit the poverty-stricken community of Nigeria. Hill hopes CWM can help this group in partnership with the national Covenant church and the Norwegian Alliance Development Mission.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Hill, who served as a Covenant missionary for 19 years. "There are 140,000 people living in stilt-supported shanties over a tide flat with no electricity or plumbing, connected by walkways constructed on stilts with scrap lumber. It was just incredible.

"Currently, they are suffering from malaria and denghue fever (known as break-bone fever because of the side effects symptomatic of the illness)," Hill reported. "It is so bad that it has made the national news there. There doesn't seem to be any hope for these people and it breaks your heart."

Hill is hopeful the Covenant can be a healing agent in that area. "The needs of the people were similar to those of the women in Congo," Hill said. "Perhaps the (educational) materials from the previous Women of Zaire project will minister to the needs of these people as well," Hill said.

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