A mission training school known as APG29, meeting in Baeza in eastern Ecuador, is at the end of its second month, and its students have just returned from a week of practical placement in congregations in the Amazon. Several leaders of those congregations later contacted the school's team to say what the group had meant to them and that it had been a blessing to both the churches and their communities, according to a report published by Equmeniakyrkan, the Swedish free church. The students have about a month left, including a further placement week in the Quito area.
The week's theme was mission. Guest teacher Marcia Baquero told the class that mission has changed: it always crosses a cultural boundary, she said, but that boundary can look different in the times we live in, and in a multicultural world different cultures can be met anywhere. Jonathan Ramström taught from the Acts of the Apostles. The report's author travelled from Chaco to Baeza that morning and spent the day interpreting for the teachers.
The school also marked the Latin American cultural day, a day on which students show their culture. After a lunch of llampingacho — potato patties served with fried egg, chorizo and beetroot salad, described in the report as food of the mountains — the Latin American students presented a programme they had prepared, with information, a quiz, folk dancing and games. The afternoon ended with Carnaval, a large water fight in which flour and eggs are also thrown; the report's author and the children escaped to the car, while Daniel was caught and arrived soaking wet for a Bible study in Linares. Photographs published with the report show a morning devotion at the school, Baquero teaching and Ecuadorian folk dance.
(Originally published in Swedish. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: Equmeniakyrkan (Sweden) — equmeniakyrkan.se/en-dag-pa-apg-29/
