On 2 November every year, indigenous Ecuadorians join other nations in Latin America to celebrate El Dia de los Difuntos (the day of the dead). They do this by cleaning the graves of loved one, laying reefs on the graves and then having a sort of picnic on the graves to remember their dead. They traditionally drink a thick, purple, custard-like juice called colada, and eat a special type of bread calle panecillo. To our surprise, our hotel left us a mini taster of this typical food in our rooms, which you can see in the photo. We have been offered this three times since we have been in Ecuador, so it is obviously an important part of life here, and a tradition that is acknowledged and respected by Methodist Churches.
After the day of the dead, today we visited the Restauracion y Vida Church (Restoration and Life Church) in El Quinche which is about an hour's drive from Quito to lead another workshop which again was warmly received and provoked some interesting questions. El Quinche is a town that has many elderly, homeless and people with physical disabilities. Pastor Silvio Felix Cevallos Parra, Minister of the Church and a National in Mission (see our webpages for more information on the National in Mission programme: http://methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentoworld.content&cmid=3181) told us about the work that the church is doing in the local area to support people with disabilities, in cooperation with the recent national government initiative that seeks to improve the quality of life for them (the Vice-President, Lenin Moreno, is a wheelchair user). The programme is called Ecuador Sin Barreras (An Ecuador without limits).
The Restauracion y Vida Church is unique among churches in the area, as it is the only one getting seriously involved with this government initiative. It works alongside local government authorities to encourage those whom the programme helps to sign up to the initiative. After a successful recent campaign lead by the church, the numbers of people who did just that went from 4 to 97 in the local area. This is very good for the community as those who sign up to the programme can then access medical treatment and receive welfare benefits. The local authority has even authorised the church to observe and report businesses that do not meet new employment legislation that says there must be a certain percentage of people who have a disability employed by that business, with a view to increasing employment among this sector of the population. Pastor Silvio shared with us his vision of expanding this social outreach to support the elderly and the homeless in the community.
Sandra Lopez
After the day of the dead, today we visited the Restauracion y Vida Church (Restoration and Life Church) in El Quinche which is about an hour's drive from Quito to lead another workshop which again was warmly received and provoked some interesting questions. El Quinche is a town that has many elderly, homeless and people with physical disabilities. Pastor Silvio Felix Cevallos Parra, Minister of the Church and a National in Mission (see our webpages for more information on the National in Mission programme: http://methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentoworld.content&cmid=3181) told us about the work that the church is doing in the local area to support people with disabilities, in cooperation with the recent national government initiative that seeks to improve the quality of life for them (the Vice-President, Lenin Moreno, is a wheelchair user). The programme is called Ecuador Sin Barreras (An Ecuador without limits).
The Restauracion y Vida Church is unique among churches in the area, as it is the only one getting seriously involved with this government initiative. It works alongside local government authorities to encourage those whom the programme helps to sign up to the initiative. After a successful recent campaign lead by the church, the numbers of people who did just that went from 4 to 97 in the local area. This is very good for the community as those who sign up to the programme can then access medical treatment and receive welfare benefits. The local authority has even authorised the church to observe and report businesses that do not meet new employment legislation that says there must be a certain percentage of people who have a disability employed by that business, with a view to increasing employment among this sector of the population. Pastor Silvio shared with us his vision of expanding this social outreach to support the elderly and the homeless in the community.
Sandra Lopez
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