Ecuador: disciples making disciples

Bev Cannon de Pinos asks for prayer for Veronica and Melissa, two young women whom she is discipling as part of her role serving the congregation at Cuenca Christian Church. As Veronica and Melissa share the gospel with people around them and serve the Lord, pray for them to grow in their gifts and love for Jesus.

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Ecuador: opportunity for young adults with learning difficulties

Sharon Wilcox, a mission partner in Santo Domingo, works with young adults with learning disabilities through the Orchid Project, helping them gain skills and become more independent. Sharon helped to launch a separate Orchid Project in Cuenca in 2023, but this project’s only student unfortunately left this autumn. Pray for young adults who would benefit from the programme to come forward so that they can grow and develop new skills.

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Ecuador: opportunities for young adults

Mission partner Sharon Wilcox has started three Orchid Projects, where young people with learning disabilities can learn new skills, gain confidence and grow in independence. As Sharon and others explore the possibility of a fourth Orchid Project, pray for the way forward to become clear and for more volunteers to offer their time to help young adults make the most of new opportunities.

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Ecuador: Cuenca Christian Church

Mission partner Beverley Cannon de Pinos works with Cuenca Christian Church alongside her husband and pastor of the church, mission associate Johnny Pinos. Praise God that the church, which recently moved to a new location, is settling in well next to the beautiful historical centre of Cuenca. Bev writes, “We are also enjoying a time of many young adults from Cuenca coming to the church and it is really exciting to see how God is healing and transforming their lives.” Pray for God to continue to use the members of this church to reach those around them.

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Ecuador: new group for young adults

Praise God that new opportunities are opening up for young adults with learning disabilities in Ecuador. Mission partner Sharon Wilcox has started three Orchid Projects; groups where young adults with learning disabilities can come together to learn life skills and grow in independence. There is a possibility of a fourth group starting up later this year. Pray for God to work in the hearts of future volunteers and members of the group and prepare them for how he wants to move in their lives.

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Ecuador: new group for young adults

Sharon Wilcox works with young adults with learning disabilities, teaching them life skills and supporting them as they grow in independence. Having started three such groups where young adults can find the support and learn the life skills they need, Sharon writes that there is a possibility of a fourth group starting. Pray for God’s leading for Sharon and others, for volunteers to be found and for Sharon as she prepares to train and work alongside them later this year.

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Ecuador: upcoming home leave

Mission partner Beverley Cannon de Pinos and her husband, mission associate Johnny Pinos, serve at Cuenca Christian Church in Ecuador. Bev is preparing to come to the UK for a couple of weeks from mid-July to share with and visit supporters, supporting churches, friends and family. Johnny will be travelling to the US in July to see his children and grandchildren. Please pray for safety in travel and restful, positive time spent with loved ones.

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Video transcript

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Hope from the Edges. I’m Andy Roberts, mission director for CMS.

In the next few minutes, we’ll bring you inspiring news from three edges in our world. Stories that you are making possible through your gifts and prayers.

Our first focus is in Asia, where we’re celebrating a mission partner’s 40 years of faithful service. Then we meet a young man in Ecuador who has found faith and a brighter future than people could’ve ever thought possible. Finally, we spend a bit of time with CMS’s youngest donor and hear about his heart for work in South Sudan.

We begin in Asia, where a CMS mission partner has been serving for 40 years.

Due to security concerns, I can’t share our partner’s name or the exact location of this story, but I can tell you that in this country, about 2% of the population are Christians. The majority of the rest are Muslim. So in many ways, choosing to follow Jesus makes someone an outsider.

Our mission partner, we’ll call her “F”, first went to this country in 1981 as a volunteer. She worked in the library of a college with a Christian ethos. At this time, the country was living under a military dictatorship. It was a difficult time for women and minorities, as discriminatory laws were put in place.

Despite the challenges, F longed to keep serving in this country. So she returned in the mid 1980s. F had come to realise that there was a great need for Bible teachers in the country, because many Christians were growing up without knowing much about their faith. F served as a Bible teacher, Bible college lecturer, and she wrote courses on church history.

In her four decades in South Asia, F directly taught more than 2,000 students. Many of them were women. Thousands more have studied on the courses that she’s written. In a context where following Jesus can be risky, F has helped strengthen the faith of thousands of people, and many of those have gone on to share their faith with others.

Now, as she approaches the age of 70, F is returning here to the UK where, among lots of other things, she’s praying about using her language and teaching skills to serve in the UK churches in areas with large Asian populations.

Join us in giving thanks for F’s remarkable time as a mission partner and pray for her as she decides her next steps.

From Asia, we zip across the globe to Ecuador to meet a young man called Jonathan. As a child, Jonathan was diagnosed with learning difficulties.

In Ecuador it’s often assumed that people with learning difficulties are not capable of much. So they are frequently written off or cast aside.

Many years ago, a CMS mission partner called Jill Ball founded an organisation called Life in Abundance Trust to give children like Jonathan a chance to show just how much they can do. Jonathan started taking classes there when he was 11 years old, and this is where he met another CMS mission partner, Sharon Wilcox.

They met on Sharon’s very first day of work, and for the next 10 years, Sharon journeyed alongside Jonathan, sharing the love of Jesus and helping him learn life skills.

Realising that children like Jonathan needed further support as they got older, Sharon launched the Orchid Project and Jonathan became part of that too.

Thanks to the skills he learned Jonathan was recently offered his first paid job at a nearby hotel. He has grown in his faith as well. Jonathan’s mother says he’s helpful at home, generous, and is happy to lead prayers.

CMS Latin America mission manager Paul Tester recently visited the Orchid Project and said, “As I spoke to the mums and dads of the young people, they told me of their surprise at what their children were now achieving. It has challenged preconceptions and enabled young people to do far more than they might have imagined. The word I heard them use most about Sharon was that she was an angel sent by God!”

It just shows that Jesus never gives up on young people like Jonathan, and neither should we.

And speaking of being impressed with young people, staff in the CMS office in Oxford were delighted recently to receive a letter from a young man called Harry, who has to be one of our youngest donors ever.

At just five years old, Harry already has a heart for mission and saved up his pocket money to give to CMS mission partner, Nicci Maxwell [in white] in South Sudan. Harry was inspired by the idea of helping children who are sick and don’t have access to medicines and healthcare.

In his letter to CMS, Harry mentioned they would like to give his gift in person. So CMS happily welcomed Harry and his family to our offices and showed him around.

No word yet as to whether he has filled out a job application but thank you so much, Harry, for your generosity and for being a small boy with a big heart.

So today we’re seeing God at work among people at the edges through the longstanding faithfulness of CMS people in mission.

Thank you all for watching these reports from the edges, from across the globe, and for your prayerful support, which makes them all possible.

Please share this video with your church, small group, or anyone you think could use some fuel for their faith.

Until next time, whether you’re as young as Harry or simply young at heart, we’re grateful for your gifts and prayers as together we go with Jesus, with each other, to the edges.

ENDS

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Central America, Ecuador: travelling to encourage

Please continue to pray for Andrew Johnson and Jo Anthony, travelling to visit CMS people in mission in Central America and Ecuador respectively. Pray for continued safe travel and encouraging times with all those they visit and meet.

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More stories of Jesus bringing hope

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More stories of Jesus bringing hope

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