PNME Service/Learning Trip to Ecuador
Oct. 27 - Nov. 14, 2009
Oct. 27 - Nov. 14, 2009
Why go to Ecuador?
Ecuador has a new Constitution.
• Ecuador has a fast growing Protestant grassroots church.
• Ecuador has healthy collaboration at the grassroots between Catholics and Protestants.
• Ecuador has worked to avoid the divisions we see in the North between “progressive” and “evangelical” Christians.
• Ecuador has an indigenous community that is embracing a brand of the “social gospel” not seen for years in the US.
The answer: We have much to learn from Ecuador.
Why does the Ecuadorian Church want us to come to Ecuador for these events?
• North Americans need to be there to see first hand what we may find hard to believe.
• North Americans need to be in solidarity with the efforts in Ecuador to foster understanding.
• North Americans who want to be in mission solidarity need to witness the priorities of the Ecuadorians.
• North Americans can deepen a world-wide solidarity movement in a “globalized” world.
• North Americans can provide needed resources through time, talent and treasure.
The answer: They need to see us responding to their priorities.
Harlan Stelmach, Chairman of the Board at PNME and Chair of the Department of Humanities at Dominican University invites you to join the project…
“The conference in Quito is an event that the Ecuadorian Protestant/Evangelical/Pentecostal Churches are convening to strengthen the Church in Ecuador. To accomplish this they plan to build on a greater self-understanding of their past through research, their current context through analysis and develop activities of solidarity across all Protestant/Evangelical Churches for future activities of ministerial/lay formation and social/economic development projects.”
“Of particular interest will be the alliances across and within the indigenous groups that are increasingly becoming Protestant in their religious expression. There will be participation of the Catholic community in order to fully understand the Church in Ecuador. North American participants are being asked to be in solidarity with this new major initiative in Ecuador.”
“We are asked to assist in the financing of the conference as a commitment to mission. We are not bringing the Good News to Ecuador, we are enhancing the Good News that is alive and vibrant. We are being asked to focus our mission dollars on this self-understanding and formation process. We will be asked to shed light on similar work we are doing in the United States.”
“In order to do this we will be hosting a pre-conference workshop at Dominican University, Saturday February 14 2009. At this workshop we will be in dialog with a similar mix of Main-line Protestant Churches and Evangelical/Pentecostal Churches. We have faith that this sharing of contexts, both South and North, will result in ongoing mission/solidarity activities.”
US participants will have the option to participate in social/economic development projects to experience the Ecuadorian context. Dominican students may earn academic units.
For Information contact:
Harlan Stelmach
415.482.3582
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www.Pacnet4mission.org