News/Noticias
Tagua jewellery table sales
LIAT craft and Tagua jewellery table sales at Leigh-on-Sea churches
It's completed! The women's centre is ready to go
For a video tour of the new facility please click here
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Some photos of the new building and the wonderful range of rooms inside
Women's Centre under construction
Life in Abundance (Ecuador) Trust is building a permanent women's centre with the La Primera Iglesia Bautista in Santo Domingo which will bring much needed support to the many women living in the region suffering all kinds of abuse. The work previously done in the community was suspended due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Bookkeeper/treasurer
An opportunity exists for a bookkeeper/treasurer to help Life in Abundance (Ecuador) Trust with its bookkeeping and accountancy needs. Ideally this is a voluntary post but we would consider payment for the right applicant. Please email Jill Ball for further details.
March 2021 fund raising quiz
Thanks to everyone who supported the Zoom quiz on Saturday 27 March. This was a special event to help raise money for LIAT's work with refugees in Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas. We raised a grand total of £316. It was great to see everybody on screen, including Katie and Pastor William from Ecuador.
November 2020 fund raising quiz
Thanks to everyone who supported the Zoom quiz on Saturday 14 November. We twinned with a local charity and raised a total of £324, so when halved, that was £162 for LIAT.
And special thanks to Nick our quiz writer and quiz master. It's great to get together (even via Zoom!) to support LIAT and we hope that you will join us for another quiz later in 2021.
The charity under Lockdown
The coronavirus pandemic has hit Ecuador quite badly. There has been “una cuarantena”, or partial lockdown for many months. FVA has had to adapt to the new circumstances. There have been a number of redundancies and economies.
The women’s work has stopped altogether, as gatherings of more than a certain number of people are prohibited. The trustees, with Luzcelli the director, are developing a new ministry which will, hopefully be a more permanent and stable presence for this vital service. The pandemic has brought to light an increase in domestic violence, which this new project will hope to address.
With all schools closed the Habilidades Para la Vida project in Santo Domingo has adapted by giving online lessons to individual students at set times in the week.
Here in England LIAT has responded by fundraising and sending out a donation for the hungry of Santo Domingo and its surrounding communities. Working with “La Primera Iglesia Bautista”, FVA has been distributing food parcels to vulnerable people including our families with disability, single mothers and refugees. We hope to continue to be able to do this; also to encourage the creation of small vegetable plots in people’s back yards.
Jill Ball 27.7.20
Click/tap on image to see the Autumn 2020 edition of LatinFile featuring the work of Habilidades Para la Vida in Ecuador
Food distribution to vulnerable in Santo Domingo. Some are refugees from different countries in Latin America
Update on Life in Abundance Trust and Fundación Vida en Abundancia
I visited Ecuador in October 2019 with Avril and Andrew Betts Brown, trustees of the charity in the UK.
When we arrived in Ecuador there was a national emergency and all roads out of Quito were blocked, but with a lot of prayer from people around the world we managed to reach Santo Domingo on the third day after arrival.
The purpose of this visit was to show Andrew and Avril how the work had progressed since their last visit ten years before. They had played a key role in establishing the Women’s Ministry in 2009, and I wanted them to see the progress the work had made in the intervening years.
Visit to Pedernales
Pedernales is very
near the epicentre of the earthquake which made world news headlines in 2016. After the earthquake LIAT raised money for an
Earthquake Relief Fund. Some of this money was used to buy food supplies for
families left without a means of earning a living during this period. It was
also used to fund rebuilding of houses. We visited these homes. In the first,
just outside Pedernales, we found the original widow and her daughter still
living there. We were able to help with some extra groceries for them and with
some spiritual support. The younger woman gave her heart to the Lord. We also
visited a home in the town itself, where an extended family of around four
generations was living. The owner had worked with Latin Link and it was great to
eat in their fish restaurant; the shrimps were literally shoreline to plate!
We walked along the beach and saw the monument built to memorialise the dead from the earthquake, though most inhabitants of the town thought that there were many people left unaccounted for, who had just disappeared beneath the sand.
We also visited a church built on a hill just outside the town where an inspirational pastor was planting a church in the surrounding neighbourhood. His original church had been flattened in the earthquake, and with local subscriptions and help from abroad he had managed to build a whole new church. A lot of prayer had gone into it.
It was so encouraging to see the unquenchable spirit of the people of Pedernales, who against all the odds, were rebuilding their lives.
Craft Aid International [now Artizan International}
We also visited the
project with Craft Aid International on the
land in San Pablo de Chilla. New CMS mission
partners, Jessica and Andy, with their young daughter were busy after the
national emergency (is there ever a dull moment in Ecuador?) .We joined them
for lunch with their newest cohort of students learning skills to make quality
craft products. I knew some of the students from previous times in Santo
Domingo, and it was so very encouraging to see how they were prospering with
this new initiative.
Habilidades Para la Vida
We also caught up with Habilidades Para la Vida for adolescents and
adults with Sharon Wilcox. She had a large group of students who were tending
some vegetables they had been growing on
San Pablo de Chilla. Everyone looked very cheerful.
The Habilidades Para la Vida project or Skills for Life project, occupying the top floor of a Christian school, Pablo Palacios, had only a few students the day we visited, as some parents were nervous of sending their children after the national emergency. It was good, however, to visit the three classes and to see what was going on. I was able to introduce Avril and Andrew to Luzcelli Piamba Paz, FVA’s director.
The
women’s work Hadassah
Pastor Rodrigo picked
us up in the charity minibus and took us to the locations around the town where
Blanca was doing sewing projects with groups of women. It was very impressive
to see how enthusiastic the women were to learn new skills. There was great
camaraderie among them. Many would be getting other help with domestic
situations, and others would be planning on how they could make money from all
these skills. One woman leant us the front of her house for the workshop, which
at night would be turned into a burger bar. Such invention and adaptability!
All too soon it was time for Andrew and Avril to return the UK. We headed back to Quito accompanied by Jordan, who, a volunteer from Wheaton College in the United States, was helping in the Skills for Life programme. There was time to visit some sights before, sadly, seeing Avril and Andrew off at the airport. I returned two weeks later and was thrilled to be able to attend Pastor William’s daughter’s wedding in Machala.
The
charity under Lockdown
The coronavirus pandemic
has hit Ecuador quite badly. There has been “una cuarantena”, or partial
lockdown for many months. FVA has had to
adapt to the new circumstances. There have been a number of redundancies and
economies.
The women’s work has stopped altogether, as gatherings of more than a certain number of people are prohibited. The trustees, with Luzcelli the director, are developing a new ministry which will, hopefully be a more permanent and stable presence for this vital service. The pandemic has brought to light an increase in domestic violence, which this new project will hope to address.
With all schools closed the Habilidades Para la Vida project in Santo Domingo has adapted by giving online lessons to individual students at set times in the week.
Here in England LIAT has responded by fundraising and sending out a donation for the hungry of Santo Domingo and its surrounding communities. Working with “La Primera Iglesia Bautista”, FVA has been distributing food parcels to vulnerable people including our families with disability, single mothers and refugees. We hope to continue to be able to do this; also to encourage the creation of small vegetable plots in people’s back yards.
Jill Ball 27.7.20
Quiz Night: St Michael & All Angels 18 May 2019
The Quiz Night on 18th May at St. Michael and All Angels Church Hall in Westcliff -on -Sea was an indisputable success. One commentator classed it as EXCELLENT.
There was a good turn out for the event, and our hosts, Nick and Allen, did a wonderful job, as ever. There were lemons as the "prize" for the team with the lowest score and chocolate from Ecuador for the winners. The raffle prizes ranged from bottles of wine to toiletries, many of which were donated in good spirit by the participants. £400 was raised for the work.
Noche de Preguntas: 18 de mayo 2019
El evento de la Noche de Preguntas que se realizo en Westcliff on Sea el sabado de 18 de mayo era de mucha bendicion.
Una persona lo califico como EXCELENTE.
Bastante personas asistieron, y los anfitriones hicieron un trabajo superbo, como siempre. Se ofrecio un "premio" de limones al equipo que llego como el ultimo, y chocolate de Ecuador para los ganadores. En la rifa se ofrecio muchas cosas bonitas, incluyendo algunas botellas de vino y articulos de perfumeria, de las cuales algunos fueron donados por los participantes. En total se recaudo £400.