The Cayambe Project  After our 6 month orientation period in 2006, God showed us His plan to reach an area to the north of Quito called Cayambe. God was already working in the area through our church in El Quinche, but they were in serious need of help to bring the outreach to it's full potential. After talking to the pastor of the church, Marco Cruz, we realized that our vision for church planting in Ecuador and their dream of starting churches in the canton of Cayambe were a match. God had brought us together at just the right moment to form a team. We have now embarked on an ambitious new church-planting strategy to form a cluster of churches not only in the city of Cayambe, but also in the surrounding communities as well.
 Before beginning any new church planting venture, it is best to know a lot about the area in which you are going to plant churches. Therefore, we spent 3 months making survey trips and performing a study of the geography, demographics, history and spiritual condition of the canton. A brief summary of this study is available on the left to browse and inform. The study demonstrated to us where the need was the greatest and what the best approach would be to reach the area for Christ.
As we joined the forces with the church in El Quinche, our team began to take shape. This is an Ecuadorian church-planting effort. Our role on the team is to provide the theological training and some of the logistical framework that was lacking, but all of the strategy and decision making process happens within the team framework. As North Americans, foreign to the language and the culture, we could not be nearly as effective working alone as we are with our Ecuadorian partners at our side.  With the team in place, a strategy was hatched from our observations of the area and the experience of our national co-workers. This strategy is our compass, pointing us in the direction we need to go to meet our goal of at least three new churches in the canton of Cayambe. The strategy is both long term and short term, but every step involves prayer and seeking the will of God. No strategy is an end of itself, it is merely our template to allow us to move forward as we wait on God to guide and to work. We can pray directly and specifically that God would go before us to open hearts and homes to the Gospel.
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