God has called us to build the Kingdom alongside the people of Guayaquil, Ecuador. We serve through providing education to prevent violence in families as well as spaces for healing and restoration in the lives of children and women who have been victimized.
Our Ministry: We are sent to Ecuador by WorldVenture, a missions organization with over seventy-five years of experience in caring for the missionaries it supports so that those missionaries can all the more serve in the Kingdom of God. We have already felt the care and backing that is ingrained in the culture of this organization.
On the ground, we work with Paz y Esperanza (Peace and Hope) in Guayaquil, Ecuador. God has called us to partner with Paz y Esperanza to work alongside locals to bring redemption and justice into the lives of the systemically abused so that the name of Christ is glorified and the people of Guayaquil see the love of our heavenly Father at work. Paz y Esperanza is an organization that works in Latin America alongside impoverished individuals, families, and communities so that they can live with dignity, free from violence and injustice.
We spend most of our time invested in the project Resilient and Strengthened Communities: Promoters of Peace that serves vulnerable families in the northwest of Guayaquil. Sam works with men, collaborating on workshops and engaging in individual mentorship, in order to teach a new understanding of masculinity – one that is based in a culture of peace from the model of Jesus. We both serve kids and teens, finding engaging ways to capture their attention while teaching on important topics such as their rights and what to do if they witness or experience abuse.
When we’re not occupied with those activities, we’re helping out at informational fairs, sharing our passion for justice with other organizations, helping package and deliver donations for families in need, coordinating support for road-weary migrants, recruiting and following up with local volunteers, or inviting our friend Spider-Man to show up at an event and make a kid’s day.
Apart from our work with Paz y Esperanza, we serve on WorldVenture’s Sexual Wholeness Team where we have helped launch groups specifically for missionary men who struggle with sexual sin and missionary women whose lives are impacted by their husband’s engagement battle with lust. We have been so blessed to see God break chains of shame and cycles of sin to bring His cleansing light to men as they walk in freedom and women as they find new life after betrayal trauma.
A little about us: We met at pre-orientation camp as freshmen at Wheaton College and dated throughout our collegiate career, during which God began to lay upon our hearts the desire to serve in Latin America. Emma was studying Spanish at the time and felt the tug of the Spirit toward that people and culture. As she shared this with Sam, he became excited and jumped on board. We married two months after graduating college ready to pursue this vision while also wanting to be realistic about where we were financially. Due to our student loans from college, we were unable to look into fulfilling that calling until 2018, when we were appointed to this work.
As we waited for God to open the doors to missions, we moved to Colorado for continuing education: Sam received his Masters of Divinity at Denver Seminary and Emma received her Masters of Social Work at the University of Denver and became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).
Throughout that time, we served in many ministry roles together, including starting the Student Ministry Program at our church and reaching the community surrounding our church through helping launch WyldLife and Fellowship of Christian Athletes at local schools. Throughout this, we moved from a student ministry that started with one kid to reaching over a hundred students every week. God worked through us in ways that we could never have predicted or planned. God affirmed our partnership in how we can be an effective team in sharing the Gospel and we saw that ministry and Kingdom building happens by and through the Holy Spirit alone!
In August of 2020, smack-dab in the middle of the pandemic, God opened the doors for us to move to Ecuador! What a blessing it has been to take our passion for ministry and working together into the work God is doing here. And we are so excited for you to partner with us in this mission. Please pray about whether God is leading you to partner with us in our ministry, whether through prayer, finances, coming to visit us in Ecuador, connecting us to others who share a passion for justice, or more!
Connect with Them on Instagram
Blogs and Articles on WorldVenture:
* Healing Wounds in Ecuador
* From Participant to Volunteer
* How COVID19 Changed Language Learning
* God of Shepherds
Publications with WorldVenture:
* Peace to Those on Whom His Favor Rests–YOU!, Day 13
