Life in Cuenca, Ecuador with the new team has been amazing. We are partnering with Bobby and Lori Leek who started Kingdom Life ministries here in Cuenca. They plant churches and partner with other organizations who’s goal is to spread the gospel to the people in Ecuador. This past week the Leek’s needed our help moving church locations. Their old church location was too small for the church family so they fundraised for a larger space. Bobby was so thankful for the timing of our arrival because he desperately needed extra hands to transform this new building into a church in a week. We were ready to help.
The first Sunday we were here we went to church in the old location, and then helped move everything out and down the street in the evening. We spent the next week painting, cleaning, painting, moving, painting, organizing and painting some more. We worked hard alongside the Leek’s and other members of the church family to get the building ready.
We worked the hardest and fastest on Saturday knowing tomorrow was the first service. The new wall was finally finished, the chairs were all cleaned and set up, the carpet had been shampooed and the speakers were hung. When Bobby got the projector up just before lunch, he stepped back and exuberantly yelled, “Woo! It is starting to look like a church!”
We finished late Saturday night and held the first service at the new location the next morning. Instead of continuing with his teaching in Romans, Bobby Leek decided to spend time celebrating the church and dedicating it to the Lord. We anointed each of the doors of the building with oil and prayed over every room. After a time of prayer, we gathered in a circle. Bobby wanted us to dedicate the church to the Lord, but he did not mean the building. He asked us to look around at each other and said, “We are the church.” We prayed and dedicated ourselves to the service of the Lord. After praying for ourselves we prayed over the leaders of the church, the worship team and the children. After all the praying, there were celebratory tears and hugs everywhere.
I was so humbled to help physically transform the building, but even more humbled to watch it spiritually transform into a church. Before the service it was just a couple of rooms with new paint, speakers, projectors and chairs. It became a church when people gathered together and committed themselves and their service to the Lord.
New churches are beautiful to me. There are filled with humility, hope and dreams. I saw humility in the tears of the church members so thankful for the new space, hope in the eyes of Bobby as he talked of new ideas for how to bring more people in, and dreams in faces of the young leaders who were excited to pioneer new things to help the church grow.
Throughout the whole race I have seen church happen in many places. Some of my favorite churches have been in small homes in India packed with people, underneath a white tent in the hot Rwandan sun, or sitting in a circle worshipping with my team. I love church, but it is so much more than I ever knew. God forms a church out of two or more hearts that come together wanting to encounter God and serve Him. There is nothing more beautiful than the presence of the Lord.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. -Acts 2:42
