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Team Time

Tuesday night we had our MAF Team meeting at the Dunbars' home. We have these meetings on a monthly basis. Very occasionally we have one of the other local missionaries share with us what is going on with their work. We were blessed with the presence of Lloyd Rogers, and his friend, David Jones, a missionary for forty-five years in Chile. Mr. Jones shared a devotional, and then we heard from Lloyd.

Lloyd is with the Plymouth Brethren and has been working for forty years in Ecuador, most of that time in Shell. The past few years he's been working out of Quito. He runs thirty-six schools in the jungle, and there are 2,842 students in those schools. Compassion International provides funds for 1300 of those students. This year there were forty high school graduates. About seventy-five percent of the teachers are Christians. The schools are located in the four language groups that MAF flies in--the Shuar, Atchuar, Woadani, and Quichua.

In the Quichua and Waodani areas, the oil companies provide teacher salaries and flights to take the teachers in and out of the jungle. The Shuar and Atchuar people do not allow any oil company activity in their areas if at all possible. There is also a Quichua community, Sarayacu, south-east of Shell that is currently battling to keep an oil company from drilling. The schools in those areas do not receive any money from oil companies.

Recently Compassion contracted with some Ecudorian anthropologists to complete a study of the area in which these schools are located. When the study was going on, the anthropologists asked Lloyd why he drove all the Shaman out. Lloyed replied that he didn't drive them out. He said his program was Light, and that light replaces darkness. The Shaman who have moved to other areas did so on their own.

Another story about the anthropologists. They were in a village where the people were feeding them all. The indians had gone out to a big island on the nearby river, and killed a bunch of monkeys for dinner. Lloyd said that the people had given each of the two anthropologists some of the meat from the buttocks of the monkey, the most tender part. Lloyd's piece was tougher, and he commented that the monkey was tough, and that he must have a piece of meat from a grandfather monkey. The anthropologists didn't realize they had been eating monkey meat, and when they found out it was monkey on their plates, they stopped eating. The rest of their time in the jungle, they only ate food that they brought, and no more local food!!

Compassion is looking for sponsors for fifty-three children in Ecuador. Go to their site and do a search for the country of Ecuador if you're interested.