Between 20 and 25 people (including some children) gathered for our training last week in Chiriwasi, a small village on the side of Imbabura mountain in the Ecuadorian Andes.

The week of training was way beyond our expectations with some deep works of God’s Holy Spirit in people’s hearts as different ones were searched, convicted and overcome by His healing touch and unparalleled love.

Every day it seemed we were facing ‘mountains’ (that were not physical), and we wondered how we could make it through. As we stood our ground and rested on the fact that He had called us to this place for this time, we daily saw His miracles and grace at work.

Some of the most exciting evidence of this was seeing some indigenous folk melted by the Father’s love as they engaged with the stories. The rapt attention of children and adults throughout the week was a thing to behold (example in the picture above).

We had children as young as nine trained and then giving 30-minute presentations to (mainly) adults and even the instructors were ‘blown away’ by the depth of questions these young ones were asking!

One 11-year old girl and her 10-year old brother left the workshop at the end and headed off with some of our instructor team into the jungle (a considerable temperature change for them and into a very different culture). The two young ones had occasion to tell stories to other children who were in a Christian singing group. The kids came up afterwards amazed and astounded by the freshly trained children and asked how and when they could learn to “tell stories like that!”.

Yes, it has been another remarkable week in the Andes!