Sowing and Reaping in Ecuador’s Covid Hotspot
Maryuris Rodríguez is a church planter in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The area where she is working is poverty-stricken. God called her to work with children and adolescents and to her joy, the kids’ parents are also coming to hear the gospel.
“We worked to provide the children and adolescents with activities to help prevent them from falling into bad habits such as drug addiction, which is very common in this area,” Maryuris says. She has had this passion for serving others since she met Christ. When Maryuris was invited to the training provided by Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM), she immediately accepted because she felt she had been limited in her knowledge to be able to pursue her calling and share the love of God with others more strategically.
Due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, however, the circumstances have changed. Maryuris has not been able to continue directly attending to these families through meetings as she had been doing. The city where she lives has registered the highest number of cases of both infected people and deaths. As a result, Guayaquil declared a health crisis and put a curfew in place.
But this has not stopped Maryuris from following her call. She saw the difficult situation that was arising in her community and recognized that many would be looking for an answer of hope, so she set to work. She established devotional times for prayer, family Bible study at home, and has committed to counseling people through phone calls or video calls whenever possible.
Maryuris also mobilized her church to help low-income families with supplies as they have been directly impacted by the inability to work every day. She is grateful God is using her to bring His light and hope. She is constantly reminded of her favorite verse from Psalm 126:5-6: “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” Maryuris continues to sow seeds of hope during this time of international crisis.
