SPIRE Summer 2019

vision mission

BC Mission Team Travels to Ecuador

the world just for us. We sang songs like Father Abraham (in Spanish, of course) and provided the kids with coloring sheets and crafts for each lesson. With the added hands, the team helped the FHC staff take the kids on a few field trips. The first field trip was to Iglesia Siloe, a local church who was hosting a special event at the church’s retreat center. The team was there over Carnival, an Ecuadorian national holiday similar to

love and His plan are just as great there as it is back home,” said Mullins. The day before the group left, they went to “Middle Earth,” the spot in Quito where the Prime Meridian passes through the Equator. They then went to Mindo, a cloud forest, where they toured a small chocolate factory, seeing how cocoa is harvested and turned into dark chocolate. They then drove up the mountainside to go zip lining through the mountains and tubing down class 3 rapids in the Mindo River before returning back to FHC. “This trip changed my life. The Lord allowed me to see through His eyes. I got to see how much he loves these kids that everyone else classifies as unloved and unwanted. I got to feel his love for them. I cried every day. It’s unimaginable how deep the Father’s love for us is, but to feel just one ounce of that can shift everything. I fell in love with the people of Ecuador and even more in love with the Father. I want to love how He does. These kiddos have mighty calls on their lives and I am believing and praying for God to equip them and place them in divine homes and families where they can spread the same love that God gave them in their time at the orphanage to the world,” said Gasperson. The BC mission team would like to thank Student Development office manager, Micayla Sharkey, for her leadership, training, and preparation before the trip and Nicole Kaklis, assistant director of development and alumni affairs, for her help with fundraising and communication to our BC alumni and friends. Story by BC marketing associate Emily Carlisle.

Through the generosity of the community, Professor of Christian Studies, Henry Clary, a former missionary to Uruguay, accompanied nine students including freshmen: Noel Saunders and Mason West; sophomores: Kaylyn Bridges, Madison Brewster, Emily Carlisle, Cameron Gasperson, and Carlee King; junior: Christalyn Doig; and senior: Cade Mullins to Quito Ecuador. The BC Mission Team went to work with For His Children (FHC) at a children’s home serving 24 children aged newborn to eight, March 1-9, 2019. The BC Mission Team first heard of FHC through Rachel Kennon, class of 2011, who is the development and finance coordinator at FHC-Ecuador. She contacted Clary to organize a mission between her alma mater and the children in Ecuador. After three years of planning, Bluefield College’s Mission Team flew to Ecuador for a week filled with joy, laughter, love, and tears. “Being at the orphanage with these kiddos made me realize how much our Heavenly Father really loves and cares for us. Not only in Ecuador, but here in the US, kids like these need our help. It was very eye-opening and amazing to have had this experience,” said Bridges. Throughout the week, the BC Mission Team taught VBS-style lessons with the overall theme of “God made you and me.” We taught lessons about the creation story, Abraham, Saul and his change to Paul, the birth and life of Jesus, and how God loves each one of us around the world and sent Jesus to

The Lord allowed me to see through His eyes. I got to see how much He loves these kids

that everyone else classifies as unloved and unwanted.

— Cameron Gasperson

Mardi Gras. One of the traditions of Carnival is to play with squirt foam and splash water on each other, and the kids had a blast introducing the team to those traditions. The team took the kids on walks around the neighborhood and to get ice cream, on one occasion even getting a police escort! Students took them to an indoor park at a mall to climb up ropes, run over bridges, play in a balloon pit, jump on a water trampoline, and ride smaller versions of little-kid amusement park rides. “Through this trip, God showed me that He is God even in a foreign place. His

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