I was part of a team on mission in Ecuador during the first half of September with a Raise and Release Ministries team. It was such an inspiring experience that I want to report on it and recognize those people and situations God used so inspirationally.
Jorge. Jorge lives in Mindo where our team spent a total of ten days. Jorge and his wife, Genesis, have four children and they both serve as leaders in Mindo’s New Jerusalem Baptist Church. A 2021 Raise and Release team baptized Jorge; a 2022 team saw Jorge baptizing other new believers; in 2023, Jorge served on the church’s missions planning team, hosted our team on several days’ events as well as serving as a translator for the team. Jorge makes his living as a tour guide for birding; his vast knowledge of the region’s bird species is very impressive.
Jon. We met seventeen-year-old Jon while he worked as a local farm hand. As we spoke with him, he was at first very shy and would hardly make eye contact with us. Once we got him to open up a bit, he told us that the mafia had coerced him to perform illegal acts for them, held him against his will and, now that he had escaped and reported them to the police and fled from them, was now actively searching for him. He was in grave danger and was understandably terrified. Day one of our knowing Jon we prayed with him and encouraged him to trust God for his safety; that evening, he surrendered his life to Christ in a worship service; on day two, Jon began to display an obvious joy as he participated in fellowship and outreach ministry with our team; on day three, he eloquently and sincerely led the prayer over the team’s evening meal, after which the team noisily cheered him on in his newfound faith and joy. Who knows what we’ll see from Jon on our future visits!
Impact Northwestern Ecuador. The pastors of three local churches in the Northwest region of Ecuador met to establish an organization to help churches in the Northwest region work together in carrying out the Great Commission. Pastors Jonathan Patino, Alirio Chaves and Freddy Arias serve as the founding pastors of this organization and they hope to receive more pastors into the group in the future; Five of our team members had the privilege of joining that initial meeting to offer our support and any insight the Lord might have given through us. The effort was a very impressive gesture that church leaders in our culture could use as a model for inter-church unity and we were very impressed with the passionate hearts and unified vision of those three pastors.
Our missionary team members. Tony Festa is the Raise and Release founder and president. He coordinated our trip and led the boots on the ground. Looking for opportunities to raise up leaders in the ministry, Tony returned to the States with five days remaining for the team to do ministry. He left the controls in the hands of Ben Bahr, a MARSOC Marine Corps trainer and young man of God. Ben led us very well during our last five days of the mission while continuing, himself, to preach to crowds and minister to individuals in Northwest Ecuador.
Marlon & Yolanda Diaz lead a church in Quito where they also have a ministry to clean and clothe the feet of children. On our mission, the Diazes filled the roles of teaching on marriage and ministering to many individuals to trust Jesus for salvation (including the aforementioned Jon) and to meet the other needs of their lives. They also served as spiritual leaders for our team. (Tony called them “wisdom carriers.”) Marlon and Yolanda are one of four ministry partners of Raise and Release.
Justin Huber is a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Marine Corps who now works as an EMT in Louisville, KY, the skills of which served him well in medical clinics we set up, the clinics treating more than one hundred patients over the course of our two-week mission. Justin served as an exemplary, caring, soft-spoken man of God who will doubtless, God be willing, lead teams on mission in the future. His preaching to crowds and ministry to individuals yielded much fruit as some people began a faith walk with Jesus and others grew in the faith they already had. Justin’s proficiency in speaking Spanish also served him and our team very well.
Cyndi Buck is an RN and new author who has an anointing to minister prophetically. We usually found Cyndi talking and praying with people as God showed her specific needs of the people and God led her in how to pray for them. She also played a key role in the medical arm of our mission.
Lindsay Freidhoff is an expert in exercise science and nutrition with a pure heart for God. A mother of five boys and author of the soon-to-be-published Not Perfect. Beautiful., a book on parenting, Lindsay brought a seasoned motherly perspective to our team as she ministered to dozens individually and was part of the medical team.
Yonni Lam is originally from Hong Kong and now resides in Quito. Yonni’s faith, compassion, personal tesimony and language skills position her perfectly to impact Ecuadorians for Jesus, which is exactly what she did as our team member.
Malcolm Jones is a project manager for a large construction company. As a 6 ft. 6in. former college football player, Malcolm’s physical presence may be imposing, but his heart is like that of a child. An effective speaker and minister to small groups and individuals, Malcolm’s spiritual insight and ability to sense specific needs as he prays for people are gifts he brought onto our team.
The husband-wife team of Dr. Javier Acosta and Dr. Grace Fernanda Loayza Ochoa led our medical mission. Their two teenaged kids, Mikki and Andres also served as muti-gifted team members.
It was a pleasure to have my wife, Sharlene Tew, on our team. She’s another of Tony’s “wisdom carriers” and offered leadership skills to assist Ben after Tony’s departure. There’s really nothing she can’t do, so she taught wives on marriage, led people to Christ and offered her business and administrative abilities in helping to meet some of the needs of the people (especially Sonia, whose situation I describe below).
Our team of interpreters included five Ecuadorians who were more than language translators. All of them are strong, mature believers in Jesus who were contributors to our mission in a spiritual, medical and physical sense. Angie Espinoza is a seasoned ministry leader whose day job is to coordinate interpreters for missionary teams coming into Ecuador. Not limited to merely translating what our team members said, Angie prayed the prayer of salvation with several people, herself. JD Cortez is a young Christian man who has a knack for translating whatever is said in one language into the vernacular of the other language. JD’s sense of humor kept our team in stitches much of the time. Melissa Hellbach is a first-year medical school student with wisdom beyond her years. She is adamant about interpreting the ideas for the listeners, as opposed to merely translating the words. Melissa brought much to the table: language skills, medical training, strong work ethic (pushed herself to serve as normal even when she’d sprained her ankle badly), spiritual insight and leadership acumen. Eduardo is a twenty-three-year-old professional videographer who produced a video for our ministry and then decided he wanted to join our mission team. So he served as an interpreter who also contributed to spiritual and physical ministry to the people in Northwestern Ecuador.
That rounded out our team of missionaries and interpreters. Let me share about two other Ecuadorians, Sonya and Carlita, to whom we were privileged to minister.
Sonia is a lady whose American husband took their toddler daughter ten years ago, deserting Sonia and fleeing to the U.S. Sharlene has a relationship with an immigration attorney office in North Carolina and with Melissa’s assistance pored over the documents that Sonia had and has now submitted them to the attorney to hopefully help Sonia reunite with her daughter. It was impressive to sit with Sharlene and Melissa and witness the counsel they offered to Soni a. It felt wonderful to offer someone something useful in addition to prayer and spiritual ministry. Please pray that Sonia will be reunited with her daughter whom she has not seen in person since she was two years old, and is now twelve.
Carlita is a young mother who has suffered rejection and abandonment most of her life. Our team was able to build the frame of a new home for her. Finally able, now, to have her own household, Carlita tearfully told our team, “This is wonderful; nobody has ever helped me this much before.” Please pray that she will receive the funds to complete this home.
The motto of Raise and Release Ministries is to raise up leaders to release the gospel. We believe in releasing people to carry out the life and calling God has given them. This is a refreshing contrast to the missions ministries that want to arrogantly dictate to national Christian leaders that they should do things the way we do in the U.S. It’s also satisfying for missionaries on our teams who are trained and released to minister freely with the gifts and callings that have been given them by God.
Please join us at from 2:30 to 4:30 on Sunday, October 1st at Nineteen Restaurant near Hampstead, NC for lunch and an update on the September, 2023 Ecuador trip. Here’s the link: