Welcome to Saint John
United Church of Christ in Collinsville
Illinois.
i'm pastor Katie Jo Bilke, the associate
pastor here at
Saint John. Today we are continuing
our summer ministry partner worship
series and so today we welcome with us
Lee-Allison Wilson who is here from the
illinois
south conference ecuador partnership so
welcome to saint john this morning
thank you very much let us join together
in preparing ourselves for worship
with thankful hearts for the bounties of
our lives
we come o god to offer our prayers and
our praise
as we gather this week keep us mindful
of all the blessings in our lives
and those who we share our lives with
be with us in worship as we lift our
voices
in praise of you amen
please join with me in our prayer of
confession which will be printed
on your screen almighty god
we have failed to do justice we have
failed to show mercy to others
but expect it for ourselves we have
forgotten to be kind
wake us up to see the violence the
injustice
and oppression in our world call us away
from the worldly ways
of looking after ourselves and our loved
ones
and to your ways of seeing all of your
people
as our kin all of creation as our home
forgive us help us to repent
to turn to you and to live into your
ways
of justice peace and mercy
amen god knows
our hearts and god knows when we desire
to change how we view the world
and how we live god will help us
into right paths god forgives us
and restores us to do god's work
in this world know that you
are a beloved child of god
share the good news
our scripture today comes from first
corinthians
chapter 12 verses 12 through 31
for just as the body is one and has many
members
and all the members of the body though
many
are one body so it is with christ
for in the one spirit we were all
baptized into one body
jews or greeks slaves or free
and we were all made to drink of one
spirit
indeed the body does not consist of one
member
but of many if the foot were to say
because i am not a hand i do not belong
to the body
that would not make it any less a part
of the body
and if the ear were to say because i am
not an eye
i do not belong to the body that would
not make it
any less a part of the body if the whole
body
were an eye where would the hearing be
if the whole body
were hearing where would the sense of
smell be
but as it is god arranged the members in
the body
each one of them as he chose if all were
a single member
where would the body be as it is
there are many members yet one body the
eye cannot say to the hand
i have no need of you nor again
the head to the foot i have no need of
you
on the contrary the members of the body
that
seem to be weaker are indispensable
and those members of the body that we
think less honorable
we clothe with greater honor and our
less respectable members
are treated with greater respect whereas
our more respectable members
do not need this but god has so arranged
the body
giving the greater honor to the inferior
member
that there may be no dissension within
the body
but the members may have the same care
for one another
if one member suffers all
suffer together with it if one member is
honorable
all rejoice together with it now you are
the body of christ
and individually members of it
and god has appointed in the church
first apostles
second prophets third teachers then
deeds of power then gifts of healing
forms of assistance forms of leadership
various kinds of tongues are all
apostles
are all prophets are all teachers
do all work miracles do all possess
gifts of healing do all speak in tongues
do all interpret but strive for the
greater gifts
and i will show you a still more
excellent way
the word of god for the people of god
thanks be
to god
the profound power and transcendent love
that god has
in and around our lives never ceases to
amaze me
god has been gently nudging me teaching
me to walk
not by sight but by complete trust in
him
at times i fail immensely yet he reaches
his gentle hand down
picks me up dusts me off and sends me
forth again
today i invite you to a portion of my
pathway
and what led me to why i stand here
speaking to you today my name is lee
allison wilson
and i am the chair of the ecuador
partnership committee for the illinois
south conference
of the united church of christ i am also
a member of saint paul ucc belleville
saint paul ucc bevel has been my home
church since 1991
and that is where the birth of my faith
its roots grew saint paul was more than
a church building it was a community
for raising the future generation of the
earth-shaking believers
who were going to go out and do good in
the name of jesus
my journey to south america birthed
from participation in the very first
ever
international mission trip of the
illinois south conference
in 1999 led by reverend gus keither
and his wife susanna to honduras where
they had previously
been missionary pastors this
opened a part of my heart and touched my
soul
that has led me to greater things than i
could ever
have imagined because of honduras
i went to switzerland to assume the role
as an au pair
for an italian family in the swiss
french-speaking city of lausanne
because of a nurse who was on the
mission trip and was my roommate in
honduras
and because of switzerland i became
connected to a kuwaiti family
in charleston illinois while studying
for my master's degree
because god opened my heart to learn to
love others in a way
that transcended language and ethnicity
he felt i was ready for this next task
that task was to become the teacher and
eventual foster mother
of a spanish only speaking teen
and her daughter taking them into our
home
and giving them everything one would
give a child
born of their own heart one never
believes they are ready
or as ready for anything as god knows
they are it is said that god never gives
one more than god knows they can handle
i wholeheartedly believe this is true
and yet
i struggle at times with the load
that god has me carry reverend gus
keither kept tugging at me to go to
ecuador
he was relentless really and i kept
denying him on the basis
that i was a poor college graduate and i
was starting my job and i had no money
and in 2007 i finally acquiesced
and i went to katamayo for the first
time
i fell in love with the people and the
mission but i still didn't speak much
spanish
at that time but when i came home i was
determined to advance further
returning to ecuador in 2008 and
deciding to extend my stay with
my friends from the year before trusting
god would guide me
my parents didn't really believe that
but trusting god to guide me
allowed me to immerse myself in language
and culture and prepare a way for a
future
i would have never imagined in the fall
of 2008 i was invited
to join the ecuador partnership
committee and 10 years later
the rest is history now
i am bilingual and confident enough to
navigate ecuador on my own
including lead trips in 2018 the
position of the chair was thrust upon me
and i bulked at the preposterous notion
that i was qualified to lead
such a large mission for such a large
conference
as i thought someone else surely
should have that role to say i felt
ready
was an understatement and then again i
believe that god does not give us things
when we feel we are ready he god decides
when we are ready
and have that we have just enough skill
to pull it off
and just enough apprehension that we
have no choice
but to lean on god and that brings me
now
to our five partners in ecuador the
reason
that i'm standing here today to speak to
you
our first partner is the club kiwanis
you can try to say that yourself club
kiwanis
these are the women of the club kiwanis
chukidagua these women are dedicated
to the education of underprivileged
girls and to help them mentor and fund
scholarship programs for them to not
only
graduate as high school and university
students
but to succeed and become leaders in
their fields
this is an amazing group of women and
all of the scholarships that the
illinois south conference has provided
through the
chukirawa kiwanis club have gone to
girls
who would have not attended high school
or university
without this support and we have
supported
over 120 students to graduation
throughout our ministry but the
education they have received is so much
broader than a diploma
the chukirawas have become second
mothers
mentors and role models for these girls
annually we support twenty high school
scholarships
at two hundred dollars each and an
additional
fifty dollars for them to receive
counseling workshops
in 2018 and 2019 we increased that
amount to the 250.
annually we also support approximately
six
university scholarships ranging in total
from three thousand to four thousand
dollars
depending on the needs and the year of
study that the girls are in
we also have visiting groups from the
illinois
south conference that meet with the
girls and recently in the past five
years we've met with the girls
in 2016 2017 2018 and 2019.
currently the kiwanis club is working
with another one of our partners
sif the integrated family services
center
to provide life skills workshops for
students and their parents
the girls and their families have given
testimonials
to our mission groups about how
beneficial these communication
and self-building self-esteem building
workshops
have not only helped them personally but
benefited their entire family
and these are families who their
children their girls would be
working a domestic job as opposed to
finishing high school
without this scholarship
currently it is 250 dollars to sponsor a
high school student
and we need approximately four thousand
dollars for our seven current university
students
so consider a donation to help these
students
the next partner we have is centro
integral de la familia
in english we translate that as the
integrated family center
seif is a counseling center that works
with families and communities
and i can't show you pictures of the
people there because obviously we're
bound by confidentiality
this center services families in topics
of domestic violence
poverty self-esteem equality and
additionally
they work with the justice system for
safe reporting in the case of child
abuse and neglect
cf is currently partnering with the
kiwanis chicago scholarship recipients
to help provide the life skills
workshops the illinois south conference
assists
also in subsidizing counseling sessions
for families who can't afford them
and who have been affected by violence
and poverty
our next partner is advent st nicholas
church
in quito and this is a picture of us in
2016
when we visited we worship with them
while we're in quito and they are our
eyes and ears and assist with
financial transactions and mission
support they're a trilingual
congregation
they speak german english and spanish
they also participate in many justice
and witness
advocacy situations in the quito region
their members also join us on our builds
and they love to also work with
the next mission of them is which is
casa
del sol refugio refugio is spanish for
refuge
at this refuge it is the sun shelter
meaning house of dreams
it's an after-school program for kids in
quito's
neighborhood there are 100 to 125
children
served one meal a day and the center
provides support for these children
advent saint nicholas is also involved
in sustainable nutrition projects
across the region of quito
our next partner is fedice fedese
stands for the foundation of ecumenical
and integral development training and
education
our ministry has a rich history with
over 20 years
of shared commitment we began in the
year 2000 with this is our first partner
fedice works in four main regions first
they do agricultural and livestock
production
they also work as a community savings
and like
micro credit loans they help with
commercial projects
and they serve with mission groups
fede provides community support and
agricultural loans and day care
opportunities to families
only in rural areas and only to
women women-owned cooperatives provide
jobs and opportunities for these
families
these rural communities lack income
and in order to be a part of fedece they
must unite
and collaborate on one sustainable
project of their choosing
each member of the community must
contribute five dollars
to become vested now five dollars
doesn't sound like much to us but it
is a lot for these people these
communities can partner on an
agricultural project
of food or animal production fedese
also provides them with a micro credit
loan between
twenty dollars and two thousand five
hundred dollars with an interest rate of
one point five to three percent
they help these communities learn
business strategies
accounting and they always they've had
100 percent of their investments paid
back
within three years that investment is
then
put into a new community vedice also
provides theoretical and practical
training they have a veterinarian on
staff
who helps provide support for the
animals and teaches the women of the
community
how to care for their animals and they
eventually learn how to do everything
themselves
vaccinations detailing all of those
things
next fadi say also can you believe that
all the things they do
next they also work with child care
centers here
you see four of the eight child care
centers
one child care center which is
particular to the illinois south
conference
is dulce angelitos de lisa frankie our
sweet angels of lisa frankie
child care center it's pictured in the
top right
vedice has eight of these centers
throughout ecuador and they provide hot
meals
safe environments and social
opportunities for children and families
children are better prepared for school
with early childhood learning and these
centers are
only for early childhood preparation
prior to
going to the public school these
children are well cared for
and they're kept safe and warm
previously these children would have
been working with their parents in the
fields or wherever they went or left
at home to be cared for by siblings who
were really too young to care for them
so these centers are very important
we look forward to incorporating more
activities with fedece
and opportunities to do community
service projects and we think that
members of the illinois south conference
would really like to get involved
with some of these things our final
partner is
habitat paralegal we have partnered with
them
now for 15 years here is where habitat
has projects in ecuador and as you can
see they serve in many regions
in the past five years illinois south
conference
themselves us has built 13 houses in
ecuador
since 2005 illinois south conference
mission teams have built a total of 36
homes and one church in ecuador
thank you here
you see a few of the builds in the past
five years
and i particularly as we quickly go
through these pictures
i want you to notice the previous living
conditions
and the new living conditions for these
families
the next one is cotopaxi in 2015.
you see the family mercedes molina they
had six people living
in a two-room wooden shack next to the
family's sawmill
i participated in this build now they
have a three-bedroom cinderblock
home with secure windows and doors
the next picture here is of catamayo in
2016.
i also participated in this build this
is the house of edison pindo
they were renting a one-room apartment
in the center of town
and here you see the index cards that
edison's wife
is holding those index cards are from
you
from illinois south conference members
who sent blessings and blocks
these cards are blessings you wrote
and we translate to the family and then
they are put
inside the holes of the cinder blocks so
that when the wall is cemented in
the house is blessed for as long as it
stands
thank you for your donations to the
blessings and blocks and for your
blessings to these families
this is a very emotional experience for
the homeowners
and for us as partners and it means that
their house is always blessed
here you see the build in hama in 2017.
this was one of the first homes
constructed after the earthquake
destroyed almost the entire town
this family was living in a makeshift
shack after they lost theirs
in the earthquake of april and 2016.
can you imagine living a year in a
makeshift shack
i don't think they had running water in
hama 27 houses have so far been
constructed by habitat
and they will be continuing this project
until 2015.
this project includes construction
that's certified earthquake resistant
with specially engineered foundation
that allows for
movement in case of future tremors and
habitat
guarantees their construction if there
are any problems
next you see a build in katamayo in 2018
this was the house of angelica grumindy
and she was living with extended family
in
one bedroom her whole family was living
in one bedroom
now she has a safe place to live with
her children
thanks to the illinois south conference
and here's another home
in hama 2019 this was our group
our mission team last summer in hama
the family had was living in a shack
made from sugar cane stocks
split in half and nailed to a frame
since
april of 2016. they were so excited to
finally have a home again
our team was so productive that we also
built the walls on a second home
that's not pictured here in july of 2019
last summer we also completed a
community mission outreach project
which allowed illinois south conference
families to participate together in
mission
since not everyone is geared for manual
labor
some of the mission teams split off to
work with children
at the school magdalena cevallos in
self-esteem building
and healing activities many of these
children
lost family members or homes during the
earthquake of
2016. one day projects were completed in
a local church
group of 40 members also and we handed
out toothbrushes
donated by dr byersdorfer we had over
200 toothbrushes
from associated pediatric dentistry of
shiloh
this project allowed us to see that we
as the illinois south conference
want to participate in more
collaborative mission trips
not just in construction but doing other
projects in the community
and finally i would like to say thank
you i've been reading the book
draw the circle 40 day prayer challenge
by mark batterson
you may be familiar with his other book
prayer circles
in the book it discusses the need to
pray circles around your biggest
dreams and fears give them to god
be consistent in prayer and pray
specifically
god cannot answer vague prayers because
there is no witness to be had
towards god's glory who will know it was
god who answered that prayer
i can tell you that god has been
answering my prayers in the prayers of
the ecuador mission
and been answering these prayers in ways
that we could never have imagined
specifically about bringing people
forward to complete this mission
my motivation is the children they need
us they need homes
they need safe families they need to see
love
themselves in the midst of perceived
despair and challenges
many illinois south conference partners
have witnessed this
and can give their testimony
about how ecuadorians get energized and
they springboard off of the things we do
when we partner with them the next
chapters are still being written
the story continues and my faith which
began with a mustard seed
one part of the body planted in my heart
was nourished at saint paul belleville
and that mustard seed has grown and has
taken me to amazing places
and god can use you too and take you to
amazing places
he has taught me lessons beyond my own
simplistic comprehension
what about you where has your faith
taken you
will you pray for the future of the
ecuador mission
will you partner with us financially
will you decide to accept the call and
travel with us
and share your talents with the people
of ecuador
the one thing i know is that without the
faithful people
and the ministry of the illinois south
conference
i would not be the person i am today and
ecuador
many people's lives would not have been
changed for the better
god has worked in and through the people
of the illinois south conference
and for that many people are grateful
and blessed and this is our story
thank you and peace be with you
please join with me in a time of prayer
gracious and loving god
help us to open our hearts
and to open our ears to listen
to you to your gentle
nudging and your constant
persistence help us to open ourselves
to know what you are calling us to do
help us to have a passion for your
people maybe those people
are right here in collinsville in our
community
maybe it is the people of the saint
louis
area maybe
it is the people of ecuador
but lord help us to have a passion to
care
for all of your people
that we might reach out in the ways that
we can
knowing that we don't have to be perfect
or have
all the right gifts to reach out and
care
for one another
lord help us to do
little things one of them
at a time to make a difference in
someone's life
to make a difference in this world
and so together we pray that prayer
which you taught us
saying our father who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come
thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven
give us this day our daily bread and
forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors and lead us
not
into temptation but deliver us from evil
for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever
amen
we would like to thank you saint john
for your continued
support of saint john ministries
your support of not only saint john but
of the
groups of saint john have allowed
us to reach out and to
partner with the illinois south
conference ecuador partnership
when we heard about the high school
scholarships for girls
we had different groups that came
together
and we have been able to sponsor 5.3
scholarships so thank you saint john for
your continued support
as we reach out in mission and ministry
to our community and to god's children
all over the world
Go into the world with eyes to see the needs of others
with ears to hear their cries of
both
joy and sorrow with hands that are ready
to give
for you go in the power of god to the
people of god
and as you go may god fill you with
peace
may jesus christ enfold you with love
and the holy spirit
leads you in hope amen
