Fighting human trafficking in Ecuador
Human trafficking grows like a cancer in Ecuador. Boris and Fernanda Salinas are destined to fight it.
Human trafficking grows like a cancer in Ecuador. Boris and Fernanda Salinas are destined to fight it.
“I climb in the name of the young women we serve,” said Boris Salinas, who will participate in a Freedom Climb event on 26 April.
God heals physical and spiritual lives during OM Ecuador’s 2014 Medical Brigade in the Saraguro Canton region of Ecuador.
OM Ecuador's annual mission school (ECTM) impacts 13 lives, while changing one community.
“Jesus really died for me?” asks one child during a recent outreach in Cañar, where OM witnesses God impact many through sports and Bible study.
Dr. Eddie and Jeanette Moore share testimonies and lessons in faith as newly appointed OM Ecuador interim country leaders.
OM Ecuador team member Candy Arteaga shares a story that demonstrates how God leads us to Himself, even while we wait for healing.
The lives of children in a small Ecuadorian community are changed through the love of an OM and short-term team during a week of VBS.
Carmita from the city of Pedernales and Rosita from the community of La Estancia acknowledge God's work through the OM teams sent to their people affected by the earthquake.
Candy Arteaga, serving with OM Ecuador, brings the love and hope of Jesus to children in a local hospital.
Nathan Schmutz, an OMer working in Latin America, shares how a five year-old girl embodies OM's new mission statement.
Doulos had a transforming impact on Latin America and its church. To this day, it is remembered as the initiator of the mission movement in Latin America.
Jean Pierre's prayer was answered during a Christmas celebration with OM in La Estancia/Simón Bolívar which was impacted by the 2016 earthquake.
A story of God's grace and the life changing transformation of Juan and his family in Santay Island, Ecuador.
Manta, Ecuador :: Logos Hope's volunteers visit an area affected by the 2016 earthquake and share hope with children there.
The Catholic Church remembers St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy quarantined on a Hawaiian island.Joseph de Veuser, who later took the name Damien in religious life, was born into a farming family in the Belgian town of Tremlo in 1840. During his youth he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, an urge that prompted him to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.Damien's final vows to the congregation involved a dramatic ceremony in which his superiors draped him in the cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after death. The custom was meant to symbolize the young man's solemn commitment, and his identification with Christ's own death. For Damien, the event would become more significant, as he would go on to lay down his life for the lepers of Molokai.His superiors originally intended to send Damien's brother, a member of the same congregation, to Hawaii. But he became sick, and Damien arranged to take his place. Damien arrived in Honolulu in 1864, less than a century after Europeans had begun to establish a presence in Hawaii. He was ordained a priest the same year.During his ninth year of the priesthood, Father Damien responded to his bishop's call for priests to serve on the leper colony of Molokai. A lack of previous exposure to leprosy, which had no treatment at the time, made the Hawaiian natives especially susceptible to the infection. Molokai became a quarantine center for the victims, who became disfigured and debilitated as the disease progressed.The island had become a wasteland in human terms, despite its natural beauty. The leprosy victims of Molokai faced hopeless conditions and extreme deprivation, sometimes lacking not only basic palliative care but even the means of survival.Inwardly, Fr. Damien was terrified by the prospect of contracting leprosy himself. However, he knew that he would have to set aside this fear in order to convey God's love to the lepers in the most authentic way. Other missionaries had kept the lepers at arms' length, but Fr. Damien chose to immerse himself in their common life and leave the outcome to God.The inhabitants of Molokai saw the difference in the new priest's approach, and embraced his efforts to improve their living conditions. A strong man, accustomed to physical labor, he performed the Church's traditional works of mercy – such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving proper burial to the dead – in the face of suffering that others could hardly even bear to see.Fr. Damien's work helped to raise the lepers up from their physical sufferings, while also making them aware of their worth as beloved children of God. Although he could not take away the constant presence of death in the leper colony, he could change its meaning and inspire hope. The death-sentence of leprosy could, and often did, become a painful yet redemptive path toward eternal life.The priest's devotion to his people, and his activism on their behalf, sometimes alienated him from officials of the Hawaiian kingdom and from his religious superiors in Europe. His mission was not only fateful, but also lonely. He drew strength from Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the Mass, but longed for another priest to arrive so that he could receive the sacrament of confession regularly.In December of 1884, Fr. Damien discovered that he had lost all feeling in his feet. It was an early, but unmistakable sign that he had contracted leprosy. The priest knew that his time was short. He undertook to finish whatever accomplishments he could, on behalf of his fellow colony residents, before the diseased robbed him of his eyesight, speech and mobility.Fr. Damien suffered humiliations and personal trials during his final years. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandalous behavior, based on the contemporary belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He ran into disagreements with his religious superiors, and felt psychologically tormented by the notion that his work had been a failure.In the end, priests of his congregation arrived to administer the last sacraments to the dying priest. During the Spring of 1889, Fr. Damien told his friends that he believed it was God's will for him to spend the upcoming Easter not on Molokai, but in heaven. He died of leprosy during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889.St. Damien of Molokai was beatified in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009.
Since 1 June 2011, OM Belgium has been without a bookkeeper. Since 1991, Andrew Bridges (UK) has served the OM Belgium as bookkeeper, but due to his son's education and Andrew's poor health, they have decided to return home.
A new church in Tienen begins as a result of an OM outreach done in partnership with a church in Leuven.
For a young family in Belgium Easter provided a great opportunity to invite neighbours to church.
Personal friendships combined with special events prove effective in sharing Christ with Belgians.
Two OM team members experienced the bombings in Belgium firsthand as Red Cross volunteers.
Milena found mission opportunities on OM Germany’s website, which led her to share the love of God in Belgium.
Relationships, mentoring, fun, practical work, spiritual growth and learning to love others are all part of OM Belgium's fACTOR programme.
OM field leader Martin believes Belgium has a strategic part to play, with OM, in helping grow a church planting movement in Europe.
Ride2Transform allows teams on two wheels to pedal far and wide, praying and sharing the love of Christ in least reached areas in Europe and Africa.
Prayer Hub is a newer ministry that exists to help develop and nurture a culture of prayer in OM. The founders, Boyd and Ribka Williams, have made prayer their ministry.
Martha Ardila spent several years serving in OM's ship ministry. This year, after visiing the OM Andean Region headquarters in Ecuador and being commmissioned, she returns to Colombia to official begin OM's work in her native country.
Nearly two million people have been affected by the recent flooding in Colombia. The torrential rains that hit the country in the past few months caused its worst flooding in 40 years. Over 240 people have died and many had to leave their homes behind, especially along the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. OM Colombia is helping out with relief work.
A group of Guatemalan volunteers join OM Colombia's leader in ministering to prisoners, students, women and children in Cartagena, Colombia.
Though it’s one of the smallest teams in OM, OM Colombia, lead by Colombian Martha Ardila, makes big plans for the future.
OM Colombia and the Bolivar Prison Fellowship partner to bring Christmas joy to the inmates of the San Diego Women’s Jail in Cartagena last month.
The Gospel is primarily about relationships that impact, influence and are relevant, states Pastor Hugo Echeverri, a representative of OM in Colombia.
Adela, a lady from the women’s prison in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, was baptised during the encounter called ‘Woman, you are free’.
Santa Marta, Colombia :: Logos Hope is welcomed to a new region of the world, where the ship's community is adjusting to a new language.
Barranquilla, Colombia :: Logos Hope’s community reflects on a key date in the Ship Ministry’s history – the shipwreck of the first vessel, Logos.
Barranquilla, Colombia :: Logos Hope's volunteers speak the international language of mime as they learn how to clown around as a means of connecting.
Barranquilla, Colombia :: Mission organisations come together on board Logos Hope to inspire Latinos to serve God around the world.
Barranquilla, Colombia :: Logos Hope departs her second Colombian port, her crew having welcomed a landmark number of visitors and encouraged many local people.
Cartagena, Colombia :: Logos Hope's eager new crewmembers must pass fire and water safety tests before they can step aboard.
Cartagena, Colombia :: Logos Hope partners with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in an outreach to a troubled community.
Cartagena, Colombia :: Logos Hope’s longer-serving volunteers recall the first gift presented to the vessel as they mark her entry into service in 2009.
Cartagena, Colombia :: An interview with Julie Paniagua, Associate Area Leader for resourcing with OM Latin America.
Cartagena, Colombia :: Logos Hope's crewmembers host sailors from the Colombian Navy and share their experiences in a partnership event.
Cartagena, Colombia :: Logos Hope's volunteers share the message of hope for the future with elderly residents at a nursing home.
Pason lost his family when he fled Myanmar. By playing football with OM team members, he finds friendship and hope.
In a nation filled with tribal tension, OM works toward reconciliation through youth conferences, relief outreaches and a bookshop filled with Bibles.
“Aren’t there enough churches in Italy?” Not to reach the 50,000 people in Pisa, says OM team, who plants La Torre.
OM Ministry Leader, Lenna Lidstone, discusses how to use Discovery Bible Studies to see vibrant communities of Jesus Followers among the least reached.
In Arctic Russia, reindeer are the Nenets' life. Living among these people, ES longs for the Nenets to know Jesus, the true source of life.