News > Latin America

     Ecuador lies on the equator, in the north-west in South America, bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It is said that the country was named Ecuador for the “equator.” The area is about 283,000 km2, and the population is about 16 millions(2015); GDP per capita is about $ 11 thousands(2015).  

     The climate of the capital, Quito(at an elevation of 2,850 meters) is closest to the equator, but located on the Central Highland(from 400 to above 4,650 meters) of the Andes Mountains; it is temperate(Average 21-10 C) while the Eastern and Western Lowland of the Andes Mountains are tropical. Cotopaxi is about 50 km south of Quito, the second highest active volcano(about 5,900m) in the world. Ecuador became independent from Spain in 1822. 

     The country has 106 endemic reptiles, 138 endemic amphibians, and 6,000 species of butterfly. The Galápagos Islands, belonged to Ecuador, are famous as the place of birth of Darwin’s The Theory of Evolution and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  80 % are the Roman Cathoilcs, and the Protestants are 11 %.

The director’s family, who has served Ecuador UBF, is M. André & Hannah Kim, and their three children Joowang, Ester, and André Jr. M. André Kim has served at São Paulo UBF in Brazil for 10 years, and then has been pioneering Ecuador UBF, per the direction to pioneer 32 countries in Latin America.

M. André Kim graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Korea University, and came here to pioneer Ecudor, having completed the doctoral course for 3 years, after gaining an engineering master’s degree. He had been struggling to be self-supporting during that time; he has a job at each of several Korean companies, and now has a water purifier business, but can’t be financially independent. 

     In addition to that, he also does translations, and they are little supported from the Kyungsung UBF. They are barely independent, but a question is raised going forward- how should they have financial self-support? they pray that the Lord may help them to open a way of self-support. M. André Kim has renewed the Lord’s calling as a missionary and has newly decided to bear a disciple-making ministry.  

<Prayer Topics>

1) For a powerful Sunday worship message.

2) For raising one Abraham, and 12 disciples.

3) For a financial self-support.