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Ecuador's Ministry Training Paying Off

Episcopal News Service. September 29, 1977 [77311]

Isabel Baumgartner

In Ecuador, where the Episcopal Church has grown with astonishing speed since 1970, Bishop Adrian Caceres is finding New Testament modes of ministry indispensable.

"This is the way, for us, I'm convinced," the bishop says. "What the earliest Christians did, we're doing. And it's working."

Seven years ago the diocese, overseen from adjacent Colombia, numbered 394 baptized persons, 153 communicants -- such a small handful that it took a while for the House of Bishops to agree that Ecuador should have a resident bishop of its own.

The House urged that the man elected avoid costly staffing and complex organizational patterns. Those recommendations matched the style of the man consecrated in 1971: a 49-year-old, blithed-spirited and vigorous onetime Roman Catholic priest from Bolivia, then serving in Guatemala.

Bishop Caceres quickly perceived the profile of his jurisdiction: a sparsely populated area the size of Arizona, split into thirds by two north-south ranges of the Andes. Four Episcopal priests, all but one North American, served five small congregations in Ancon, Guayaquil, and Quito. Many city communicants were expatriate Anglo businessmen and their families. People in tiny mission stations, dabbed helter-skelter across stretches of wild territory, could receive the Sacrament only rarely.

A new pattern of mission seemed called for. With the help of the Rev. Tom Anthony and other consultants, Bishop Caceres and his diocesan leaders shaped a design which suited the circumstances.

He placed seminary-trained priests, as quickly as he could, in budding congregations at a few strategic places. From each such base, priest and people are in the process of developing new satellite churches within their reach, founding and then nurturing each as it grows.

A new training school for total ministry is preparing many lay people for non-sacramental ministries, and some for ordination as sacramental priests under Title III Canon 8. The seminary-trained priest from each base congregation will supervise the sacramental and lay ministers in its satellite mission stations. And no one but the trainerpriest will be salaried.

Numbers of Quechua Indians in the Oriente, Ecuador's eastern Amazon basin region, came to Bishop Caceres and asked to affiliate with the Episcopal Church. Former Roman Catholics, they sought ministrations in their own language by their own people. Before long, the first few Quechuans were ordained deacons.

By late 1974, when Bishop Caceres invited Bishop William J. Gordon, Jr., to Ecuador to discuss Project TEAM -- Teach Each A Ministry -- the resigned Alaska bishop was able to reinforce an already well-developing total ministry pattern which paralleled the one he had helped shape in the Arctic north.

By the end of 1976, the Church in Ecuador had reached more than 10 times its 1971 size with 2,015 communicants in 60 congregations, served by 10 Ecuadorian priests and two priest missionaries. Parochial schools had sprung up, as well as 15 university ministries, many urban and rural ministry centers, and an agricultural extension service stemming from a thriving church-sponsored experimental station. A major educational institution offers not only religious studies but also technical training in agriculture, health, folklore and native arts, and cooperative marketing -- all under the church's wing.

When Bishop Gordon paid a return visit in May 1977, he ordained -- at Bishop Caceres's request -- Ecuador's first two sacramental priests: Pedro Shihuango and Luis Vargas from the Oriente, and five deacons: Alcides Reino, Vincente Andi, and Jorge Tapuig Andi, all of Oriente, Lorenze Triana of Guayaquil, and Jose Luis Novox of Cuenca.

Bishop Caceres then commissioned, for service as lay ministers, 12 men and women who have completed one or two years of training. All 19 of these volunteers will enhance their skills in years to come via further study, conferences, and consultations.

Ecuador's goal of a fully indigenous priesthood and an active ministry of all believers will be realized before long. And even now, Bishop Caceres dares to dream out loud of the day when his country will have three dioceses, the one in the Oriente fully staffed by non-stipendiary ministers.