Source: To Every Tribe, fall 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My family and I live in Nangaritza County, Ecuador, where the foothills of the Andes mountains transition into the Amazon jungle. Our town, Guayzimi, is the largest in our county, with a population of around 4,000 people. If you drive south on the only road for about three hours until it ends in the middle of the jungle, you will arrive at Mariposa, one of the many small indigenous Shuar communities that are interspersed throughout the jungle. Along the way, you will come across some Saraguro communities as well\u2014another indigenous group. The larger towns like Guayzimi are mostly inhabited by the majority Mestizo people, who have a mixed indigenous-European heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For thousands of years, people here have lived and died without knowing Jesus Christ. The religion of most is a blend of animism, secularism, and nominal Roman Catholicism, with a strong focus on the worship of Mary. More recently, cults such as Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostalism have arrived and grown. But the common thread in all these beliefs is the pursuit of righteousness through the law\u2014trying to earn God\u2019s favor by doing good works. The vast majority of people here have not come to understand the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the glorious news that the righteousness of God is attained not by the law, but by faith in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One example of the Lord\u2019s mercy can be seen in the lives of Carlos and Susana, a young Shuar man and a Peruvian woman who are now a beloved brother and sister in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, Carlos continues to speak the word of God boldly among his neighbors in the communities upriver. In his own community of Mariposa, which celebrates a multi-day feast to Mary every year, Carlos has openly called his neighbors to put away such idolatry, teaching them from the Scriptures. This stance has led to backlash and harassment from those who were once his close friends. However, during the recent planning meeting for this year\u2019s August feast, Carlos once again shared from the Scriptures why the Lord was displeased with their celebrations. This time, the consensus among the people was that what Carlos spoke from the Bible was true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read the full story<\/a> or more stories from To Every Tribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: To Every Tribe, fall 2025 My family and I live in Nangaritza County, Ecuador, where the foothills of the Andes mountains transition into the Amazon jungle. Our town, Guayzimi, is the largest in our county, with a population of around 4,000 people. If you drive south on the only road for about three hours … Continue reading Ecuador: Following Jesus in the Jungle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14533,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532\/revisions\/14533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}