Don and Jan Rheinheimer
Iglesia Menonita de Riobamba, Riobamba, Ecuador
September 2008 - September 2010
  

Don and I (Jan) Rheinheimer arrived in Riobamba, Ecuador in September 2008. Families from Riobamba had been meeting with Mennonite missionaries for several years, and with our accompaniment and encouragement, in February 2009, they decided to begin Sunday services. We accompanied them through the process of church formation (Iglesia Menonita de Riobamba), which included installing local pastors and forming a church council. The focus of Don’s areas of ministry was preaching, Anabaptist teaching and administration. Together we met weekly with Beatriz and Daniel Escobar, who served as co-pastors, in helping prepare them for church leadership. We also spent time relating informally with people from the church and in situations of pastoral care. Jan’s specific areas were with worship music, including teaching guitar, youth Sunday school and faith formation. The congregation began meeting in a rental property and near the end of our term the church relocated to an area of the city selected for its ministry potential.

Our two years in Riobamba was a time of great learning for us.  We received from the people we ministered to as much as we offered.  We often find it hard to describe our time there in paragraphs or even hours of speaking.  Our God-experiences were varied, wonderful, hard, joyous, vast, and holy.  As we are now back in the States, leaving in Ecuador good friends and people we now call family, Jan prepared 3 different lists:

What we will (and now do) miss: 
•        Our church family and friends in Riobamba
•        The wonderful climate of the equator
•        Walking, walking, walking whether to church, getting groceries, getting the mail or visiting our friends in their homes
•        D’baggio’s pizza parlor
•        Our good neighbors and Pilar and her copy shop on the corner
•        Exercising in the park and fresh squeezed juice
•        Learning to speak and understand more Spanish each day
•        Being surprised at what the day brings
•        Don and I being prayed aloud for every time we gathered as a Church group for prayers

What we won’t (and still don’t) miss:
•        Construction material on the sidewalks
•        All the honking horns and barking dogs
•        Struggling to understand and speak in Spanish (although we do kind of miss it now)
•        Being so far from family
•        No libraries

What we have brought back with us:  
•        Wonderful memories and stories of God’s people and their faithfulness in Riobamba
•        Good, funny stories that often only happen by living in a different culture
•        Hot chocolate with pieces of cheese dropped into it
•        Aji  (the local hot sauce)
•        More fresh fruits and vegetables than we could ever begin to try in only 2 years
•        A deeper faith and trust in God’s presence and that we don’t have to know all that will happen in advance
•        A deeper awareness of what long time mission workers experience living in a “foreign” land and the hard choices and decisions that often have to be made while living so far away from family and friends in their homeland
•        Love of many new friends who have come into our lives
•        Better understanding of another culture; realizing that even thought we don’t always understand things here, it doesn’t make those things good or bad, or better or worse from what we’ve learned growing up in the United States but only different
•        Realization that  a meal with guests can consist of only bread or popcorn and coffee and no matter how much or little you have, it is enough
•        More relaxed attitude with our mistakes and the mistakes of others
•        That as much as we would love to be in charge/control of what happens for the Mennonite church in Riobamba, it is not in our control—it is in God’s control and the church in Riobamba
•        The certainty that God is present in Riobamba and the people there

After our two years in Riobamba with Iglesia Menonita de Riobamba, we believe that building relationships with those who come into your life by sharing your faith beliefs, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit’s presence and love, and personal stories---that is really what mission work is.  Then we let God do the rest; which God will.  And as we remember our time in Riobamba, Ecuador and with God’s people there, we can say without a doubt the words that Dag Hammarskjold once wrote:  “For all that has been, THANKS; for all that will be, YES.”

Don and Jan Rheinheimer were sponsored by the Ecuador Partnership, a joint project of the Ecuador Mennonite Church, Mennonite Mission Network, IMCOL: THe Colombia Mennonite Church and the Outreach and Service Committee of the Central Plains Mennonite Conference.  For more information about the Ecuador Partnership and its members, please visit the webpages linked above.  Financial support for the Ecuador Partnership is always welcome.  For information about financial support, please visit the Central Plains Mennonite Conference Donation Page. 

   Don and Jan Rheinheimer in Riobamba, Ecuador. 

Don and Jan lead Communion in the Riobamba church.

Baptism in Riobamba.

Don and Jan with co-pastors Beatriz and Daniel Escobar
in September, 2010.