God is growing His church in Mango, Ecuador. The Mango church was planted by the church in Churute, which had its miraculous beginning after one man forgave his careless neighbor for burning down his mango trees. Now, too large to meet in the house, about twenty adults and a dozen children gather each Sunday outside in the shade of a mango tree, sitting on plastic stools.

One of the leaders in this body is Don Cueva. A few weeks after he decided to follow Christ, his neighbor poisoned over 200 of his chickens, saying he was tired of them crossing over onto his land. There was nothing Cueva could do besides pile them in a heap and burn them.

Don Cueva was as hot as the fire burning his dead birds, and he began plotting his revenge. But Manuel, his cousin, showed him that in Romans 12 the Lord says, "vengeance belongs to me; I will repay..." Exercising his new faith, Don Cueva decided to wait and see how the Lord would avenge him for the wrong done to him.

Meanwhile, Cueva decided to grow rice on the 4 hectares of land he owns. His neighbor also sowed seed for rice on his 12 hectares of land. When harvest time came, Cueva's 4 hectares produced MORE rice than the neighbor's 12! To this day, Cueva's rice field continues to produce more rice each harvest than his neighbor's.

When asked how this could be, Cueva says "it beats anything I have seen. There is no earthly explanation."

Cueva has tried everything to follow the Bible's command to love his enemy and he has sought to befriend his neighbor. Nothing has won him over, and all that it has accomplished is exactly what Romans 12 later foretells: that the good done to an embitterd enemy will only aggravate him further.

Cueva, along with Marino, the servant leader of the Churute church, and others are looking to start new churches in every town and village in their area of the province.

Would you pray for this faithful group in rural Ecuador?

Please pray

• for Don Cueva's neighbor to turn from his bitterness and to receive the love of Christ that he is showing him.
• for God to use the faithful people of the churches in Mango, Colon, Bolivar, Churute to raise up churches in the communities around them.

The author and two other members of the International Mission Board, along with SIM workers Nigel and Richelle Webb, serve on a church planting team in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where they have been mentoring leaders in the house church movement La Iglesia en Tu Casa. Learn more about this movement in The Multiplcation Factor.