Ecuador: One Man's Journey From Communism To Christ
July 16, 2005
Ecuador: One Man's Journey from Communism to Christ
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Once a prisoner for crimes committed in the name of communist reform, Felix Valencia is now a powerful witness for Christ in the isolated Anchayacu region of northwestern Ecuador.
Valencia was born in this remote jungle area, but his family moved to a city to find work when he was a young boy. At the age of 16, Valencia, frustrated with the desperately poor plight of his countrymen, dropped out of school to join a Marxist group. "I came to believe that change could only be brought about through weapons," Valencia says. Six years after joining the communists, he was in prison.
"I began to have a crisis," he says. "None of my communist friends came to visit me in prison. I was all alone, sick with a lung disease and miserable. I wondered, where have my youth and ideals and dreams gone?
"Many times, I felt like I was yelling from the bottom of a deep well, 'Someone take me out of here!'"
This cry was answered one day when native missionaries visited the prison and gave the young prisoner a copy of the New Testament. Valencia read the whole book, scrutinizing it for two weeks before finally kneeling in his cell to ask the Lord's forgiveness.
"Immediately, I felt something break inside me," says Valencia. "I began to cry. I prayed, 'Lord, if You think my life is still worth something, I'd like to do something for You.' In that prison, I felt the call to preach Him to my people."
The former zealous communist came to be known around the prison for another kind of zeal-an eagerness to preach Christ to fellow inmates. Miraculously, after serving one year of his 12-year sentence, Valencia was released. He immediately enrolled in a local seminary.
Within several years, his life had turned around completely. He met and married a Christian woman and started a family; he became well-known as an effective preacher and evangelist in the area. His future seemed laid clearly before him. However, God soon intervened to change his life once again.
Part of his job at the seminary was working with potential missionaries. Valencia began to notice that many balked at the idea of going to Anchayacu, the region of his birth. Most preferred to stay in and around the more comfortable, safe city. Valencia felt convicted by the Lord. After consulting with trusted Christian leaders, he knew what he should do: "If no one else would go, I knew I must."
Fourteen years ago, he took his wife and three young children to this remote region, where the most common mode of transportation is a canoe on the river and few can write their own names. Only two churches existed in the area when they arrived. Today, six more churches have been planted through the Valencias' ministry. The first church, which drew only 12 attendees in its early days, now has 200 members. A Christian elementary school provides education for 170 local children who would never have had the opportunity to learn.
For more information on this indigenous mission in Ecuador, write insider@christianaid.org and put MI- 619 235-AME on the subject line.
Location: a city, Ecuador
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