A bag of food can sustain a family for a week. But knowledge and encouragement can sustain them for a lifetime. This March, Open Soul Foundation's ongoing mission in Ecuador continued to expand beyond food relief into something equally vital: education, mentorship, and the sharing of God's Word.

Learning Side by Side

Across the communities served by Chris and Cindy Parkhurst and their team of local volunteers, Open Soul's Ecuador mission has been incorporating educational moments into its regular outreach. These are not formal classrooms. They are kitchen tables, community gathering spots, and shaded outdoor spaces where volunteers sit with families and share practical knowledge alongside spiritual encouragement.

Topics range from basic nutrition and hygiene to budgeting and household management. For parents, these conversations offer tools they can carry forward long after the visit ends. For children, the experience of an adult taking time to teach them something new, to invest in their curiosity, can be formative in ways that are hard to measure but impossible to miss.

Sharing the Good News

At the center of every visit is the gospel. Not imposed, but offered. Volunteers share Scripture, tell stories of God's faithfulness, and invite people into conversations about hope, purpose, and the love of a God who has not forgotten them.

In communities where poverty is generational and opportunity feels distant, the message that every person is created with dignity and purpose lands differently than it might elsewhere. It is not abstract theology. It is a lifeline. And it is received that way, often with emotion, often with questions, and always with openness born from trust that has been built over months and years of consistent presence.

A Growing Team, A Deepening Reach

What began five years ago through St. Spyridon Church in Loveland, Colorado has grown into a sustained ministry reaching over 1,000 individuals each month. The local volunteer team, trained and led by Chris and Cindy Parkhurst, continues to grow in both numbers and capacity. Each volunteer brings not only their time but their own story, their own faith, and their own willingness to be present with people who need to know they are not alone.

Open Soul Foundation provides the resources that make this work possible and is deeply grateful for every volunteer, every prayer, and every meal that reaches a family in need. But the most powerful resource this mission offers cannot be packed into a bag. It is the steady, faithful presence of people who show up not because they have to, but because they believe every person they serve is worth showing up for.

Open Soul Foundation was here.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20