Eight Episcopal parishes will join together Saturday evening to celebrate the beginning construction of a new church more than 3,000 miles away.
The parishes, which make up the Lower Naugatuck Valley Deanery, have spent the past year raising funds to restore a church in Tacusa, Ecuador that was swept away by a storm a few years ago.
“We decided that it would be a good thing for our deanery to do mission work in a place that’s far away from here,” said Rev. Amy D. Welin of Christ Episcopal Church in Ansonia. “The people of Tacusa are worshipping outside. There’s something about not having a church. They don’t even have an altar.”
So, after a year of hosting parish dinners, raffles, blessing motorcycles and a handful of other events, the deanery was able to raise nearly $10,000 — enough to lay the foundation of the new church.
Welin said she hopes to raise the other half of the needed money by this time next year.
By raising another $10,000, she said, they will be able to build the church’s walls and add a small medical center to the structure. She noted that in small Ecuador towns, churches serve not only as a place of worship, but also as community centers.
In November, a small group from the deanery traveled to Tacusa to visit the community they’ve been raising funds for. Welin said it was an eye-opening trip that confirmed for her why the Tacusa Project is so vital.
People there have no running water. And only some of the 20-by-20 ft windowless, cinder block homes had electricity.
“When we got there, they set us down and fed us a meal. We were treated like royalty and they have almost nothing,” she said. “It was very moving and very humbling.”
She explained that the deanery hopes the trip was the beginning of a long-time relationship with the Tacusa community. One day, she said, they may become sister parishes.
Margarita Valverde also traveled to Ecuador to meet the people of Tacusa. She said the trip was particularly special to her since her family is from Ecuador.
“We’re very excited to help try and raise money for them,” she said. “They are very, very poor people and God put us in this place to help them.”
She said the project is so important to her family, that even her 6‑year-old son donated his birthday money to the Tacusa church.
“We hope to raise even more money on Saturday. We hope a lot of people will show up and help us,” she said.
The Lower Naugatuck Valley parishes will gather Saturday at 5 p.m. at Christ Episcopal, 56 South St, Ansonia, to share a bilingual Eucharist, listen to Latin American music and dine on traditional Latin American food. The collection taken during the service will go toward the Tacusa project.
For information call (203) 734‑2715.
Tracy Simmons, a former reporter for the Republican-American in Waterbury, publishes Creedible.com, a site focusing exclusively on religious news in Connecticut. Click here to read about Creedible in a recent USA Today article.
