In late October, a group of individuals, representing four different local churches, participated in a mission experience with Habitat Ecuador. Members of the team worked on building two masonry and block houses in Tosagua in Manabi province in Ecuador. This city of 30,000 is located near Manta on the Pacific coast. The home is part of a 150 house project by Habitat; 100 of these houses have already been completed. This is part of an Illinois South Conference (ISC) of the United Church of Christ collaboration with Habitat Ecuador. ISC worked on one house in Tosagua during August 2006, another in February 2010, one in February 2011 and one in July 2011.

Members of the team included: Dwight Asselmeier, Cindy Chapman, Jessica Chapman, Mary Beth Hartenstein, Jane Kramer, Mike Kuhn, Kent Lytle, Linda Mueller and Patrick Pool.

The Mission:1 project has produced an extravagant response from this church. When the goal was set to collect 11,000 food items for local food pantries, the number sounded a bit unattainable . . . but not for St. Paul UCC! This church is up and over the top — with nearly 12,000 items collected. Amy Maus spoke about taking a large supply of food to Hope Christian Church food pantry and hearing the director say that she had just prayed that their empty shelves would be filled for the Thanksgiving holiday. The abundant offering of food from St. Paul was the answer to her prayer. The shelves at Western Egyptian had also been barren but now are full. God's abundance has been realized through the generous and committed response of this congregation. For 165 years, St. Paul UCC has risen to every need. Thanks be to God!!