3 step plan

From the beginning in 2014, the Santiago Partnership has had a three-step plan for its initial development of ministries:

• open the medical clinic

• open the children’s home

• make the project self-sustaining

Emanuel medical center

The Emanuel Medical Center was opened in May of 2016 and now assists the underserved of the greater Cayambe area with affordable, high-quality medicine through services of General and Family Medicine, Dentistry, Oral Surgery, Traumatology, Vascular Surgery, Obstetrics, Dermatology, Urology, Clinical Laboratory, Physical Therapy, Clinical Psychology and a Pharmacy.  In addition to providing care at the center’s physical location in Cayambe, we also go out and serve under-resourced communities through mobile clinics and medical caravans for people who wouldn’t have access to medical care without this outreach.  The center has already served more than 20,000 patients.

Emanuel Children’s home

The Emanuel Children’s Home was opened in June of 2017 and has been serving vulnerable children with love and high-quality care. Ecuador’s social services places children in the Home coming from situations of abuse, abandonment, neglect, and human trafficking.  The goal is to eventually reunify the children with their families even though that doesn’t always mean mom and dad.  The home cares for children ages 0 – 17 and has a limit of 20 at any one time.  By the end of 2020, over 80 children had been cared for in the Home and 26 children had been reunited back with their families.

Forever Flowers

The Forever Flowers business is a new social enterprise designed to make the Cayambe project self-sustaining.  We purchased land to start a flower farm.  Flowers will soon be planted and eventually sold for a profit, which will support the Children’s Home in Cayambe.

Expanding nationwide

Now we are starting to set our gaze on making an impact greater than that of Cayambe.  The Evangelical Covenant Church of Ecuador has asked us to expand our ministries in Cayambe to reach the rest of the country through the 6 conferences of churches that make up the national church.  Our ministries in Cayambe currently serve one of those conferences so the goal is to expand and serve the greater area of each of the other 5 conferences.  Though this seems to be a lofty goal, with the difference that is being made in Cayambe through the current project, we believe it is a good one and that we should follow the church’s lead.

the delps

The current structure of the Santiago Partnership (U.S. based 501c3 non-profit) will not be able to handle this kind of expansion; we need to change and grow!  Joel and Kim Delp, the founders of the Santiago Partnership, have been providing critical service for the Partnership through their work, but what they do cannot be sustained through the kind of growth that is needed to take this next step.

To speak to the reasons why this is needed from Joel and Kim themselves, “the toll has been felt significantly and each year we have continued to evaluate our family’s health as this commitment to fundraising and the responsibilities to the Partnership have taken over; sometimes our commitments to ministry, family and day-to-day life take a backseat.  When given this responsibility on our lives, we wanted to take it and invest and do our best, but we also realize we need boundaries and to find balance between all areas.  We have realized we need that balance and that has been a challenge for us, but we feel hiring a U.S. based employee to help us will give us more freedom to focus on Ecuador-based ministry and our needed family balance.”

the future

Our desire is to hire our first U.S. based staff for the Santiago Partnership, a Director of Development. This person, in addition to lightening the load for Joel and Kim, will have the responsibility to help lead the Santiago Partnership into the future with this goal of expansion. We need seed money to be able to hire the Director of Development and to get him/her in place and off to a good start. Our goal is to raise $75,000 by January 31st, 2022. Here are the funding levels that are needed: 10 - $2,000 gifts, 25 - $1,000 gifts, & 60 - $500 gifts.

Checks can be sent to “The Santiago Partnership” and designated for “Expanding for Mission” on the memo line; the address 23891 Airport Rd., Choshocton, OH 43812. All donations are tax exempt to the fullest extent allowed by the law. After donating you will receive an email receipt or mail receipt that can be used for tax purposes.