ECUADOR

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, by Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. The country also includes the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, about 965 kilometers (600 miles) west of the mainland. Ecuador straddles the equator, from which it takes its name, and has an area of 256,371 square kilometers (98,985 sq mi). Its capital city is Quito; its largest city is Guayaquil. The official language is Spanish and it's estimated population is around 14 million people.

MISSIONARIES:

McGhee, Glenn & Sherri

HISTORY:

Spanish conquistadors arrived in Ecuador in 1531 and began their conquest over the original Incan inhabitants. After nearly three hundred years of Spanish colonization, Quito was a city of ten thousand inhabitants. It was there, on August 10, 1809 (the national holiday), that the first call for independence from Spain was made in Latin America. On October 9, 1820, Guayaquil became the first city in Ecuador to gain its independence from Spain. However, It was not until May 24, 1822, that the rest of Ecuador would gain independence.

The 19th century for Ecuador was marked by instability, with a rapid succession of rulers. Also, up until the 1940s, military interventions were common in the political arena. Recession and popular unrest led to a return to populist politics and domestic military interventions in the 1960s, while foreign companies developed oil resources in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

By 1982, the government faced an economic crisis, characterized by high inflation, budget deficits, a falling currency, mounting debt service, and uncompetitive industries, leading to chronic government instability.

Many years of mismanagement, starting with the mishandling of the country's debt during the 1970s military regime, had left the country essentially ungovernable. Since the mid 1990s, the government of Ecuador has been characterized by a weak executive branch that struggles to appease the ruling classes represented in the legislative and judiciary. The three democratically elected presidents during the period 1996-2006 all failed to finish their terms.

RELIGION:

Approximately 95 percent of Ecuadoreans are Roman Catholic. In the rural parts of Ecuador, indigenous beliefs and Christianity are sometimes syncretized. There are also a growing number of Mormon and Protestant denominations.

There is a small Muslim minority numbering in the low thousands. The Jewish community numbers just over a thousand and is mostly of German and Italian origin. There are also Sephardic Jews (Judeo-Spanish Jews).