By Steve King   Sun, Sep 7, 2008

I am a missionary with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and serve in Ecuador.  

In June 2007 I first heard of geocaching at a training event in Idaho.  Upon my return to Quito, Ecuador I found that there was one geocache on one of the volcanoes overlooking the city.  We had a team of volunteers coming to work with us for a week so I had to put off looking for the cache until the end of their stay.  We always set up the last day as a day to do some type of tourism.  It was perfect to invite them to ride the lift up to the overlook over Quito, know as the Teleferico, and launch out from there.  

We found the Near the Sky (GC12EH4) geocache and from that moment I have been hooked!

Now that I was hooked, there were no other geocaches in the area.  For the next few months a friend and I hid and searched for each other’s caches and tried to build up interest in the sport.  By the way, we had the edge of FTFs in our area with absolutely no competition for a while!

Slowly be surely we built up the number of caches and have a few more cachers in Quito.  Since I love the outdoors and geocaching in particular, I’ve found a unique way to stay at it, even though I may be visiting the same caches with new friends on a regular basis.  

The big part of my ministry is to mentor leaders in our house church network.  Not all of them are as interested in the great outdoors but several are.  So far this year I’ve led three outings, two being overnight camping trips.  The purpose has been to climb a mountain, find or hide geocaches and to learn more about biblical leadership.  

When we camp we dedicate some time around the fire to learn and discuss another biblical narrative that teaches some aspect of what it is to be a biblical leader.  

When we are going from geocache to geocache, I’ve found that it is fun to find the cache and then take a twenty minute break to discuss one of the narratives from Scripture related to leadership. 

I’ve also found that the same sequence works good in order to share the claims of Jesus with people who want to learn about geocaching and are open to hearing the claims of Jesus.  Jesus shared several narratives referring to finding that which is lost.  I find it easy to use geocaching, the search for a treasure, to share biblical narratives such as the parable of the buried treasure. 

We’ve had a great time and a number of folks are learning that having a relationship with Jesus and relating to small groups of his followers is fun.

I’ve heard several folks make reference to being cache-evangelist.  I guess I am one in both senses of the word.

 Blessings,