As I get ready to head to Peru tonight, I thought I'd formulate my final thoughts about my time in Huaticocha, Ecuador. Here are my top 3 pics from the month, followed by my thoughts:
The view from Nueva Esperanza at sunset. Photo credit: Steven Reed.
One of my new friends at La Floresta, a small community just down the road from Huaticocha. On this day, it poured. So what's the best thing to do when other plans are side-tracked? Twirl and dance in the rain. With some little girls.
The river on the way to Nueva Esperanza. We swam/bathed here twice during the month and loved jumping off the bridge into the frigid water below.
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As I write this blog, I’m sitting at the Inca Link headquarters in Quito. It’s a beautiful compound nestled on a hillside over-looking the rest of this vast city. I just ate a bowl of granola, fruit and yogurt and am enjoying an Ecuadorian roast coffee (even though a cup of tea is usually my “cup of tea”). My squad mates are still nestled in their beds and for the first time in a month I’m experiencing silence. And I’m clean, as are my clothes- also a first. I’m soaking in this moment…
It’s a perfect moment to reflect. My first month on the World Race- complete. Ministry in Huaticocha, Ecuador consisted of:
-manual labor to aid in the construction of a missionary training center and school
-home visits and prayer for members of the church
-teaching English classes to the children and youth of the village
-VBS days in La Floresta
-Preaching/Teaching at church
-encouraging Pastor Ivan and his family
-Jungle Boys
The past few days I’ve been pondering the ministry and the village; pondering things I’ve learned and enjoyed as well as those things I’m not quite so fond of. I thought you might like to be in on some of this thinking. So here I go, it may come out more like “verbal vomit” as my friends and I affectionately call it.
A few things have frustrated me this month. These moments usually began with Pastor Ivan saying, “La Biblia dice…” or “The Bible says…” Ivan would then launch into a 5-10 minute lesson about why tattoos were “of the devil,” as were dancing, cards, and alcohol. Keep in mind I don’t have any tattoos, I love to dance, Euchre is favorite past time and I’ve never been one to be called a boozer.
So, even if the reprimand didn’t affect me personally, I had the honor of hearing all about it. Why? Because I speak Spanish. So, if a teammate had a tattoo, I would hear all about it and then would be expected to translate it to that teammate. If I had the random urge to bust out a dance move (as happens regularly), I had to refrain. Because dancing is what the world does, not Christians. You get the idea.
This legalistic view on many issues is what keeps people from beginning a relationship with a living God. I see it in Huaticocha. I see it in other parts of the world. I recently read Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. He speaks to this concept:
“I didn’t have a relationship with God; I had a relationship with a system of simple ideas, certain prejudices, and a feeling that I and people who thought like I, were right.”
I don’t want in any way to make it sound like Ivan doesn’t have a relationship with God. He does. This man loves Jesus. So much so that he has a map of the town with each house on it. He’s shared the Gospel with each person in Huaticocha.
What I’m critiquing is that too often sharing the Gospel becomes a proposition and not about starting a relationship with God. The non-believers in this village view Christianity as a list of rules to follow that moves you up or down on the morality scale based on your performance. If they have a tattoo, dance, play cards or drink (these being the main issues), they feel like a kid being put on a time out for bad behavior. Why would they want to be a Christian?
Speaking of children being put in time outs, it doesn’t happen in the jungle. This was my other frustration of the month. Kids rule their parents. Multiple times I wanted to swat Isaac on the butt (Ivan and Nancy’s 4-year-old son) because he was being disobedient. At the drop of a hat, the kid could put on the water works to get what he wanted, usually some kind of sugary candy. Mom and Dad would play right along, often laughing as he stormed around in a temper tantrum or interrupted conversations by punching them in the leg. Obnoxious. And they didn’t do anything about it.
But let’s not go all bad on Huaticocha.
Community is something I’ve been learning a lot about this month. And these people know how to have community! Another thought I’ve been pondering from Miller’s book is the fact that even in Paradise (Garden of Eden before the Fall), Adam wasn’t complete without Eve. It’s as if God painted His masterpiece, stepped back and went, “Oh, wait. I’ve got to add one more thing to make it perfect” Enter Eve. Even in a perfect world, humans still need community.
In this village, in this church family, people look out for each other. Parents look out for the neighbor’s kids just like they would their own kids. People aren’t too busy to stop what they’re doing to visit. If something requires more than one person, such as killing and processing a pig, friends come together to get the job done. Mi casa es tu casa is not just a saying here, they mean it. We received such hospitality.
Carmen, one of the cute kids who lived across the street.
Evangelism. Sharing the Gospel. Definitely a spiritual gift of Ivan’s. As I mentioned before, he has a map of Huaticocha in the church and has made it a point to share the Good News with each household. And he hasn’t stopped in Huaticocha. He knows all people need the Gospel and has gone to neighboring villages to share with people there.
Despite my previous stated reservations, I have talked to individuals, couples and families that have been restored because of the time Ivan has invested in them. Alcoholism, teenage pregnancy and abuse run rampant in these small communities. One by one, he (and Nancy) are loving them and giving them truth; sharing the Hope of Heaven that they’ve been attempting to fill in other places.
Oh, and he’s never had any official training…a large part of my previous reservations. So maybe that’s what’s frustrating to me. Ill-equipped laborers. It makes me even more satisfied that every wheelbarrow full of rock is going to help missionaries be properly trained when the school is complete and opened.
I just chatted with Kasey, the Inca Link missionary who dropped us off a month ago. He stopped by Casa Blanca for a bit and asked how it went. He reminded us that living in Huaticocha is a once in a life time experience- very few people have experienced something like this.
Despite my frustrations- what a blessing. What a month. I’m grateful for the experience. Thanks for coming along!
