Something I struggle with is knowing what to tell my followers about. How cliché right? A writer not knowing what to write about (also, I hope you enjoyed that pun in the title).
One thing I’m working on is being more vulnerable and being more open with my feelings. I want people to get to know the real me and not just the person I appear to be because sometimes they just aren’t the same…
I’m going to use this blog as a time to write out some things that have been going on whether they are fun things or hard things or the in-between. I just want you guys to know exactly where I’m coming from.
I miss my family more and more every day. I thought it might get easier knowing that I was getting closer to seeing them, but that is not the case. It gets harder as the days pass.
Debrief is an awesome time to fellowship as a squad and get to spend intentional time with one another. I spent a lot of time at debrief talking to squadmates who I hadn’t spoken to much before, and I am so glad I did. By the end of the race, I hope to have had many more intentional conversations with not only my teammates but my squadmates as well.
Colombia and Ecuador are so amazing, but my experience in both have already been so different!
In Colombia, we were staying in the poorest community in Bogota where we weren’t able to leave our host home often. In Ecuador, we are staying in Quito in a house called Casablanca where we are able to sort of come and go as we please. The countries are very similar but very different at the same time. Even with the differences, I love them both!
WE WENT TO THE EQUATOR! In Ecuador, there are 2 different spots that call themselves the Equator. One that is the tourist version and one that is the real version. When you get off the bus at Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Earth), you see this giant area with statues and monuments that costs $7.50. If you walk around the corner, you will find the real version. It’s a lot smaller and doesn’t look as touristy… BUT it was only $4.00, and it’s the actual equator. The other version claims to be it, but it’s a total lie!
We had the best time taking the tour and hanging out in two different hemispheres. There are some cool experiments they do also. For example, water spins different directions on either side of the equator and doesn’t spin at all on the equator. One random thing I was confused about at first was the fact that you weigh less on the equator. Apparently has something to do with the pull of gravity or something like that. Weird, right?
We started ministry on Monday! My team (including our squad leader Cam) is working at a school here in Quito that has been open for 70 years. We get to ride the school bus with some of the kids to and from school. Our first day we were outside (a little late; in our defense, we have to be outside at 6:45…) waiting for the bus, and he didn’t show. We literally waited 45 minutes or more in the rain. One of our hosts, Gustavo, took us to our first day of school around 9:30. That first day we didn’t really do much. I was excited because I was told that I got to help kind of revamp the school’s website and help with marketing stuff. We sat in the library all day reading, so I got super discouraged.
The second and third days were similar for me. On Wednesday, I found out I was going to be teaching a marketing class the next day. I was terrified. I am not cut out for teaching, and I was not super excited about it. I was given a lesson plan and a rough idea of what to do with the kids. The kicker was that I was told I had to teach for an hour and twenty minutes. I got to work with my Spanish to English dictionary and my marketing book (also in Spanish) and knocked out a lesson plan.
We get to Thursday, and all I can think about is getting in front of this classroom of kids who may or may not be able to understand what I’m teaching about. Our bus ride is an hour long, so I took that time to have a little quiet time with the Lord.
I was telling him about how I was feeling, and I heard him say, “I will give you the words; you just have to get up in front of the class.”
After that I wasn’t as nervous. Then I had a little one-on-one with Cam, and I wasn’t super nervous anymore. I was glad to talk to him and have that distraction right before my class. It helped put my mind at ease. I found out I will be teaching this marketing class 3 days a week for a little over an hour for the next 3 weeks. That’s a lot of teaching!
Other than that, Ecuador is amazing! We have some fun adventures planned for our upcoming adventure days, so I’ll let you know how they go!
