Hola from Ecuador beautiful people!
Many apologies for not getting a blog post out to you before I left from Washington DC, which was last Friday, January 11. Allow me to get you up to speed in quick bullet point form:
- Friday Jan 11: Fly from DC to Panama City, from Panama City to Quito. Land around midnight, bus to lodging in the city for the night. Go to sleep around 1:30 am, up and ready the next morning at 8 am.
- Saturday Jan 12: Carry ALL our stuff from where 1 half of the squad stayed to where the other half stayed. Seems like nothing… 30 minutes uphill with a 50 pound pack at 11,000 feet elevation… sweaty. Around noon my team as well as 1 other team hops a 1 hour bus to South Quito. From there, connect to another 6 hour bus ride pretty much east of Quito. Arrive in Huaticocha around 7:30 pm.
- Go immediately to Saturday night church service. Throw bags in rooms. Crash.
And now we´re here! Huaticocha is pretty much the jungle, which is awesome. My team and I are staying with a local pastor and his wife, Ivan and Nanci. They are wonderful and have an adorable, mischevious 5 year old named Isaac who never fails to entertain us.
Our schedule is never the same twice, and half the time it changes hour by hour. Ivan has been known to pop his head downstairs at random hours and say, "Let´s go!". So we all hop into the back of his pickup truck and go wherever he takes us. We have been doing manual labor at the missionary school our ministry contact Jim is working on buildling, going on home visits to encourage and pray for local people who are hurt or sick or just down, and doing a ton of kids´ministry which is pretty much 15% teaching a lesson and 85% playing. Jesus is definitely here.
I am learning how to take bucket showers, how to kill and pluck and clean chickens (yes Mom, I really did this), and that when in Huaticocha, ALWAYS wear pants and socks and shoes. There are teeny tiny flies here called sand flies that come out in the heat of the day and bite and bite and bite. You normally can´t see them either, until you get home and find out you are covered in the itchiest bites ever.
I am also learning to see Jesus in new ways. I am learning to see the service and the blessing to others in doing manual labor. I am learning to see Jesus in the eyes of the little kids we hug and love and play with in Huaticocha and the nearby communities, even if it doesn´t always seem like they´re listening during our lessons. And I am seeing the power of the body of Christ truly loving and supporting one another while visiting peoples´homes. The change in spirit and demeanor after we visit and pray for and encourage the people is tangible. They thank us profusely for coming, tell us how much they appreciate it, and profess that they feel encouraged to continue their walk with God and press on with whatever they are dealing with. The Ecuadorian people are very inspiring to me in how they value relationships above almost all else, and how much they will do to love and serve their friends and guests.
It has been a whirlwind so far. I can´t believe I have only been out of the U.S. for a little over a week.
I hope to get you a more processed, personal level update next week, and hopefully some pictures. For now I am just taking it all in and feeling things out and trying to get my brain to understand that I´m actually on the race! Thank you all so so very much for your support and prayers and little notes that you have sent me. It means the world to me and I feel very blessed to have you all 🙂
Love from Huaticocha!
