Last month I visited the Museo de Sitio Intinan, which is an Equator museum in Quito, Ecuador. In fact, I visited what is known in the tourist community as ‘The REAL Equator’. Back in the 1700s, the French came to Ecuador. They used their own measuring instruments to find the Equator to prove the the Earth was actually round. Sadly, though simultaneously impressive, they were actually wrong by 200 meters into the Southern Hemisphere. Once GPS came available, this museum found the actual Equator, but not until after Quito build a giant, and I mean huge as in you can see it from at least 15km away in the next town over, monument dedicated to the middle of the world. There’s even an entire avenue dedicated to the incorrectly located Equator.
Anyway, the wrong Equator moment charges $7 for their entrance, and the real one is only $4, so there’s really no reason not to go to the real deal. But, if you don’t know that there are actually two places claiming to be the Mitad del Mundo, people tend to end up at the wrong one.
If anyone knows me well, they will understand my love of all things tourism and obsession with geography, so my little nerd heart was more than content and full on that day. Our $4 got us into the outdoor museum and included a 30 minute tour of the facility and history of the indigenous tribes of Ecuador. At the end of the tour they take you along about a 60 ft section of the Equator and show you the different phenomenas that happen when you’re at Latitude 0º00’00”. Along with a cool sign you can take a picture with, they have you try and balance an egg on a nail, (I’m a certified Egg Master), show you the Coriolis Effect by using a sink and draining it on both sides of the line, and then end with having you close your eyes, arms stretched out to your sides, thumbs up and ask you to walk a straight line right on the Equator.
I actually have pretty good balance so it should have been easy, but the way gravity works on the line and the magnetic ways of the poles cause your ears to imbalance you and it makes it difficult to stay on the line. God showed me that this is like our faith in Him. When we try and figure life out by ourselves, we may come close, like the French did with their original guess of where the Equator was, but we’ll still come up short. If we focus and keep our eyes on him, walking the line is doable, but when we close our eyes and lose sight we stumble and fall. When we allow our minds and bodies to be affected by the world outside of that line, we get distracted and our feet stray. It’s easy to be of the world and walk on either side on the line whether you have your eyes opened or closed, but that means you are no longer following him. Our beliefs and faith in Him isn’t supposed to be easy and without trials. We’ll stray and settle because it’s easier. However, He wants us to grow and there’s no growth with comfort. He wants our entire attention. He wants us to be balanced carefully on that line, arms stretched wide, and eyes set on Him. It’s gonna hurt, it’s gonna be painful, but that’s not Him. That’s the world trying to break our hearts because we chose Him.
‘Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.’
Hebrews 11
Sending my love and prayers,
Kelli
