Ten days has pass and already I feel as if I had been in Ecuador for months. Our host families has made it beyond easy to feel as if I am back home in the Midwest of the United States. My team, and five other teams from my squad, arrived at Casa Blanca Saturday evening. Due to a shortage of beds, the girls on my team and I set up our tents in the front yard. Honestly, it looks like a volcano exploded in my tent. Being organized in a 6×4 foot tent is real life hard!
So what has my ten days looked like in Ecuador? Sunday morning my team and I attended a Spanish church, and how beautiful if was to witness a community of believers praising God intensely. I joined in on singing the best I could and even though I’m sure I was pronouncing all the words wrong, God knew my heart and He filled me with joy! Later in the day, a group from my squad got sucked into the tourist life and went to “Mitad Del Mundo” aka the middle of the earth aka the Equator. I’m not going to lie it was mind blowing, and I also learned a lot about different indigenous groups in Ecuador.
FUN FACT: The equator was discovered in 1736 by a French man. In 2002 the GPS discovered the equator actual original points. It was incorrect by 250 meters (about 820 ft)!
The Monday after we arrived, my team started our first day of training for Unsung Heroes. It consisted of prayer and more prayer. Our goals and visions for our team and more prayer (this is a huge element). Seeing my teams love for prayer and desire to be in communication with God, set forth conviction I’m my heart. From that afternoon I remained in constant prayer of repentance for being lazy in my walk with The Lord. When I look into the faces of my teammates they each exhibit a different characteristic of Christ that I wish to grow in. God dwells in and all around my team.
Tuesday my team finished our training and then we put it into action. We felt strongly that we needed to pray over the city of Quito, and that is exactly what we did. Hoping on the bus and headed into downtown Quito, we got off at a park and began walking through it and praying. As we were praying a church group from Quito approached us and asked if we would like to evangelism with them! Say whaa?! I soon found out how awkward it was, not because we were talking about God, but because I didn’t know a lick of Spanish outside of, “Hola, Como Esta?”, “bien”, “gracias” and “Como te llamas?”So, as you can probably tell I felt really useless. In the midst of me awkwardly standing there I asked God what I was suppose to do. “Pray”, He said. And so I did. At the end of the afternoon four people accepted Christ and the desire to begin a relationship with Him! PRAISE JESUS! Our God is mighty and good. That afternoon was a bridge to a potential contact for Unsung Heroes. The following day the men from my team had a meeting with the church we evangelized with! It was amazing to hear about all of the ministries (prison ministries, hospital ministries, etc) they do. God open doors for us that afternoon and we officially had our first Unsung Hero contact! (CELEBRATE JESUS CELEBRATE *clapping obnoxiously*!!)
“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the world, to declare the mystery of Christ” – Colossians 4:2-3a
