Well heya friends! It’s been almost two weeks since my last blog and I apologize for that, things can get a little hectic around here at times. But anyway in the past two weeks my team and I have actually started ministry, and it has been absolutely phenomenal! To catch you up to speed, the first week of our ministry, La Luz, we made and handed out flyers for our English classes. That is all we did for the first week and over that time we handed out roughly 1,500 flyers to the people of Carapungo. I really don’t know how to describe Carapungo, but I think it is this city that is connected to Quito. It is in a more poor area than where I am staying with my squad, but it is still absolutely stunning in terms of the view! If I had to pick one that about that week of handing out flyers that made me feel the most joy, it would have to be when the people would read the flyers and see that the classes were only $0.25 a hour. From what I can gather, English classes generally cost a lot more than that, so to get to cater to the people and give them a class that they can actually afford is fantastic!
Moving on to this week, we began our classes on Monday. We start our first class at 3:30, which ends at 5. Our second class runs from 5 to 6:30, so somedays it is just back to back classes for us. Paul and I teach the beginner class, so the language barrier is a little more real than some of the other classes that my team has. But even in this class, like I see the Lord moving so much in just the relationships that are being built. Our class consists of mostly people in their late 40’s or 50’s, and just seeing them being as happy as can be when they get a simple phrase or word correct is the best feeling in the world. It is just pure joy all over their face, and words cannot do it justice! Also it is just really cool to see the relationships that they are building with the other students in the class. Like they sass and tease one another whenever they learn a new word in English that can be used in that way, or even just whenever one of them is having a harder time on learning a word. It is just amazing to see what is being done over a span of 4 days with them.
Over the past couple of days the Lord has been doing so much in my heart, it has just been almost a week of just being in the freedom that the Lord provides. So the biggest thing that the Lord has been doing in me, is Him showing me who I really am and what I am passionate about. A big part of my testimony is an instance where the Lord used me to speak about love for a solid 30 minutes without taking a break in the summer before my freshman year. Ever since then, the Lord has always been putting the word love on my heart, and it is only just now starting to make sense why. So for some context for the next little section, over a year ago the Lord placed a specific verse on my heart that I haven’t really fully understood until the past couple of days. The verse is Jeremiah 5:14 which says, “I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes.” For the longest time, I thought that this verse just meant that my words have power, which they do, and that was the way I was going to reach people. That is still true, it is just that the meaning of the verse has gone even deeper for me. I think two or three nights ago, one of our squad leaders was leading a session and during this session the Lord revealed to me how I picture the word love. Whenever I think of the word love, I just see this picture of a burning fire. Not like a craze fire that consumes everything, but a warm, cozy fire that brings comfort. The thing is that this fire is still a huge, roaring fire, yet it is still gentle. Coming back to the verse in Jeremiah, I realized that if love is a fire, then the fire that the Lord has put in my mouth is essentially love. The Lord has given me this gift of immense love for Him and my people; and if I want to fully walk in what the Lord has for me, then I have to start realizing that my best gift is speaking with the Lord’s love.
It’s been a crazy week full of doing what the Lord has called me to do, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world. It has been full of laughs and pain, yet even through all these things the Lord is teaching me so much. I’ve learned so much more about the Lord and mine’s hearts in the past two weeks than I ever have before. The thing is that it has only been two weeks, and there are still 8 more months to go of learning and growing. I cannot wait to see where the Lord will take me over the course of the race!
