Ministry here in Ecuador has been amazing, stretching, and
fast-paced, but we wouldn’t have it any other way! We are staying in Lago
Agrio, a “large” jungle town of about 70,000 people, but our ministry has been all over the
place. About 4 times a week we visit churches around Lago and in outlying
areas. When we say outlying, that means
we head about 1 or 2 hours away, usually into the jungle in order to encourage
the other churches. It has been so awesome and a huge blessing to be a part of
these jungle churches because they are so small yet so alive, and while we are
encouraging them they are also encouraging us.
So you might be wondering what life has looked like these
past two weeks here in Ecuador and we have been dying to tell you! To start we
originally thought that we were going to be in the middle of the jungle, so of
course expectations arise in your minds of what living in the jungle would be
like, but praise God for knowing better! So we are still in the jungle, but it
is not what you would think. We are staying at a church in the pastor’s house
with his family. We have a kitchen, washing machine, bathrooms, and beds (you couldn’t
ask for better living conditions in the jungle!); so life has been pretty good considering
what we thought it would be.
Our living room/dinning room area (Where we spend most of our time)
Sanding and painting benches
We started our ministry by painting benches for the church. We
were asked by the pastor to paint the church benches/pews from brown to orange,
so we spent the first few days in Lago painting and playing 20 questions to
pass the time. Since then we have gone around the town passing out tracts and
inviting people to a Christian concert the church was hosting (the concert was
awesome by the way!), preached at about 6 different churches, played soccer
multiple times with the children from these churches, and helped prepare for a
baptism service that was amazing. This past week however we have been at the first
church, Emaus, helping the pastor of the church at his cocoa farm in the
jungle. We started on Tuesday by cutting
down a couple of trees and then weed-eating with a machete (the guys loved it).
On Wednesday we spent about 3 hours cutting the grass around the cocoa trees
with a machete, yes that’s right we cut the grass with a very large knife. If
you ever thought that cutting the grass with a push mower was a hard job, think
of doing it with a machete, in the jungle….yeah we were exhausted and slept
really well that night.
Me and Manuel after inviting people to the concert
Playing soccer with children that live in the middle of the jungle
One of the many churches we have visited
This next week is our last week here in Ecuador and we are
closing it out with a Vacation Bible School. All of us are really excited that
our ministry has gotten so diverse and can’t wait to play with the kids here,
since they are adorable and really just want to be loved on by anyone. We are
not sure yet as to what our involvement will be in this process, but we are
prepared for just about anything at this point.
Our tent set up in the middle of the church
On top of all the ministry we have been doing, our
adventures have been even more awesome! So far we have: ridden on a long bus from Quito to the Amazon; pitched tents inside a church; taken a 1 hour car ride in the dark to a church
not knowing where we were going (hilarious but we were nervous at first); ate several different things that we didn’t know what they were; went
on a boat ride in a beautiful lagoon in the jungle; rode on top of a Ranchera,
in the back of some random pickup truck, and then finally in the back of a
vegetable truck all on our off day to hike to a waterfall that was
AMAZING!!
Eating random fruit out of someones yard
Boat ride through the Lagoon
Sleeping on top of the Ranchera
Riding in the back of the vegetable truck, its cold but at least its covered!
Cory and I in front of the HUGE waterfall
We have no idea what the rest of our month here will have in
store for us in the way of adventures and ministry, but we can’t wait to
experience all that this country has to offer!!
**If you want to see more pictures, you can check out our picture section on our blog homepage or go to Facebook and see all of the photos there! It will be updated by 8/10**
