Ecuador is an incredibly beautiful place. Flying in, we could see the Andes Mountains, a lush green landscape, and lots of what appeared to be farm land. At our ministry host for the month, Inca Link, we are in the city of Quito and are right among the mountains. The view from my window every morning is incredible! I can see about half of the northern part of the city and many of the mountains that surround the city. At night, thousands of lights illuminate the land below.
The landscape isn’t the only beautiful thing either. The people here are beautiful too. This month we are working with a ministry called Casa Elizabeth, which is a home for teenage girls who are either pregnant or who have young children. Meeting these women, the first thing that caught my attention was just how beautiful they are. I think that there can be so much stigma attached to girls who are pregnant young, not just here in Ecuador but in the States too, but when I saw these girls I saw none of that and only felt love. They each have such unique stories and have had incredibly difficult times from what I know. I cannot wait to get to know them better and just love them and, hopefully, usher in some healing in their hearts from things they’ve gone through.
We are planning to do a study with them called Beauty for Ashes, which I am so excited for. The study focuses on finding both spiritual healing and emotional healing and really giving God our ashes, things that we’ve done or experiences that have hurt us, and in return, getting something beautiful. He truly can give us beauty for our ashes like Isaiah 62 talks about.
Some fun facts about Ecuador:
It is light from 6am-6pm all year long here. Ecuadorians don’t have to worry about adjusting their schedule or changing their clocks.
The Equator goes through the city of Quito.
Ecuador is the closest place to the sun on earth. This is because it’s along the equator and because it is in the Andes mountains.
Quito was named one of the top tourist cities by Lonely Planet and other travel magazines… you can literally do every adventure sport possible here (bridge jumping, bungee jumping, the swing at the end of the world, mountain climbing, volcano climbing and more). The city has so many other sites to see as well like the Equator, 15th century churches, and traditional markets.
The Galápagos Islands are part of Ecuador.
Standing on the Equator you are significantly weaker and it is harder to balance. This is because there is less centrifugal force there and the force from both the North side and the south side will pull you in each direction making it harder to balance. It’s true! I tried it!
Both the Amazon Rainforest and the Andes Mountains are in Ecuador.
