The team and I have made it safely to Portoviejo, and our ministry here has already begun. We arrived in Portoviejo late on Monday night after spending 12 hours traveling on a bus (actually two buses with a layover in Guayaquil). We were picked up by Percy – the pastor of the church we’re working with these next two months – at the terminal and taken to our apartment. I fell in love with it the minute we walked in the door. The team was supposed to be tenting in the church parking lot for the duration of our stay, but there was a recent change in plans (poor us) and we ended up with an apartment. The place has no carpets, no furniture (no beds), no kitchen, and I couldn’t be happier. This is exactly what I signed up for! I signed up for the purpose of being broken. I signed up to learn to be content with less. That’s what I got. Athough Percy did get us some mattresses to sleep on.
On Tuesday we started our ministry, or should I say ministries. In the morning we went to the main hospital here in Portoviejo to pretty much do what the people working there asked us to do. Our morning/early afternoon was spent sorting boxes of medical supplies, ranging from spinal needles to scrubs. That afternoon me and Bailea were asked to assist Percy in handing out purified water to some folks living in the local garbage dump. So, in Portoviejo there’s a big dump that employs a large amount of the population, but there are some folks who are so poor that they have built homes in the dump. They also have built a school because the people can’t afford transportation to any of the other schools in the city. What has resulted is a quaint little community in the middle of a dump. Our second ministry here besides the hospital is to hang out with the kids living in the dump and provide purified water. Unfortunately on Tuesday we weren’t able to make it out there, but we did yesterday and we all immediately fell in love with it. We are all so stoked about our new ministries here in Portoviejo.
Now for some sad news. This past Sunday, a bomb (not a real bomb) was dropped on the team. The squad leaders and coaches had been praying for the past two months for Megan on our team, and made the very tough decision to send her home to the USA. They didn’t want to make the decision, but they felt that God was calling her places in the States, and they didn’t see the Race as beneficial to her. This broke all of our hearts. She flew out of Quito early Tuesday morning and arrived home a little later. We are still mourning this decision. There’s an empty place in our hearts, but we must carry on. We must trust that God’s plan is far mightier than our own. We must also choose joy, as hard as it is. Please, as usual, keep us in your prayers as we continue to mourn, and likewise attempt to choose joy.
