Hello everyone! I will start off this blog with a before and after picture of me seeing Infinity War last night.
Before:
After:
Anyway, I know that y’all don’t really want to hear about Infinity War, so I will return from the nerd side and tell y’all about the ministry I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. (You’re welcome mom)
For the past couple weeks, my team and I have been traveling to a new ministry site. Previously, we had been doing light renovations to a church approximately ten minutes away from our house here in Quito. Now however, we take two buses for an hour and a half every morning past El Mitiad Del Mundo to a new church. This is where I’ve worked harder than any other time on the entire race. My team and I were given the task of repainting the church. Sounds easy, right? We thought it would only take two weeks. Well, it’s been two weeks and we haven’t even finished one of the three buildings. Even though we’ve been working diligently, it’s been a much larger project than we expected. After we finish, I will post some pictures of what we’ve done, but to tide y’all over, I will share a few stories from my days as a certified painter. (I’m not actually certified, I have no idea what I’m doing.)
Story 1: The Spider Debacle
It was a dark and stormy night. (Well, it was actually a partly cloudy day, but I have to add suspense.) Team B&B was hard at work painting the church walls white. Jackson, being the tallest, was in charge of painting the top half of the buildings. Before he could do this however, he needed to remove the dirt and cobwebs that were in the corners where the walls met the ceiling. Jackson is not a fan of spiders, and so he was not looking forward to this job. Deciding to work smarter and not harder, Jackson nabbed a broom and started wiping away the cobwebs. After many falling spiders, and girly screams from Jackson, he finished his daunting task. He began painting. Shortly after he started painting however, he realized he missed one little corner. Frustrated with himself, he snatched the broom up to take care of the last cobweb. After wiping away the cobwebs, Jackson realizes that there’s a small hole in the corner that had been covered by the webs. As he is giving it the once-over, spiders start pouring out. (Ok, it was only two spiders, but that’s still terrifying.) Wasting no time, Jackson screams and runs to the other side of the building. Eventually, he would return and actually do his job, but in the moment, his heart couldn’t take the stress.
Story 2: Perilous Plaster
As any good painter knows, any and all holes in the wall must be filled in before the wall can be painted. Jackson is not a good painter, but he knows this anyway. The walls at the church have a great many holes or places where the concrete of the walls is eroding. Jackson sets out to patch these holes, but first he has to mix the plaster. Thinking it will be easy, Jackson pours the whole bag of plaster into a bucket. After adding water and an unknown bonding agent, he plunges both hands elbow deep into the plaster and starts mixing. He continues mixing. And continues mixing. And continues mixing. After an hour and a half of mixing a ten pound bag of plaster with nothing but his bare hands, he finally gets it to an appropriate consistency. With arms of rock, not because he is strong now but because his arms have hardened plaster on them, he patches the holes. Unable to finish that day before it was time to leave, he puts the lid on the bucket and decides to finish the next day. However, on the next day, the entire bucket of plaster had turned to solid rock. Unbeknownst to him, the plaster was instant plaster and so it dried over night and was unusable. “Well, at least we have a second bag.”
Story 3: Mas Arroz! Mas Arroz!
(This story format is different from the others because I like to mix it up when I write sometimes.)
“Hey, what time is lunch at?” I ask with a growl in my stomach. “Uh, I don’t know,” Sara responds. “Should someone go ask Maritza?” I asked, my stomach growling even louder at the thought of Maritza’s food. “Nose Goes!” Taylor shouts. Without even thinking, I slam my finger onto my nose. “Oh it’s Hannah Grace!” Elijah gloats. “Ok, I’ll go ask, I jut don’t like to be rude,” Hannah Grace concedes as she walks into the kitchen. “She makes us wonderful food everyday, and we still don’t like asking her when lunch will be ready.” When lunch is finally ready, I go in and take my seat next to my steaming plate of rice and chicken. After a short, nose goes’d prayer, my team and I dig in. I quickly finish off my plate and ask Maritza if I can have seconds. “Mas arroz?” She asks me. “Sí!” I respond happily. She has learned that I love rice and will eat my weight, which isn’t that much right now, in it. After my third plate of rice and chicken, Maritza types something into google translate on her phone. She shows it to me and it says, “Why do you like rice so much?” “I don’t know,” I respond, with a huge smile on my face. I love her cooking, and she loves how weird I am with what I like to eat. Maritza is a great ministry host.
That’s all folks! I’m going into my last month of the race, so my blogs are coming to an end soon. I hope that this last month is filled with many note worthy adventures. I could do with no more that include spiders. Love all y’all, and I’ll see you soon!
