Ministry update!!
I finished my first week of ministry this week and it was exhausting and rewarding. This week I spent hours sawing down a shelf to make room in a shed, scrubbing walls clean for hours (my right arm is building some muscle hopefully?), and washed 40 pairs of little hands covered in paint:) Pan De Vida is an amazing ministry you all should check out on social media or google. The people there are god-fearing, hard working people who strongly desire to see the gospel spread and people fed in the city of Quito. “Feeding” days are always my favorite on Sundays and Wednesdays. We have the opportunity to prep and serve food for around 200 people. While receiving food, the people get to listen to the gospel message and worship. The littles go upstairs where they paint and receive a lot of love. I had the opportunity to carry this tiny girl named Sarah around all night Wednesday. She sat on counters next to me and on my lap while we handed out food. I was so tired that night, as we had been working most of the day and it was late, but Sarah could not stop making me smile with her punk hair and funny little comments. She was probably the highlight of my trip thus far. Side note, I do not have many photos from ministry being that we leave our cameras at home the first month. Next month there will be many more though! One of the men I met that night made me laugh so hard as well. Through charades and some spanglish (minimal Spanish and english), he found out I was from Arizona. He got so excited and started spouting off facts and names of all the Suns basketball players. So apparently the Suns are popular in Ecuador? Who knew. Even our bus route is an adventure. The directions we follow sound like a Dora the Explorer episode. First get on the bus, pass the red tractors, cross two bridges, and finally get off at the zebra rock. Our methods may be odd but they work! Please pray for the people of Pan De Vida that they will continue to receive the support they need for running it and that the Lord will continue to bless the work done there and peoples’ hearts would be open to Jesus. We may be able to fill bellies but only God can truly fill their lives.
We were able to visit a school this Thursday and work with the kids on their english. Their english was super good, they were almost fluent! They asked us to sing songs the whole time, including Imagine Dragons, Bruno Mars, and the ever popular Ed Sheran. We ate fried rice with ketchup and Mayonnaise in it (it sounds disgusting but I promise it is so good! New favorite:) and gave a lot of hugs. Finally for our day off we visited Old Town, which looks a lot like Europe surprisingly.
This week during my devotions, God laid very heavily on my heart that I need to be living in obedience. People think of this as moving to another country or ditching it all to feed orphans across the world. While neither of those are wrong, and are in fact good if God is calling us to it, He asks us to live radically by obedience and following the promptings of the Spirit. This always scared me. I did not want to live in obedience because I was afraid of what the Lord would ask me to do or give up. He has grown me quite a bit in this last week, not because of location or what I am doing, but because I was finally coming to Him in obedience. I started praying for God to give me a way to be obedient in Him (secretly hoping it wasn’t anything crazy. Yes, he is still working on me and my fear:) And he gave me an opportunity! It was super small; I just felt His prompting me to buy pencils from a random vendor on the bus. I have no idea what I am going to do with said pencils or why He wanted me to, but I think it was more obedience God was seeking from me in this. He does not wish obedience simply for the sake of it, but because He intimately loves us and wants our relationship. I mean, our creator breathed life into our very nostrils. He didn’t sit back and create us from afar, He breathed life directly into us as it says in Genesis. The relationship He seeks with us is one of intimacy which is bred through our obedience in Him. Living this way day to day looks like listening for Him and following as He prompts you. It means loving those around you without any expectation in return. It means serving when no one sees or cares. But God sees and He will bless you for your obedience. And His blessings far surpass any of those the people of this world could offer.
