Hola from Ecuador! I’m sitting under a tent outside to connect to my host’s wifi- thankfully with the sun down the evening brings a welcome break from the toasty days here! I’m serving with a team of 5 other women on a town along the coast of Ecuador, about 8 hours over mountains and through the jungle from Quito. We are partnered with a church here that works with families that live next to the garbage dump, and we go and teach, play with, and love on the kids there and feed them dinner! They also work with a “home for vulnerable people,” and we get to hang out with the residents and share the love of Christ with them. This week, instead of going to the home, I got to go translate for one of my teammates who is a nurse at a surgical clinic. A team of doctors flew down from the States to provide all different types of surgeries to patients- over 30 surgeries were performed over the course of 4 days! This clinic is open year round and brings surgical doctors down every seven weeks to provide health care for this community, all while preaching the Gospel of Jesus and sharing His love in a super tangible way. It was a privilege to work with them! (even if most of my time was spent folding gauze- a job not usually necessary in the US!)
Ecuador has been a month of blessing. Even in the travel from Colombia to here, we have been given gift upon gift! Since the roads were closed between the border of Ecuador and Colombia because of a protest put on by Indigenous groups in Colombia, we had to fly to Quito, Ecuador (PRAISE THE LORD!). This saved hours of winding through mountains that would have made your girl here as sick as anything, and I am so thankful I didn’t have to endure it. Twenty minutes after arriving in Quito, I got to welcome my parents! I am so thankful they were able to get away from their lives back home for 6 days to come spend and them with me. Their presence brought me a lot of comfort and joy, and we got to serve and explore in all sorts of different ways during our time together.
We worked with a few different ministries over the course of the week- painting dining rooms and removing debris from a ministry for people with physical and mental disabilities, organizing tons of donations and staining benches for a feeding program, and cleaning and organizing for an organization that gives kids with working parents a safe place to stay when they’re not at school.
My favorite day that we got to serve together, though, was with an organization called Pan de Vida- which means bread of life. We went on Sunday to help out with their weekly service and meal for the community. Most of the people who attended struggle to make ends meet for a variety of reasons, and need the help and peace that God gives through the people at Pan de Vida. I have never met a pastor who loved the “beneficiaries,” or the people who come for help, so well. He spoke to and of them with the utmost respect, shared the truth of the Gospel in a clear and loving way that helped people understand their desperate need for God, and served with everything he had. Five people accepted Jesus as their Savior that day, and we got to welcome those brothers and sisters into the family of God!! What an amazing day!
While the service was going on, I went to help set up the tables to prepare for the meal afterwards. As I was moving chairs, one of my teammates came down and asked if I could head upstairs and help with the kids, because no one up there could speak Spanish. I figured I could help get kids to quiet down and listen to the teacher, so I headed up and walked through the door. As I walked in, the girl teaching looked at me and said “Oh! Here you go, she’s the one who can speak Spanish!” and passed the class over to me. I had forty pairs of young eyes blinking at me, and I blinked back in surprise! Behind me, the team had google translated the Fruit of the Spirit up on the board, so I used their idea and began wracking my brain for things to teach this group of energetic, sweet, and very Spanish-speaking kids!
Looking back on that morning is a perfect reminder of the fact that Jesus is always with me. He gave me the words, the ideas, the questions, everything! And that morning turned out to be my favorite of all mornings. We got to encourage kids who are living through such hard situations to turn to Jesus, and remind them that He will give them love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. My dad even got to be a part of the fun!
Through the week it was so much fun to see my parents, and myself, thriving in different areas of loving and serving others and God. I saw my dad stuff (and I mean stuff) a dump truck full of huge logs and buckets of dirt to clear up space for a sandbox for kids with special needs. I saw him give high-fives and love and acceptance to little, hurting children as they finished their provided-for meals. I saw my mom pray with people- random and not so random- and be a vessel of healing, hope, and love from the Father. I saw her give a listening ear and words of wisdom to people looking to grow. And I got to be there for all of it, translating our way through Quito! What a gift to have parents who give up so much to visit, encourage, and love their daughter bopping around the world.
I’ll be finishing my time here in Ecaudor in 6 days, and will be heading on a 50 hour bus ride to Peru (yes, you can pray for me! haha). It has been such a gift to be on this journey, and I just want to thank each of you for your support and encouragement along the way. Love and blessings to each of you!
