Hi! As you can probably tell it has been awhile since I wrote a blog. All the way back at Thanksgiving in South Africa. So let me catch you up on all the time in between now and then.
At the beginning of December my squad and I moved to Ecuador where we got our new ministry Camp Hope. A day care for those with disabilities ranging from the age 2-34. There are about 50 people who attend and are at all different levels of function. Camp Hope started for orphans, but now has opened up to foster care and kids with families as well. My class is called Gozo, which means Joy, and the people in my class are mostly those with Cerebral Palsy. I have 11 people in my room along with another volunteer Enrique and a nurse who is there every day. I also sometimes work in the kitchen there where I juice limes or mangos to help prepare for snacks and lunch for the staff and the people within the daycare.
My room at Casa Blanca consists of a couple of my teammates Harleigh, Skylar, and Anna. We have two bunkbeds and our VERY OWN drawers (personal organized space is the most beautiful thing one the race)!! All the girls are upstairs and the guys have their own house. We have a big downstairs area where we eat and hangout. We have a nice kitchen where Fabi and Mabe cook us meals Monday- Friday, breakfast through dinner. Then outside there is a basketball hoop and a volleyball net, as well as the prettiest view of the mountainous south Quito. From our house we are walking accessible to many things, two of our favorites being the Tamale shop owned by a sweet family with their adorable son Thomas and then the Empanada shop owned by Mariano, who already loves us so well and is ready to greet us with a smile as we walk past him after ministry.
After a couple weeks of ministry we moved to Dunamis which is a sex- trafficking ministry on top of a mountain at 11,000 ft. As a squad we slept in our tents for 10 days. Those 10 days included Christmas and New Years. At Dunamis we did a kid program and manual labor. At the kids program we got to do a soccer tournament and the girls taught us dances (my team won the soccer tournament). It was so special to pour into the community there by just loving on the kids that surrounded the church. For manual labor we worked on a guest house at Dunamis. Two teams mixed concrete, one team cut wires, and my team filled holes and made a driveway.
Now we are back at Inca Link and Camp Hope for one more week until mid-point debrief. Which is insane. ONE. WEEK. And we are halfway done with the race. That is the most insane thing ever. Time flies.
