At debrief we were given a word by our squad leaders for the month, the word was challenge. At the end of our first month we found out we were going to be doing manual labor so our team knew that was a great word for month one. So we are helping build a cinderblock wall around Dunamis which is going to be a safe house for girls that are rescued out of sex trafficking. Currently the girls come there a couple times a week for lessons in sewing, making jewelry and life skills to help them become functioning members of society and learn to support themselves without using there bodies. We met the girls for a short coloring session our first day. The youngest girl is 12 the oldest is 17.
We aren’t able to ask them questions about their lives or what happened (with good reasons) but we will be getting to spend a couple hours a week with them, and I am sooo excited. Even though we have only got to spend a short period of time with the girls I already feel so connected to this ministry and the people that run it.
On our normal days our ministry looks like waking up breakfast at 8 we leave the house around 9 catch 3 buses to make it up to the mountains by 11.
The day one we started off by cutting out pieces of fabric for the girls showing project then sitting down and coloring with them and getting to know a little about them. After that we were mixing cement, then taking wheelbarrows full cement down the hill to bring them back up the hill. ( side note when when I say hill I’m talking steep steep hills like San Fran type hills) and that’s what we did all day! Day 2 was the same but without getting to spend time with the girls. Day 3 they had 30 steel poles that we had to carry down the hills to the very bottom then dig the base for the wall to sit in. Day 4 was unloading 1,000 cinderblocks from the back of a dump truck then mixing more cement to pour into the the holes the poles were sitting in.
Day 4 was we had an extra adventure of riding in the back of a dump truck back up the hill, it was the scariest thing EVER! The hills are so steep the trucks can’t get up so we got stuck a couple of times.
Day 5 was the same but add a ton of rain! Here in Ecuador rain doesn’t stop construction, they keep going even in the rain.
So by the end of Friday we were sore, bruised, soaking wet, but still laughing through it all because regardless of how much we hurt or how soaking wet we are the reason we are doing this is far greater than anything we could ever imagine! These girls need this wall to feel safe, to have a comfortable place to stay. It’s a small sacrifice for us to make!
