December 5th, 2016 at 6 am I leave for jungle trip round two. This is a trip we take a bus for three hours and trek for over four hours. Going to a village called Karama , it will be my second time at this village in less than a month. After the first trip I knew I was suppose to go on the second trip even though it is not an easy trip at all. We are the only group of missionaries that go into this village and are not rejected by locals. The only reason they allow us in is because of this little boy named Martin who used to live at Casa De Fe the orphanage here in Shell. Through checking on him and his well being it has allowed Chris to build a relationship with other leaders in this village.
Sweat rolls down my face, drips off my shoulder to my back, down my back and to the ground. As my feet scream to be let out of my yellow rain boots, I feel my toes rubbing and blisters building up with each step I take. As I watch the feet in front of me, they are black rainboots and in front of these rainboots is another set of black rain boots. Both boots move steadily with each step they take. Raising my head up I see two little feet dangling from the cocoon on the back of the mother in front of me. As I look up more my eyes connect with two little eyes peeking out from behind their mother’s shoulders. The rainboots I had been watching belong to these two mothers who were headed to the same village as we were. They had recently joined us. One had her baby and a bag the other had her baby and a big bottle of gas.
These ladies walked as if they were walking down the street in a town just going a few blocks. Truth is they were going miles, up hills, down hills, balancing on logs, and going through mud. Then to think, one was six months and the other a little older were both born in the jungle. People think having an at home birth in the States is crazy, imagine becoming a mother in the jungle. Where there isn’t a hospital for miles, no cars, no really powerful medicine to take away pain or fix other problems. My mind wandered to thinking about the strength these women have not only mentally but also physically. Next, I thought how it is so natural for them to go through all of this.
See girls from this village will finish 7th grade and then they get married and start families. Often they are not the only wife in the family either. The leader of the village has three wives. Their childhood ends much sooner than 7th grade though. I saw many of the same young girls carrying around their little brother or sister, comforting, calming, and loving them. Girls in the jungle have so many more responsibility than little girls in the states and expectations are set higher at younger ages. They grow up so fast and often are not shown the love and care that they should be shown. Physical and sexual abuse is not something that is easy to stop in the jungle and so often their are not even people around that know what is happening. The inspiration, confidence, and motivation to push on that I see in not only the mothers who gave birth to the kids but the little girls is just unbelievable.
Recently I have learned that I struggle to love myself as I love others. As I recognize that and learn from it I see where I have also failed to feel and accepted love from others. All this leading to the question that one of the girls on my squad asked me. She said “Amber, do you know God loves you and feel his love or do you accept one and not the other?” This was a hard question for me to answer although it should have been easy. My response was I just know it, I do not feel it. Accepting love from others and feeling God’s love for me are things I am learning. My home life was not the easiest but it was nowhere close to the life jungle women and girls have. As I continued through this trip to the jungle I realized how hard it will be for them to accept that they have a heavenly Father that loves them more then anyone on the world has ever loved them. That He loves them, knows them, cares for every hair on them, and will never hurt them. So we went to the jungle, brought them gifts for Christmas, shared the message, shared God’s love in our actions and words, gave them Bibles, played with them, and did what we could at that time to represent Christ. How much of a difference did that make right away I do not know. I don’t know if it helped any of the women and girls to believe and feel God’s love even more. Although I do know that Chris will continue to take groups back there and that he will continue to show God’s love to them. With confidence in knowing God can do great things I pray for a change in the village and in the lives of the women and girls. Pray for leaders to step up to live as Christ has called us to and to love as He did. For the women and girls to feel and know God’s love. Pray these things with me and join me in knowing but also feeling God’s love everyday that He gives me.
Link to the Zuniga Family Mission facebook page (this is the family I am living with here in Shell)
https://www.facebook.com/EcuadorMissionsZFM/?fref=ts
Photos by Josh Potter:
This is the little boy Martin that made the connections with this village possible.
