Expectations? God knows no bounds, no limits. I’m not sure exactly what i expected this trip to look like, maybe i was expecting to teaching kids English or being able to evangelize on the streets. But thats not how it has been and its even more beautiful this way! Me and my team were blessed to go to the West coast of Ecuador for debrief. For those of you that don’t know what debrief is, it is the halfway point in the trip where we take a week to rest and process everything that has happened. The beach was absolutely beautiful, but my favorite part was the people there. Two adorable little girls 9-10 years old were cracking nuts open with rocks on the beach and offered me one to eat. And of course if two Ecuadorian girls offer you a tree nut you take it. After that i joined them cracking nuts and talking. They knew a little english and enjoyed being able to practice. They were teaching me Spanish and i enjoyed every second of it! It was great getting to know the people there. Everything was wonderful up until our day two at debrief. We woke up to find out that someone had come in through my team’s balcony while we were sleeping and stolen from us. Phones, computers, and backpacks were missing. Some of it was tossed around on the ground outside. The up side was that we all still had our passports! Hallelujah! What a blessing it was that none of my team woke up when they were in the room. It left us shaken up and not really knowing what to think. We filed a police report and did all the things we could on our end. Covid hit really hard leaving lots of people out of a job and consequently getting very desperate. Even though that happened, we are alive and well ready for the next challenge the Lord puts in our path.
Me and my team left debrief and continued to do lots of manual labor and painting around Casa Blanca, where we had been staying. Me and my team had our last day at Camp Hope, which is a ministry that takes care of kids with disabilities. I loved talking to the two women working there, Durdurgally and Silvia, they were so patient and kind. I didn’t know much Spanish and they didn’t know much English so conversation consisted of my choppy knowledge of Spanglish and them figuring out what i was saying. It was quite amusing for the both of us, and i loved all of it.
We have recently moved to stay at a different ministry called Dunamis, which houses girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking. There are 9 girls here right now, and two of their adorable babies. The ministry shows the girls what real love is and teach them about the love of the Lord. We will be here for 5 days cooking food for the girls and tending to their huge tomato farm of 8,000 plants, which they use to make money for their ministry. There is something really therapeutic about trimming tomato plants for 8 hours, let me tell ya. We only have one month left so I am looking forward to making the most of every moment here!
