Hey Everyone!
I know it’s been way to long since my last blog post. We have been in Ecuador for about two months now. It’s crazy how fast time has gone by! We are now in our ninth month and have about four weeks until we come home. Ecuador has been such a cool country to be in and is so beautiful!
The first month we were here, was spent in a small town outside of Quito, in the mountains. The organization we were working with helps rescue girls from sex trafficking and provides them with a place to live, education, and counseling. While we were there, they were in the final preparations of getting the house and property ready for their first girls to arrive. We got to help finish a ten foot high wall that surrounds the entire eleven acre property, finish painting the interior of the house, and cleaned up the property of trash from all of the construction. It was super awesome to be a part of that project.
Since our second month of being in Ecuador we have been working with an organization called Cru. We work with three different schools in Quito. During the school day, we help the students practice English and through our conversations, share about our lives and about Christ. This has been our first relational ministry while being on the race and it’s a lot different from everything else we have been doing. It has really pushed me into being intentional with people I don’t know and being vulnerable with them. It has been really cool to hang out with students of all ages. The elementary students are so sweet and it is such a joy to be a part of their classes and teach them English. The high school students speak a decent amount of English and it is so cool to here about their lives and hangout with them.
I have loved our ministries here in Ecuador and have enjoyed the culture and spectacular beauty it has to offer. Although, if I am completely honest, these past couple months have been pretty tough for me personally. I have been struggling with a lot of apathy. Apathy is something that I struggled with before my race, and coming on the race kind of kicked me out of it and gave me my passion back. But as we all know, your problems follow you and apathy took control of me once again. I am still battling it and the Lord has been teaching me a lot about myself through this time. He is teaching me that I need to rely on him for the strength to love others well and have joy, because in my own strength I fail. He has shown me that I tend to put my identity in other’s expectations of me and is teaching me how to put my identity in Him. He is teaching what it means to truly love my brothers and sisters in Christ, even if they might not be someone I typically get along with well. These are a few examples of what God has been working with me on. I would really appreciate it if you would be praying that He continues to push me and be filled with His love and joy.
I would also like to ask for your prayers for our whole squad. The enemy has been waging war against our community and these past few weeks have been pretty rough for the majority of us. We are all tired and ready to come home, but we are still so blessed to have three more weeks on the field. Be praying that we will finish our race well and stay present with where we are at. There are still so many opportunities the Lord has in store for us and we definitely do not want to miss out. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers! I miss you all!
-CJ
