Month 2 in Ecuador is the only month I had where the climate was somewhat cool. Every other month besides has been Summer. Just straight up Summer. It was our first all-squad month, which means the entire group of us, 57 at the time, lived together. Plus we had both our squad mentor and our squad media content coordinator from the States with us, so there were 59 of us all together. For most people that would sound extremely overwhelming, but I honestly loved it. We were all still getting to know each other. In fact, there were still members of my squad whose names I couldn’t remember, so the opportunity to hang out with new faces and personalities was exciting to me. The average temperature at night was in the 50s, and the highs were in the low 70s and high 60s. It rained most days, the currency was the US Dollar, public transportation was super cheap, and the scenery was great. Honestly, Ecuador may be my favorite month now that I’m thinking about it.
The whole squad lived together, but each of the 8 teams still had separate ministries to work with in different parts of the city, Quito. My team worked with an after-school and before-school daycare sort of thing that was run by two ladies, Tamara and Maria. These two ladies have run this program for years and dedicated their lives to providing a safe place for high risk kids and teenagers. We helped the kids with homework, played with them, ate lunch with them, prayed with them, etc. Maria cooked meals for all of the kids every day, so at least one member of the team would help her with food prep in the kitchen. Some of us also did special projects like creating a library/hang-out area in a corner of one of their buildings. Loving on kids and serving those who serve – that was our ministry.
The food was a little different that month. We ate a ton of soup, and usually it was very small portions. Even at the childcare center, soup was the name of the game. Travel was in packed out public buses once again. The girls slept in bunk beds inside a gated compound, while the guys slept in their tents outside of our building.
One of my favorite things about our month in Ecuador was the squad sessions we had twice a week. We had worship together, heard the testimonies of our alumni squad leaders, and had encouraging messages from the Word. One of the last sessions that we had like this was a full-on, nothing but worship night that lasted for at least 4 hours. All of the worship leaders on the squad took turns leading in music and song, and we adored God together until after midnight. It was beautiful… and probably my favorite night of the whole month. I wish I had video to share because I know I don’t have the words to explain how awesome that night was from my perspective.
This is also the month when God really started to work on me about letting go of my fear and control issues, and to start trusting in Him and His ability to provide for me, my team, my family and all of my needs. Some of you may recall a post I made about this topic back in March titled Out Of Control where I referred to an incident with one of my sisters that really slapped me in the face with revelation about my inability to maintain control over every situation. This began my realization that I would be facing a trend in my lessons over the year.
1 – Letting go of fear and control
2 – Trusting and relying wholly and entirely on God
This has remained the trend with little spatters of other things popping up every once in a while. We humans sometimes let our fears and insecurities build a pride within us where we feel we have to take care of and control everything ourselves. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about responsibility. We all have responsibilities and things that we MUST do, but there are also a great many things that we cannot do, yet try to do. Getting money for a long mission trip, for example. Sometimes we try to take control of things like that and it causes us to rely on ourselves and not on God. Perhaps God wants us to rely on Him so that it will build our faith and trust in Him.
There are also things we try to do like trying to change/fix people – one of my big problems coming into the Race, and something I still have to keep an eye on. This is not to say we shouldn’t correct our brothers and sisters in Christ (please remember that part: in Christ), but we need to have an understanding that we CANNOT fix them or their problems. That’s not our job. It’s God’s. Our job is to love them through it. There’s an awesome book that has gone around in our squad called Love Does by Bob Goff. While I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, it’s been talked about enough that I know quite a bit about it (and will eventually read it). One quote from Bob that I keep hearing over and over, and I’m pretty sure is God’s gentle reminder to me with this lesson, is this: “I used to want to fix people. Now, I just want to be with them.”
I didn’t understand any of this back in Ecuador, but in hindsight I can see that Ecuador was where the road to understanding began. And just because I have an understanding now doesn’t mean I always get it right. I still have to keep a check on myself and my actions to be sure I’m not trying to be the savior. I’m no one’s savior, but I can always direct them to The Savior.
