Heyo!
I know I’ve kept the radio silent for a while, and that’s because I haven’t felt compelled to write anything. Well, time to tune in again! Speaking of tuning in, something I’ve wanted to delve more into, is my intimacy with the Lord. It’s something that I’ve lacked in and I am in the perfect position to deepen our relationship right now. It takes some tuning to get to hear His voice, but I’m getting the hang of it. My team has been really supportive of me as well, giving tips, encouraging me and offering to help. I mean, just the fact that they are excited and are offering to help in any way, is an encouragement alone. I’m really excited in this pursuit of mine and what arises from it!
Something that makes it difficult to keep that intimacy going is the amount of ministry we have right now. We moved locations, because the squad has split up. And now, my team is now in Portoviejo, Ecuador. We are working with multiple ministries these next two months, and all are super involved and are all at different times. Most mornings, we work in the local hospital sorting/organizing files and moving supplies (The men are usually the ones moving supplies because they won’t allow the women to do the physical exertion). Then the afternoons and evenings are split up day by day. Some days we work with the youth from the church, other days we are in cell groups, (which are also with the church). And three days out of the week we go to a garbage dump and minister to the children and families who live there. It is usually us singing a song and playing a game, or our ministry host telling a story from the Bible, and then having the children color a picture from the story. We also give them a meal at the end.
All of the ministries have their own intricacies, excitements and challenges (My challenge usually ends up being the fact that I don’t speak Spanish). But, the garbage dump is by far the most interesting. It’s a collection of families who work for the garbage company, but who are too poor to own/rent a house, so they have built their own in the dump. They also cannot afford transportation, so they do everything there! They have their own school, and livestock, and if they need anything else, they rummage through the garbage that comes in! One of the reasons we are there is to give them clean water. A water purification system was given to the church by Prince Peter from the Vatican and we use it to pump and purify water for these families.
There is another update from my team. We have a name change! When we left Quito and went to debrief, we knew a name change was necessary. We had a lot of challenges last month and felt that we were changing as individuals, and as a collective team. We were Charismata, but we are now Collective Pursuit. We all vision casted to see where we will go as a team. We all got something similar, in that we are all pursuing each other and pursuing God. Another massive change was losing a team member. We have gone from 7 to 6 members. At debrief, the Leadership team made the decision to remove Megan from our team. They thought and prayed about this decision for a while, and they felt the Lord calling her elsewhere. We were hit hard. And it was a tough transition for all of us. I am at peace about the situation, though. I trust in God, and his plans for all of us.
I thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for myself, my team and my squad. As always, continued prayers are appreciated and welcomed. Life is not easy, but with God anything is possible!
May God bless you all!
