Hello everyone! Tomorrow is Valentines Day, and I think this is the end of my third week, and boy, is there a lot to talk about. Let’s start with the fun stuff. What have we been doing?
On Thursdays, we drive to an empty building that’s being renovated to be a medical office for Venezualan refugees. Our primary job has been painting the walls, but along the way, we get to learn about the Venezualan crisis. Let me tell you… it breaks my heart. Hundreds of thousands of Venezualans are fleeing their country because they couldn’t access medical treatment, sufficient food, or any kind of safety. The government has turned against them and their “votes” mean absolutely nothing. They have sought refuge in neighboring countries, including Ecuador, but have been immigrating illegally because their government refuses to give them passports. These immigrants flood the streets selling energy drinks and lemons and still don’t have proper medical facilities to go to. Venezuela En Ecuador is a nonprofit founded by a Venezualan to provide medical treatment, food, and counseling to these immigrants. It has been an honor getting to hear his story and be a part of redeeming it. If you want to check out the organization, you can go here. (You’ll need google translate with you).
On Wednesdays and Fridays, we go to Camp Hope, the camp for disabled kids I mentioned in my last blog. The camp basically offers daycare, music lessons, physical therapy, and more for these kids, but they haven’t been able to operate in person since COVID hit. We’ve had the privilege of getting the facility ready for use again by cleaning, organizing, and gardening. To make scrubbing and disinfecting fun, we’ve gotten very invested in 20 Questions and deep philosophical conversations about God. To learn more about Camp Hope, you can go here.
On Saturdays and Sundays, we help Mabe and Fabi (our hosts) around the house. One job on the property is digging a 20 feet long by 4 feet wide by 2 feet deep trench to make space for native trees (we watched Holes last night for inspiration). The fun part… there are tarantulas everywhere! We also just started building a cardboard kitchen for their daughter Alegria and spent the rest of the day chopping organic veggies. Sometimes we split up and clean the house, chop wood, garden, or clean out La Cabaña (an old house on the property) to prepare it for demolition. Manual labor is honestly a lot of fun when we’re blasting Maverick City, Frank Sinatra, or One Direction.
Every Monday, we go on an adventure! Last Monday, we went to the center of the world (the closest point to the sun in the world, 0 degrees longitude and latitude) and attempted to hike a volcano before realizing it was closed (RIP). We also met Gap E, the 9-month gap year squad also working in Ecuador! They’ll be staying on our property next week (all 30 of them) and then going back to their own ministries.
Here are my favorite foods so far:
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Granadilla – a fruit with a hardshell on the outside, a foamy coating in the middle, and frog egg-like seeds in the middle. Gross looking but literally the best thing ever.
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Arepas – Avocado-chicken, tomato-basil, goat cheese, or tuna fillings inside a warm cornbread crust.
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Popcorn soup – a creamy soup that we pile popcorn into. Sounds weird, but trust me, it’s great. Highly recommend popcorn in any soup.
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Chocolate cake pancakes – exactly as it sounds. Literally just chocolate cake batter made into pancakes.
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Empanadas – plantain-based crust filled with chicken and cheese. Yum!
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Arroz con Leche – Rice in milk. A strange texture but filling and delicious!
Ministry and Adventures days are a blast, but I find the most joy in our Sabbath days on Tuesdays. Here is where the Lord speaks the loudest. Here is where I can spend four hours straight worshipping on the lawn and reading books about his grace and journaling with him. So… what has he been saying lately?
Well, I’ve been reading Captivating by Stasi and John Eldredge, and that has stirred so much inside of me. The first few chapters are about wounds, and my initial thought was, “I have a great family! I don’t have any wounds!” But then the Lord was like, “You can feel a sting, so you have wounds.” God proceeded to remind me of my history with friends and the messages those friendships have hammered into my mind. “I am not enough.” “I am too loud.” “I am not enjoyable.” Here is where the beautiful redemption of the Lord comes in. Over the past week, he has taught me the true depth of my beauty and the many ways I reflect him.
If you’ve read Captivating, you also know another big part of the book– love and romance. My initial thought was, “This doesn’t even apply to me.” I’m as single as you can get. Then Jesus did something remarkable. He first showed me how HE romances me (like what? God loves me like that?) and then he gave me a clear vision of what my romance with a man will look like in the future. He gave me eyes to see the godly attributes my man will have and then he told me how I also have godly attributes. God is showing me how to love him more and appreciate myself more.
There’s a whole lot more to tell (the emotional and spiritual growth in the past three weeks has been unexplainable) but I don’t really have the time. Basically, the Lord is working. Hard. Loud. Fast. He is working in painful ways. He is working in beautiful ways. He is working in my heart and in my relationships and in every part of my life.
My question for you: What wound have you been ignoring? What does Jesus have to say about it?
Thank you for reading! Over and out.
P.S. Here are a few pictures to help you visualize everything:
Granadilla (top right on the plate)
The trench! (Sorry it’s sideways, lol)
One of the rooms in Camp Hope!
Popcorn soup!
Empanadas!
Us painting the medical office (sorry again for the sideways pic)
Thats all for now! For more pics, you can follow @wrsouthamerica2021
Byeeee
