Wow. We have done our first week of ministry, and it already
seems like I have been on the field for a month, but at the same time, the time
has flown by. Its been interesting because I know the most Spanish of our team,
which is not very much at all, and our contact speaks no English, so we have
gone mostly on trust and hand signals. Monday was a rest day, but Tuesday, we
headed to a town called Manta. In Manta, we headed to a orphanage to hang out
with the kids and to paint one of the houses. Manta is on a mountain, so we got
there and the orphanage was literally in the clouds the two days we were there,
but directing behind the orphanage, and I mean DIRECTLY BEHIND was the Pacific
Ocean! It was so beautiful. So the first day we were there, we painted the railings
of the house. We spent the entire day sanding and painting the railings, and
when we woke up the next morning, the moisture had been so thick over night, it
washed most of the railing paint off. As frustrating as it could have been, we
all took it extremely well and decided to push on and paint the house. The
entire second day, it rained as well, so painting in the rain was difficult,
but the Lord allowed us to get it done. After we finished painting, we went
inside and watched TV with the kids. We watched Zack and…well I forget, but it
was some Disney show, and we also watched The Pacifier. It brought so much joy
to just sit there and enjoy something as simple as TV.
The next morning, we woke up, packed, and headed to our next
ministry site, Porto Cayo. Porto Cayo was also a beautiful city, right on the
beach of the Pacific, and our ministry there was to do construction on the
church and help with ministry in the church. So when we got there, we unpacked
our stuff in the church, and headed to their new site and immediately began
construction on the church. We worked on that for the rest of the morning, and
then Percey, our contact, took us to the beach to relax and take in God’s
beauty. That night, we went and did some house to house evangelizing and
invited people to a church service being held that night. From what I was told,
it was the most people at a church service in quite some time in Porto Cayo.
After church, we grabbed our tents and sleeping bags, and headed out to sleep
on the beach! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done! God is so
awesome and his creation is so beautiful.
So the next morning, we woke up and at breakfast and did
more construction in the morning, and went to swim for the afternoon before we
headed back to Portoviejo. As we left, I thought back to all the houses we
visited and people we talked to. I remember after visiting a family, she
invited all 11 of us in for dinner. I remember sitting down, and realizing this
family gave us their best food and treated us like royalty. I also remember the
wife, who wanted us to be able to see, taking the only light in the house with
electricity, she stood next to the table to give us light the entire time we
ate dinner. So as I drove away from the city, I thought to myself if we did
enough for the kingdom of God. I remember the Holy Spirit telling me to put my
hand on every house and just pray for the Holy Spirit to move in that place,
but I wondered if there was anything else I could have done, because honestly I
felt useless not knowing enough Spanish to converse with them. And this is when
God showed up. You have to know that its rainy season here in Ecuador. I’m
serious when I say I haven’t seen the sun, moon, or stars for more than 5
minutes since getting off the plane in Quito. But as we drove away from the
city lights of Porto Cayo, the clouds broke, and as I listened to a song by
Needtobreathe about the amazing power and work of God, the sky was so clear I
looked up and could not only see so many stars, but saw the Milky Way galaxy.
In that moment, God filled me with peace and said, “Look at this. Remember how
big I am.” So as we drove off, with ten of us crammed in the bed of a pickup
for two hours, I sat and watched the stars and remembered how powerful He can
be, and how awesome He is.
…….Then today happened. I am still in shock and my heart
yearns for a way to do something more. Today, we filled a huge tub up with
clean water to take to the garbage dump for the families that live there. When
we got there, the site was unreal and the desperation like nothing I have seen
before. We pulled in, and it was your typical trash dump. Miles and miles of
trash everywhere, the smell was awful, and along the sides on the hills were
houses for those who had no other choice but to live in the dump….I mean no
choice. They had no money and no family. They literally scavenged the dump
looking for something to eat, burning anything they could find for heat and
finding anything they could for clothing. I did my part, unloading the water in
to dirt-filled containers for the family to have to drink later on. We made
small talk with the families with the little Spanish we know, then packed up
and headed back to church. I lost it after that. Its an endless cycle for these
families. They parents grew up there because their parents did, and the kids
will always live there because they aren’t aloud to go to school, so they will
never have an opportunity to do anything different. I was humbled to think of
all the luxuries I have while these children of the living God live in literal
waste.
