It’s crazy for me to think I’ve been in Ecuador for two whole weeks!
We began the month in debrief with the rest of our squad. Housed in the cutest AirBnB in Banos, those 5 days were spent resting, reflecting, worshipping, and reuniting with our little family. I didn’t realize how much I missed some of my other squad mates until we were reunited!
At the end of debrief, it was time to go. Once again our teams set out across the country, only this time it was during the South American holiday, Carnaval. (Think super stereotypical Florida spring break on steroids. Boom, Carnaval). EVERYTHING was booked.
My team felt called to the coast and then up to the forest, so we bought the cheapest tickets for an overnight bus to Santa Elena (a town on the coast) and trusted that the Lord would provide lodging when we got there. This was the first time I’ve ever asked the Lord to provide in such a way, and miraculously I felt His peace during the whole situation. I wasn’t nervous – He was gonna do it!
We pulled into Santa Elena around 7am, unloaded our packs from the bus, and huddled in a corner of the bus station. After a quick prayer, 2 of my teammates set out to look for lodging while myself and 2 others stayed with the bags. We prayed. We got some snacks. We played some card games. We prayed some more. We prayed specific. 10:30am rolled around and our 2 teammates finally returned!
“We found a place. It’s a little out of our budget… but we found a place.”
They found a church. It wasn’t the coziest of places, it didn’t have a hot shower, & for some reason they were reluctant to let us use the wifi. But, dang it, we had a place to stay that night. None of us were about to complain over God’s provision. Personally, I was STOKED. He is just sooooo good!
That day, we found a cafe. Let me rephrase: We found the ONLY cafe, Julia’s. It was closed, but we did get to meet Julia and she said we could come back in the morning for brunch and use her WiFi!
So we did. The next morning was Sunday, and we had one of THE best brunches at Julia’s. We sat around the table with our phones & iPads searching AirBnB, looking at maps, praying for direction and miracles and for a place to have room that was in budget. We weren’t finding anything.
All of a sudden, a man walks up to our table and asks us where we’re from. His name is Calvin, he’s from South Africa, and was super interested in what we were doing. We gave him the run down of our mission and how we’re traveling for a year. He asked us where we were staying and we explained that at the moment we were staying at a church, but we’re looking for something else. By this time, more of his friends had arrived and were conversing with us as well. They were all made aware of our situation and assured us that we weren’t going to find anything for the next couple days. It was Carnaval.
Calvin called a couple of his friends that probably had extra space, but they were out of our budget. Another family wished us well, but they just didn’t have enough space for 5 extra people. But one couple, Bill & Val, told us that, if we wanted, they had one guest bedroom we could stuff ourselves into and would only charge us what we could afford. Whaaat?! We told them that we would let them know, we needed to talk over all of our options as team.
We highly considered Bill & Val’s offer, and decided to take it to the Lord. We prayed for clarity since staying with them meant staying in Santa Elena 2 extra days (we initially planned to leave after one night and head further north).
We said, “Amen,” and Val plopped herself into the only empty seat at our table.
“Okay, so when you guys come over, just know that I have to leave the house by 5 to run some errands. So if you could come before 4, that would be ideal….” and then gave us directions to her house.
We hadn’t even discussed as a team. We hadn’t even made a decision. But, at least to me, it looked like the Lord made it very clear: we were staying.
The next two nights at Bill & Val’s were AMAZING. First, just the fact that the Lord provided us with a family to open their home to us in, literal, perfect timing. Second, they had a pool (#sufferingforJesus, I know). Third, we got to cook them dinner our last night there – it was so fun!
While we sat, we talked about everything: our college majors, desires of the future, religion, politics, the difference between Ecuador & the US, how great our dinner was (we did so good), and so much more. I learned more about their hearts, what they’ve been doing in Santa Elena, and their desires for that town. They’ve been working on building Santa Elena up for the past 4 years – helping rebuild (literally) roads and buildings. Going to town meetings and arguing that the town needs clean water before it needs another lookout over the ocean. They’ve raised money, they’ve initiated, they’ve been the difference.
When my team said our goodbyes to Bill & Val, we weren’t just saying goodbye to some really nice people. We were saying goodbye to new friends. If we were able to leave half the mark on them that they made on us, I’d be happy.
God is just so good!!
What’s a new, insane way to ask Him to provide for you, today? Do you dare ask Him to do it?
– G.
