Today team Reckless Pursuit and team Luminous leave Huaticocha to travel back to Quito and reunite with the rest of our squad before leaving Ecuador to head to Peru tomorrow evening.
During my time here I have grown to genuinely love and adore the people in the communities we have visited. I have seen the broken down families and lost children, the hurt and the sick, the discouraged. I have loved every minute of my time getting to know them, hearing their stories, playing with the kids, and just loving on them.
But I don’t think my heart really broke for them and their stories until 2 days ago, when we visited a community called Pacto Sumaco.
Pacto Sumaco is a small community that sits at the base of a dormant volcano. The people were relocated to there by the government in the 1980s after a devastating landslide demolished their village, taking about half the population with it. Jim told us that almost every single person in the community lost a family member in the landslide.
One of the members of the church, Marco, took us on a short hike through some of the jungle to see more of the area and some beautiful views. He was warm and welcoming, smiling ear-to-ear and pointing out the various jungle plants and the occasional birds as we hiked. It wasn’t until later that Jim told us Marco had watched helplessly while the landslide took two of his kids under.
Later on that day we met a girl with visible deformities on her face. She was sweet and gentle and although she was a little bit older than most of the kids, she genially just kind of hung out with everyone. Afterwards while we were eating dinner, Jim told us that she had been born with birth defects and that her parents had treated her as if she were an animal. She lived that way for many years until another family in the church heard about how she was being treated, and took her in.
At church that night there was a time at the end for people to share prayer requests. I was struck by how many people asked for prayer for injuries and illnesses, for themselves but also for members of the community who weren´t even there.
Everywhere we went there seemed to be stories of sickness, loss, brokenness.
I felt the heaviness in Pacto Sumaco. As the day went on I became more and more convinced that it was not just the cloudy, windy weather. We were not just tired. There is a spiritual battle in Pacto Sumaco, a darkness there that is trying to settle in.
[Marco, leading us down the trail]
That night I shared my testimony at church and I shared Psalm 18 with the congregation, one of my favorite passages. I read them verses 16-19:
He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delights in me.
I told the people that not only does God hear our cries of distress, He is moved by them. He is moved to action. He is not distant or passive, but He comes down to meet us in all of His glory, moving mountains to scatter our enemies and come to our rescue.
And in that place, in that time, I could see it. To me, it was almost tangible. Every face I saw reflected back at me the love of God. Every person I looked at I saw so clearly a child of the Lord. And I felt, like actually felt, the Lord´s great love and compassion for these people. I felt His desire to move mightily for them, to rescue them from the darkness that is too great for them.
I felt like I wanted to spend the next week there, visiting the families and people and hearing their stories, sharing in their pain, but also sharing in God´s love and encouragement.
I am so thankful that God showed me His heart even more clearly through visiting that community. I know for certain that He loves us, He delights in us, He longs to right every wrong, wipe every tear from every eye, and restore us to Him and how we were created to be.
I trust that He will do it in His perfect timing. I will continue to pray for the beautiful people of Pacto Sumaco and eagerly await the day when I can hear of Christ´s victory claimed by everyone in the place. And I will keep on praising Him for the work He has already started.
[team Reckless Pursuit in the jungle]
