Puerto Lopez – a small coastal town, with so many friendships too offer. We stayed in this town for 10 days, and within this time we met such amazing people from all different walks of life, each with their own story to offer.
When we first stepped off the bus into Puerto Lopez we met a man named Marcus. Marcus is a tuk tuk driver, tours man, bus man, and quite the character. After following us around on his tuk tuk, helping us find our new home, Marcus quickly stole our heart. We came across Marcus almost everyday. He was everywhere. When we walked to the beach, went to the bus station, or walked back from dinner, he was there! Bumping into him was always full of adventure, laughter, friendship, and good conversation.
In Puerto Lopez we stayed with a local family. We met their son through AirBnB and he became a source of getting plugged into the community as well as a friend. Each time we ran into his parents we talked for what felt like hours. We shared with them the purpose of our trip and spent some of our time helping out at their business, selling tours to foreigners. It was a really great opportunity because the parents don’t speak much English, which is what the majority of the tourists spoke. On our last day, they invited us into their side of the house for tea & delicious cheese breads. We took many pictures, became friends on Facebook, and shared lots of hugs.
Almost immediately after we found our home that first night we searched out for some cheap food. We came across the best pizza in all the land, run by Valentine and his 12 year-old son Carlos. Easily two of the kindest men who made it a point to stop and say hi anytime we ran into either of them. A few days into our stay we discovered Valentine had gone out of town for the week and left Carlos in charge! We then made it our personal responsibility to check in on Carlos and see if he needed anything, which often resulted in the purchasing of more pizza.
Our neighbors also had a huge impact on our time in Puerto Lopez. Our first interaction with the neighbors was simply trying to get their dog to like us. We slowly became friends with the kids. We talked to them about their favorite music, danced with them, and took them out to pizza. Through interacting with the kids, we gained friendship with the moms and grandparents. This was real a testament in terms of being able to reach parents by the way you treat their kids. When we left we got to hand off some clothes, bags, and games to the family. We all hugged and promised if we returned to Puerto Lopez we would come straight to their home.
We quickly discovered the lady we bought cheap burgers from was a Christian and son we made it a point to share encouragement with her each time we stopped by. She told us about her church one Saturday night, just 5 blocks up the road. The next morning we went venturing through the mud to find it and ended up on some backroads where the end of blocks aren’t distinguishable and only locals travel. It was the best. We’re pretty sure we ended up at a completely different church than the one she attends, as there were only 4 other people in the congregation besides us, and she wasn’t one of them. But it stole our heart, as we were invited to return again and again.
As we took a soccer ball to the beach one night, we knew instantly we had just discovered the art of making friends. We put the ball on the sand and a group of guys immediately asked us to play. More and more people joined in. Turns out one of the guys, Daniel, had heard about us through his mom whose church we went to! We connected and got to meet up a couple times throughout our stay to testify even more about why we were there.
Marty is a man we met two nights in a row at a small street side pop up kind of restaurant. He’s vacationing from New York and has spent the past month in Ecuador. We got to know him over these two encounters, hearing a bit about his life and telling him what we are doing and the reasoning behind it. He was intrigued by what we were doing and said, “you are the right kind of girls to be doing this. You have made me feel so included and valued.”
He continued to tell us about his family situation, how it’s been flipped on its head recently, and how he’s just not the most fond of religion in general. Marty and his wife had recently split when she converted to Jehovah’s Witness, and there’s definitely a slight bitterness there. On our last night seeing him, he said, “I wish my wife got to meet you girls.” He saw something different within us, not simply a religion and a set of rules being followed as he seemed to perceive religion to be.
One of the final people we got to meet was Chiachi, who is from Taiwan. She is currently studying abroad in Peru, but was in Ecuador traveling by herself for a few weeks. We met her on our second last day in Puerto Lopez on the beach and took her in as our own, having her join us in soccer, pizza and all the things. When she joined us on the second last night she said, “I had the absolute best time last night and I experienced so much joy, life, and love that I couldn’t miss another opportunity to spend time with all of you.” We are still in contact with her and are hoping to see her again next month in Peru and cannot wait to minister to her even more! Please continue to pray for this relationship!
These are just some of the things that happened within those 10 days in that small town. Each one of these relationships are treasured and that resulted in it being hard to say goodbye. Meeting each of these people just showed me how much love we have to give as a result of the amount of love God gives us and how we should give it freely to everyone we meet. Each person is experiencing their own joys/challenges and hardships, no matter whether they the pizza guy, the guys we play soccer with, the man on the street – pouring into each of them can have such an effect!
Also a HUGE thank you to all who helped suporting me in prayer and through finances! I was able to reach my second last financial deadline and I am so so grateful for that! So thank you!
(Co-written by Kylee and Grace)
