Since I’ve somehow managed to miss blogging about Ecuador (and Peru for the most part) I’m going to try and catch you back up on what you missed. Here’s a quick recap of a month that is impossible to describe in a nutshell. God did AWESOME things here. Awesome. But I have extremely limited internet, and even more limited time, as tomorrow is a travel day (INDIAAAAAA soon) and we have a team dinner with our amazing ministry hosts and their son tonight 🙂 So when I say recap, I MEAN a short recap, sadly.COVi was our ministry in Quito, Ecuador. It is an after school program for kids ages tiny through teens.
The women with whom we interacted the most were Tamarita (she founded the program and runs it day to day) and Señora Mari, in charge of the kitchen, though she does many other things without being asked. COVi is located in the middle of a park in the center of Quito, Ecuador. It’s an area known for sketchy activity, and Tamarita’s passion is to reach the kids’ hearts with the love of Jesus before they end up on the streets. Tamarita is a shining light. At any time you could see her sitting outside with kids gathered around her, honed in on every word she was saying. She POURS love out on them. She prays for them, and she gives them words of wisdom for their lives every day.These kids ride buses for up to FOUR hours each day to get to and from COVi. They come for love, food, homework help, games, friends, crafts, and Bible lessons. My team and I fell head over heels in love with COVi and with the children there. When we left there were tears on all sides. It’s so hard to build relationships with incredible people for just one month and then pack your bags, knowing that you’ll probably never see them again. But this is the Race, and it’s what we signed up for. We’re trusting that the Lord has us in each place for only one month for an incredible reason. While we were there we struggled with the language barrier, we were stretched by frustrating kids and situations, we were overwhelmed with love for people we had never met before, and we grew in ways we never anticipated. God allowed us to pour into the lives of Tamara and Señor Mari and He DEFINITELY allowed us to learn and grow from their example and their love.
One of the main ways that we were able to serve COVi (although Eva and Zach did it practically by themselves) was to make a promotional video for them, including interviews with Señora Mari and Tamarita, and giving an awesome picture of what COVi is about. We are all so excited about how COVi might benefit from a video that will let the world know about a ministry that needs help to continue blessing its community and impacting the world. On our last day at ministry we revealed the video to all the kids and the teachers and leaders. The kids LOVED seeing themselves on video and cracked up the whole time, and the teachers cried because they knew what an impact it could have for the ministry. It really is a beautiful video, Eva and Zach are incredibly gifted, and this was an awesome opportunity for them to be able to bless others.
So in the end, it was incredibly difficult to love these people so much and leave them so soon, but I wouldn’t skip January of 2015 if my life depended on it. I’m so grateful for this time that the Lord has given us.
Señora Mari’s reaction when we finally revealed the new COVi video. There were lots of tears and lots of joy in the room that day.
The team, minus Eva, who was taking the picture. I love these people. 🙂
The kids at COVi slacklining. So fun!
COVi – 2015 from Eva Cranford on Vimeo.
