As I am riding for 25 hours on a bus to Peru, I am thinking back on how much the Lord has taught me during my first month on the World Race. All I see out my window of this bus are the most enormous mountains and waterfalls I have ever seen in my life. Breathtaking. I have the biggest smile on my face and every waterfall I see I shout out to my teammates, "Look it's a waterfall! I looooove waterfalls!" Anyways, I am thinking about all the faces I've seen in the past month. Flashbacks of the hard times and good times during ministry come to mind. It is such a sweet goodbye. Sad, yet I smile because I will always keep the people of Ecuador in my heart. I smile because God has been with me in the realest of ways during the past mont- from worshipping on Ecuadorian rooftops, to singing at the top of my lungs and dancing in the rain while people come out of their little huts to watch the crazy American, to getting up for 6am prayer meetings and praying to God to help me stay awake, to begging him for help when I felt like I didn't have the strength to go any further. I smile because I know the best is yet to come and whether I have to come back at Christmas or if I am able to stay all eleven months, I am going to return to the States as a changed person….because the change has already begun.
On our last night, our Ecuadorian church family threw the American missionaries a going away party. They brought food, gave us certificates of graduation from Ecuador, lined up to get pictures with us, and wrote us a pile full of letters on what they love about each of us and how we had made a difference in their lives. I enjoyed speaking Spanglish and making inside joke after inside joke with my new lifelong friends. They kissed us all goodbye and church members followed our cars for a few blocks. Needless to say, it was hard to leave.
Enjoy the goodbye collage!
Goodbyes are always difficult for me. Driving away in this bus, I think back on my time in Ecuador and ask myself, "Will my heart be able to handle this ten more times!?"
