Today is a sad day for me, because my time at my home-stay is coming to an end.
I have learned so much, grown in new ways, been refined, and molded more than ever before in these past four weeks. My beautiful Ecuadorian family consisted of my parents, Patti & Alfredo, my sister Belen, my two brothers and their wives Antonio (Tuco) & Holli, and David & Pam and during my four weeks I even got the opportunity to meet grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, far distant relatives, friends, and pretty much every person that plays a role in their life. To say they took me in as if I was part of the family would be an understatement. I have been blessed beyond belief with their beautiful self-less love, I have experienced countless frustrations in language barriers and cultural differences, but alongside that I have continued to learn the importance in differentiating something from being wrong vs something being different.
I will walk you through a bit of what a day in the life of living with an Ecuadorian family looks like
(Since Lauren and myself from the study abroad program both lived with the family I will express my experience using “we”).
7:00 a.m.– Wake up & get ready for the day before going upstairs for breakfast (the night before it would have been articulated at what time breakfast will be at, so it is important to be relatively on time)
7:45 a.m.– First thing each morning we are greeted with hugs and kisses and the breakfast table will be set with fresh jugo (juice) that Patti would have just made that morning, and I’m talking FRESH people; not Florida’s Natural, not Simply apple, even better if you can imagine that. On top of that some breakfast foods we might have include eggs, toast, pancakes, cereal, or French toast. I will also usually have a cup of instant coffee… it’s kind of grown on me.
8:30 a.m. – Spending breakfast together every morning is super important so it usually will last 30-45 minutes and then we will head out the door with more kisses and from here we walk about 5 blocks to the trole station which is our public transportation of choice. The trole experience is always an interesting experience, but you can’t be picky when you’re only paying a quarter to get around the city.
9:00-4:00ish (varies) – this time will be spent at my internship that takes place at Alliance Academy International, I work in the counseling department and have a vast array of tasks and activities I do on a day-to-day basis.
4:30ish- I will arrive back home. Some days my dad will be home so we will sip on coffee together and talk in Spanglish. Other days if no one is home I’ll go to my room and relax until my family gets home.
6-8:00ish– We will start dinner. It varies every day in Ecuador it’s more common to eat a giant lunch and just have bread and tea for dinner, my host mom prefers this style of eating, but during the four weeks we lived with them they made us gigantic and unbelievably delicious dinners. I am going to make a pretty wild statement right now and say that during these four weeks (especially at dinner) I had some of the best food I have ever had in my entire life. My favorite Ecuadorian meal is llapingachos; these are mashed potatoes stuff with queso, with a sauce called Encebollado on top which consists of tons of chopped veggies, cilantro, lemon, and more. She then fries them on the stove and usually we will have rice and salad on the side. QUERICOOOOOOOO. And we almost always have a delicious dessert afterwards.
10:00 p.m. – usually dinner is some of our best time together so sometimes we will be at the table for a couple hours just chatting and laughing and telling stories in broken Spanish. Every day after dinner looks different, sometimes we will spend time hanging out in our sisters room chattin’, sometimes we will all crowd into our parents’ bedroom and watch a movie together (usually in English w/ Spanish subtitles), and sometimes we will play cards (usually golf or crazy 8’s) which always consists of so many hilarious moments.
Some days before bed, my mom will make me this delicious tea I have come to love, which is always a bittersweet moment because it reminds me of drinking tea at home with my mom, but it is also a lovely moment to just reflect and enjoy being nurtured and cared for.
This month has been so good for my soul to have a parents away from home that take care of Lauren and I when we are sick, give us hugs and kisses, feed us well, and are absolutely amazing at showing us around their country. In our four weeks at their house we took several different weekend trips- One weekend we went to a sacred waterfall and the 4th most dangerous volcano in the world (which was completely submerged in water so we actually took a boat out to the middle of the volcano/lake), we took a weekend trip to a local city, La Ronda, and here we ate empanadas and did street shopping, they even took us on a five hour drive to the beach last weekend where we stayed at a house that had an unbelievably stunning view and got to experience some tasty local coastal recipes and even do some boogie-boarding on the waves (it was my first time!)
God has revealed so much to me about families during this month. So much about my family and what that looks like, so much about the body of Christ & what that family looks like and what His desire is for families. Society is filled with a lot of broken families and I am sure we all have a story having to do with some brokeness in our families. But that isn’t Gods desire for our families or for the body of Christ. He wants to come back and MARRY the Church and honestly, are we worth marrying? Well, in my eyes, heck no, but Jesus sees us sanctified, renewed, worthy, white as snow, and WORTH dying on the Cross for and WORTH coming back for. We are worth it.
I encourage you all to reflect on your families as well. God wants to bring healing to whatever brokenness there is there and NOTHING is too big for God. No broken family dynamic is too big for God to not bring redemption too. Trust Him, not me. His Will will be done and His kingdom will come.
