Hola! I’m in Ecuador! I have been here for a week now, and let me go ahead and say A LOT can happen in a week!
First off, I’m living with my entire squad of 30-ish people for the next 3 months, which I think is so fun!! Within our teams, we go to different ministries. On Monday, my team found out that our ministry was at another school, just like in Africa. But this this time in Quito, as our host Fabi would say, we are at a “boujee high school.” It’s a private school filled with really smart, well off kids. And it’s not where I expected to be on a mission trip, but the way Fabi explained it is this: “no matter if people are rich or if people are poor, if they don’t have Jesus then they don’t have anything.”
On Monday, I spent the whole day just talking to the teacher I was assigned to help with and following him around from class to class. It was a weird day— I felt like I was back at CA having my first day of school, except this time I know NONE of the people here and I can only translate what they’re talking about half the time. It’s a typical high school where the kids have their faces glued to their phones and friends have their clicks. This high school used to be christian, but Ecuador’s previous president didn’t like that and made them take the evangelical name out of the high school. So now, maybe half (if that) of the people in the school are christians.
At the beginning of this week, I was feeling a little hopeless and questioned why I am at this school.. but let me say, that completely changed by the end of the week! I stepped out of my comfort zone and began having conversations in Spanish with the kids. And now I have a bunch of new 9th grade friends! And a bunch of 9 & 10 year old friends, too! We talk a lot of “spanglish”, play a lot of soccer and volleyball, and I’m just trying to get to know them. This ministry feels a little like what I imagine being a YoungLife leader is like. My purpose is to meet the kids where they’re at and begin forming relationships with them and then hopefully lead them a little closer to Christ, or at least show them His love.
When I was feeling a little hopeless, I started praying that God would be able to use me somehow. And y’all.. he’s doing just that! On Friday, I found myself having a conversation with a high school girl about how she doesn’t know if she wants to believe in God. A lot of Christianity confuses her, beginning with creation and what the Bible says about it verses what scientists say about Evolution and other theories. I was honestly not prepared to talk about all of that subject, so I told her we could keep talking about it on Monday. She said she was excited and this weekend she was going to read a little and think of some questions so we could continue talking about things that confuse her!
Meanwhile, now it’s a Sunday and I’m spending my day listening to podcasts about evolution, creation, & logic and praying that maybe I’ll have the right words to explain and have a cool conversation tomorrow at school.
Also, my birthday was on Friday and it was AWESOME! All the kids at school sang happy birthday to me, I ate cake twice, a mariachi band sang to me and another teacher I shared a birthday with, my team blindfolded me and took me to an artisan market, they surprised me with a night out exploring Quito and getting an authentic dinner for me, I got sweet letters, and more! I felt so loved. It was a birthday to remember. I have a feeling 19 is gonna be a good year.
Quito, Ecuador is the place to be!!!
