My time in Portoviejo, Ecuador is just starting to end. Today is Christmas and I only have a few more days before I leave here, go back to Quito, and then spend nearly 7 days and 6 plane rides getting to India. It has been a busy few weeks for me to say the least! One of our favorite ministries in Portoviejo is a ministry at a garbage dump. Now, that sounds very dirty and gross and just not that pleasant at all. Guess what… Families live there. Yup. Families who work at the garbage dump live there because they cant afford to live anywhere else. These are real people living in this situation. I cant imagine how difficult that is. It is so very difficult to go there every week and see the same situation with just more garbage piling up and nobody back home even knowing these people exist.
This has been a very difficult ministry to say the least because I am not able to “save” them. Our ministry host has been fostering a relationship with these people so they are able to lift themselves out of this poverty; that has been something so wonderful to see and I love being a part of that. It gives me great joy in fact. One of the things we are able to do there is have a small program and play with some of the kids who live there. This has been something very difficult for my team because these kids were a little closed off to us at first, but now love us to death.
Over this past month, as we were growing closer to these kids and really just showing them the love of Jesus. My team and I came to understand that one of the most challenging and awesome things you can do for any human being on this earth is love them like Jesus. Well, speaking of loving like Jesus. At the beginning of this month while we were at ministry, we found out that the kids had lice; not just one, but ALL of them had lice to some degree. Naturally, I went into hazmat mode and would not play with any of the kids because of that fact. However, I was reminded by one of my squad leaders, Eryn, that God loved us when we were gross and unlovable—much worse than lice by the way. It immediately reminded me if this verse in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” When she told me that I felt my heart sink a little bit and thought “Ya know what? Lice really aren’t that bad.” After that I ran over and started playing tag, throwing kids in the air, and let them play with my beard. Sure, there was a risk of getting lice, but what would I regret more, not playing with these kids or getting lice? Being comfortable is NOT more important than sharing the love of Jesus with someone, even if that means you and your whole team need to do lice checks when you get home for a couple weeks (which we did by the way).
Through this experience, God has really showed me how I need to love people better no matter what situation they’re in, how uncomfortable it makes me, and do it with all of my heart. After I let go and chose in, I was able to see so much joy from these kids and look at them with the eyes of Christ. It’s really a beautiful thing when we can all push past that our comfort zone and truly jump into what God has for us because that’s where the broken, hurting, and lost people are. And do you know where that is? At the center of Jesus’ heart.
