MONTH 4
The end of month 4 already?? Halfway done with the race already? Those are my thoughts as I’m approaching the halfway mark of my mission trip that I started in September. I know I haven’t been writing as many blogs as I should, but hopefully I can catch you up on everything that has happened since November.
First things first…. We left South Africa!! After 3 months of living in Africa, we hopped on over to our next country: Ecuador. We arrived in Quito, a really big city that’s in the middle of the Andes mountains (9,000ft)! When I say Quito is huge, I mean really really big. Definitely a change of scenery from tiny little JBay. We are staying with IncaLink, in the north of the city. Our plane landed super early in the morning, like 2am. Our host, Fabi picked us up and took us to the house. We woke up the next day super jet lagged. We had an orientation thing and met Fabi’s wife, Mabe the little baby. That day was really short because most of it was spent sleeping. The next night, we woke up to an earthquake at 4am! From there, we got our new ministry assignments. Team wildflowers are working with CRU Quito (Campus Crusades for Christ). It’s high school program similar to Young life. We were placed at a high school where we are helping to teach English while evangelizing and building relationships with the students.
Teaching English is actually really hard. The first day, our teacher told us that we were gonna be teaching on simple past and past progressive……… and I was like excuse me what?? I had to google the lesson topic so that my memory would be refreshed. Our teachers are pretty vague with their instruction towards us, which is a big challenge. I’ve learned to use the public transportation system in Quito! It’s awful. I mean- 90 people crammed on a tiny bus! But, my team has been especially grateful for having a consistent ministry and living in a room all together!
I’ve gotten to see some really cool parts of Quito, like the historic district and the Basilica. I’ve loved getting to eat all the empanadas I can get my hands on. Our hosts, Mabe and Fabi, are so great. They are like a second mom and dad and they even have a little baby! My squad is all together again after 2 months of being split up in Africa. The community has been great and really challenging. It’s hard to find alone time here.
My squad got to go up to the mountains for Christmas and New Years. We did manual labor for an organization that rescues minors from human trafficking. It was a really good time for us. During our free time there, my squad had movie marathons and played so many card games. We even did secret Santa! After New Years, we went back to IncaLink and resumed our normal ministry. It’s hard to describe month 4 because it was a lot of repetition. (Random- but, we have Kraft Mac n Cheese here<3). The days went by slow but the month went by fast. And now we are about half way done!
God is already moving in me so much here in Ecuador. I’ve learned a lot about patience within my community and my ministry. Things haven’t been too easy, I’ve definitely hit a slump. But God is so consistent and is constantly showing me new things that keep me on my toes. I really need to start writing more blogs. It’s one of my goals for this last half of the race. Any who I’ve been trying to write this blog for 2 weeks so this is about it. (Hints why it’s so late) Thank you so much for checking in! I promise more blogs soon!!
