Ecuador is incredible. Quito is the capitol of the city, and we are surrounded by mountains. We arrived a little over a week ago and ministry has been awesome. We are staying at Incalink’s Casa Blanca (white house) in dorm style rooms. Casa Blanca is located in northern Quito and serves as a guesthouse for those needing a place to stay. Teams, Interns, Pastors, or families pass through, and Incalink seeks to provide a place of comfort, quality food, rest and safety. Their ministry is all over Ecuador, as Incalink connects with churches, organizations and ministries all over the country. We have wonderful hosts, a married couple who cooks our meals for us and has proclaimed themselves our Ecuadorian Parents. There is not wifi where we are living which makes it difficult to post blogs or check in online, but the last few days I’ve had connection at a local ice-cream shop nearby.
My team, Kindred Band Of Warriors have been assigned to the Alliance Light Church, in Carapungo, Quito. We take the bus at 9:30 each morning and ride it from the bus terminal near Casa Blanca to Carapungo where we meet Pastor Efren and his wife, Monica, each day. The area is a less classy side of the city, with a fair amount of crime reported daily. We haven’t had any problems, though, and I really have enjoyed Carapungo. We’ve been walking the streets each day passing out flyers for our English classes we will be teaching for the next two weeks. We have a curriculum that Pastor has used for all the World Race teams that come through Ecuador, and we will begin teaching classes on Monday.
I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to live with the whole squad this month, and we’re all staying under the same roof. It’s been really wonderful to spend time with them, but I’m also finding that I’m torn between choosing sleep and choosing time with them. It’s not always an easy decision, and I’m sorry to say I often choose sleep over staying up late. It’s also hard to carve out time to blog, being surrounded by almost 60 other humans make finding writing time difficult.
Fabien, one of our hosts here at Casa Blanca, is our self-declared adopted dad. He makes most of our meals for us with his wife, Mabe, and the other day, he tested us. How, you might ask?
Bananas
It’s often easy to see a pile of bananas and seek out the most smooth, un-speckled banana in the pile. We hope for the banana that is the most perfect color, the least bumped and bruised, and if there aren’t any good ones, often we will just opt out of picking a banana.
Fabien left us a basket of bananas to eat with our sandwiches for lunch. He didn’t say anything about them, but there were just enough bananas for us all to have one. That evening, after the day was over and the lunch had long been eaten, he addressed the group. In his funny Spanish accent, he said “You all passed my test.” We looked at him inquisitively, not knowing what he was talking about.
He held up a banana. “You ate all the bananas. Typically, when Americans come through Ecuador, they have a hard time with the food.” (this is true) “Many times, when I leave a basket out full of bananas, more than half of them are left behind because of the dots on the peel. You guys ate them all! Good job.”
We thought that was the end of it, but he continued. “I want you to all understand why I love this analogy so much. The banana is much like us. Judged by its appearance, often ignored or passed by because of its flaws. What people don’t always understand is that a banana with a few spots means it could quite possibly taste even better and even sweeter than a plainly-colored banana. Jesus doesn’t see the banana peel at all, he just sees the delicious, sweet, ripe banana on the inside. Be like the banana.”
I laughed at his little story, grateful that we’d all passed his “test.” Fabien is almost always laughing and goofing off with my squad, like a funny uncle or friend, so I really appreciated his little bit of depth and insight. How often do I pass someone on the street and avoid eye contact because of the rough outer appearance of a person?
The next day, I almost missed a chance to Be Like The Banana. Emma, Alexandra and I were walking the streets in the rain with a stack of flyers advertising our English class. We were walking past an alley when three homeless-looking men whistled at us and began to approach us rather swiftly. We weren’t sure what to do, so we stopped walking and asked them how they were doing. They were dirty, they smelled, and one of them had a nose that was so broken that his whole face was deformed. They were not nice to look at, and we all wanted to keep walking. We aren’t fluent in Spanish, but we understood that he was asking us if we were missionaries. We said yes, and the man began to preach. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn Spanish bible, and he began to read us his favorite verses. We stood and talked with these men for almost 15 minutes, and half way through the rest of our team joined us in talking with them. I couldn’t tell you what it is we talked about, but we ended our conversation with us all arm over arm praying together.
These guys were spotted bananas.
I almost missed my chance to remind them that the Lord loves them.
God doesn’t see the banana peel, he sees the heart.
The interaction with those men gave me a refreshed perspective. I needed it. I don’t want to be on “survival mode.” I don’t want to constantly be figuring out how I can make this “experience” better. I want to remember my purpose here. I am here for one reason and one reason only – to bring salvation and the Kingdom to the nations. Yeah, on days off of ministry of course I’m going to do cool things like Paragliding and giant rope swings, I’m in awesome countries with awesome opportunities at very low costs. I’m 100% sure that if Jesus were on this race with me, he’d have wanted to go Paragliding too. (Unless he gets motion sick and that’s why he calmed the winds and the waves on that boat that one time… then maybe he’d have to take a Dramamine…)
I want to be all in. I said Yes to this journey and I said Yes to my squad. I’m the second youngest one on this trip – that is really intimidating, but age is just a number. God has given me everything I need to bring Salvation to the people of Ecuador.
So I’m determined to Be Like The Banana. Sweet on the inside, even though I may be bruised on the outside, maybe a little worn, maybe not always looking 100%, I am going to keep on going, I’m going to keep my eyes on God, the author and perfector of my faith, and I’m going to run this race.
I didn’t even think I liked bananas until the race. Now I eat ‘em all the time.
You are like the banana, ya just gotta remember the peel doesn’t matter.
God loves bananas.
