My squad hit the one month mark on October 12th. From October 9th to 14th, we traveled to Baños, Ecuador for our month one debrief. This gave us a time to rest and reflect on the craziness of the past month, as well as time to just be tourists while in the beauty of Ecuador. I’ll be honest, guys, I’m really trying to go back to Baños someday. What a gorgeous little city.
One of the days we were in baños, we had a time where small groups went out to evangelize for a couple hours. This time would lead to much more than I expected.
My teammates Madison and Allyson were in my little evangelizing team. Before we started walking, we huddled for a quick prayer and I prayed silently that God would make who we were supposed to approach so obvious, that he would make it so that there was literally like a spotlight over them. We said “Amen,” and we walked aimlessly for a few minutes. I got a feeling that we should head over to a food/market area in Baños where we’d been going for lunch the past couple days. We walked in and immediately all the vendors were trying to get our attention so we would come buy their food. We stood in the exact middle of the giant room and felt lost. We had no idea who we were supposed to go talk to, who needed prayer. There were bright lights everywhere, but none of them seemed spotlight-ish enough. Again, this time aloud, I said, “God, please just shine a spotlight over the person you want us to pray for today.” We looked around one more time, and, there hidden in the corner was a small shop where one woman and a little boy stood. Right above their heads shone the brightest light in the room. It was definitely spotlight-ish enough for me.
I showed Madison and Allyson, and we walked over to the woman.
“Hola, me llamo SJ (pronounced essay-hota in Spanish), puedo orar para ti?” which just means “Hi, my name is SJ, can I pray for you?”
She looked a little surprised but said we could pray for her. Madison asked her name, and then we all held hands and prayed for Liliana.
After praying, there was a second or two of awkward silence before Madison sat down and bought a cup of hot chocolate from Liliana. I bought a cup of coffee, and we proceeded to keep talking. Before long, Liliana’s two brothers, Marco and Jason came over to the booth. Marco works at a tourist shop in Baños, so we asked him what the best activities to do there were. Liliana told us she had to go for a bit, but that she would like to know more about why we were in Ecuador.
Talking with Marco led to plans being made to go grab a burger with him then next night. Facebook connections were made, and we left.
The next day four of us and Marco spent some time eating burgers, eating ice cream, and playing cards. It was a great time, but at the end of the day I kind of felt had that we hadn’t told him more about Jesus and why we were in Ecuador.
The next morning, we went back to Liliana’s shop to talk with her more. The conversation that followed was, for lack of other words, extremely awesome. We talked with her about her history with the church, her relationship with Jesus, who she thinks Jesus is, and more. There was so much being learned on both sides of the conversation. When we had to leave in order to catch our bus back to Quito, we asked her once more if we could pray for her and her family, and what we could pray for. Liliana asked us to pray for her son, who is struggling with his subjects in school, and then she asked us to pray for her to be happy despite past troubles.
Once more, we joined hands and prayed. I prayed that Jesus would wrap His arms around Liliana and guide her in her journey for happiness. I prayed that she would see that Jesus IS happiness. I prayed that her and her family would see past hardships as a cornerstone of God’s faithfulness.
This is probably the coolest encounter I’ve ever had with someone, and it was all because I asked God to literally shine a spotlight on someone. He can do anything, He can guide you to where you’re supposed to be so easily. He knows the steps we will take each day, and He knows why we’re taking them. So, yeah, I was just really excited to share that experience with you guys. Sometimes my team is playing with kids or building walls, but sometimes we’re just having some really dope conversations. Pretty neat, don’t you think?
ADOPT-A-BOX UPDATE!
There are NINETEEN boxes that are adopted right now! That’s crazy!!! That means there’s only 21 more boxes to go until I can start the drawing to see what four people will win some awesome souvenirs from Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, and Cambodia! Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading along and who made this conversation with Liliana possible.
Also, I’m so sorry but there are no bonus pictures this week 🙁 I didn’t really use my phone at all this past week, even for pictures. Next week will have some dope pics, though, don’t worry. Love y’all.
