An Ecuadorian Mission Experience

Grace and peace, my friends!

Today was a really fun day, but also super tough. Our job, today, included moving 5 dump truck loads of dirt around the church! It was pretty intense. 

But first, the morning started off with breakfast at Pastor Josue's house. When we arrived, we were greeted by a cow nose sting ray at Josue's house. It was given to him by the local fishermen. Winston and I got to take pictures with it. Way cool! We had bolon de verde for breakfast, which is a plantain ball with cheese inside. 

We had one job yesterday... Moving dirt. 5 dump truck loads of dirt were dropped off at Iglesia Zoe, and our job was to layer and spread out the dirt. The land the church sits on used to be a shrimp farm, so when it rains the area floods. So all the homes and buildings in the area have to bring in dirt and raise up the ground. It was a six hour job, but actually succeeded in moving all the dirt! It was very hard labor, but it was a lot of fun too. We were also blessed that it stayed cloudy and relatively cool all day. 

There was lots of laughter and joking throughout the day. One of the funniest instances occurred after lunch. For lunch we had pork, a potato and rice (there is a pic on facebook). The pork had fat and skin (with hair!) still attached. During conversation, it became apparent that Patrick ate the whole thing...he didn't realize it had fat and skin on it because the dining room was a bit dark. Pastor Josue asked Patrick if he ate the peel with the banana too! We all laughed hysterically, and I think Patrick was a bit grossed out. He was still able to laugh about it. 

Samuel fell back into a wheel barrow, Anne did a head stand on the pulpit area, Jimmy and Winston were cracking jokes all day...it was really a lot of fun. 

When we finished working, we all grabbed a post and prayed for Iglesia Zoe and Pastor Josue. It had been an amazing day, and it feels pretty cool to have contributed our sweat and hard work to the foundation of the church. During debrief, we talked about what we had learned about the church and the people of God. Common themes were: not taking anything for granted, the church isn't a building but a community of people, keep it simple (church is about relationships, love and Jesus), being the presence of Christ, and the church doesn't have walls (both literally and figuratively!).

We finished our time in Atacames with dinner at Josue's house. It was a traditional Bolivian meal (Josue is a missionary from Bolivia ministering in Ecuador) of fried egg, rice with pork (I think), and plantains. It was delicious! We prayed, gave thanks, hugged, took some pictures and said our goodbyes. But by the time we got back to the hotel, Pastor Josue had already Friended many of us on Facebook! Look up his church Iglesia Zoe on Facebook...Josue has posted 200 pictures of us already on his church's Facebook page!

Our time in Atacames was pretty amazing. It was definitely life changing, and I look forward to the group sharing with others in the future about their time here. 

We will be back in Quito this afternoon/evening, so pray for our travels. Also, I'll be able to post pictures later tonight, so you'll have a bunch of new pics to check out tomorrow. Hasta luego!

Blessings,
Dorian