An Ecuadorian Mission Experience

Hey there folks!

Many apologies for my tardiness! This should have been posted a long time ago. After getting back from Ecuador, I just had a couple days turn around before I headed on another mission and youth conference to Minnesota. Between sleeping and hanging out with the family, I just didn't get this done. So very sorry!!!

Our last day was a whirl-wind adventure. We had to be packed up early in the morning because we were catching a red-eye flight home later in the evening and we weren't coming back to the hostel. The last day was our only day without ministry. It was our down day to site-seeing, shopping, fellowship and final debrief. Our first venture was a trip to the market in Quito. This is such a fun place to be! The market is teeming with life. The rows of stalls are tight with just enough room to slide by an on-comer. The stalls overflow with merchandise, and you are constantly being solicited. You can find anything Ecuadorian that you would love to bring home: shirts, soccer jerseys, pants, jackets, items made out of alpaca, wood carving, ceramic dishes, instruments, bags, flags, coffee, jewelry and so very much more. Negotiating is encouraged, but you also need to be respectful, as many of the workers only make a few dollars a day. It is important to make sure they can make a living. Unfortunately, we don't bring cameras into the market because pick-pocketing is common, so we only have a picture or two from the market.

After a couple hours at the market, we took the bus up to Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Earth). The equator, technically, is a mile wide. There are two monuments north of Quito, but neither are dead center. Both are fairly touristy. We went to the one with the larger monument. We also had lunch there, got to browse some other shops, and hang out at the middle of the earth. It was way cool, and we finished our time there with a team photo.

The evening took us to El Refugio, a retreat center run by Youth World that is located 40 minutes outside of Quito up further in the mountains. It is amazingly beautiful and serene. We had some alone time to hike, pray and spend time alone with God. Some of us hiked way up the mountain, and some of us hung out around base camp. A few of us visited the llamas! One is friendly. One is not so much. After our alone time, we spent time in final debrief. We first spent some time naming sights, sounds, smells, and tastes from the week. It was a time to not only name the obvious sights and sounds, but also to name the places that we saw Jesus and experienced Jesus. After that, we spent time in an affirmation circle. This is always an amazing experience. We shared incredible affirmations and blessings to one another. Many tears (of joy!) were shared. This is a place that we share how we see and experience Jesus in each other. This is a place of amazing love. The Holy Spirit moves strong and the emotions are on our sleeves. We were so into it, that the hosts had to cut us off.

We then moved to dinner around a campfire. We got to eat some Cuy (a national delicacy). Cuy is...guinea pig! We think of them as pets, but in Ecuador, guinea pig is a very high end food. They LOVE it! It tastes a lot like duck. It is greasy dark meat. Not too bad. We also had hotdogs, chips, watermelon and finished with smores. After dinner, we were wisked away to the airport.

Even though our flight departed at 11:30pm, the airport was pretty busy. There are layers and layers of security. They even took Winston to his luggage under the airport to go through it piece by piece with him! Pretty crazy stuff. The first flight wasn't too bad. Most of us slept okay. But the surprise of the trip awaited us in Atlanta. Apparently, storms came through the early morning, and our flight was canceled. Initially, the 14 of us were bumped to 7+ flights, and it was possible that we could get bumped to the next day. It was tough. I worked hard to get half of us on flights to Columbia. 6 people ended up getting onto one flight home. 6 of us stayed the course to Charlotte, and we got home on two different flights. Anne and Samuel were trying to get to Seattle, and after getting bumped a few times and rescheduling to a new flight, they finally were on their way (although, I picked their luggage up in Charlotte the next day...ugh).

It was an adventure that was pretty amazing. But we made it home. Check out the pics below from the last day (final thoughts/notes will be posted very soon):