Month: July 2008

Philippians 1:6 and Dust

I’ve been thinking the last two days about fruit: what it would mean to come back here, what it will look like to go home.

Arturo left me a facebook message that included the verse Philippians 1:6, which says “And I am certain that God, who has begun a good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”  (NLT)

That’s been food for thought along with one of my rare word-pictures today.

I think because of now being so far past the rainy season, the dirt here is super dry. Coming down from the cross at Hacienda El Refugio or on the (massive) hill at Carmen Bajo, powdery dust floats up to cover your pants legs and shoes. With every footfall you can hear it as your shoes sink through to the harder ground below with a PHUMTH. It flies up with the wind every time a step stirs it, flying away and maybe choking and blinding you in the process.

God has poured out lessons and Grace and miracles big and small for the last 71 days. That’s not to because Youth World or these ministry sites are special or because God is more present in Ecuador. But I’ve been more receptive to Him. I have a week left here and I want to be all here. But I pray that in heading home not to be that moistureless dust on the mountain, but to be soaking up what God pours into me as He completes the work that has begun.

Interrupted

I’ve felt distracted today, since before I even got out of bed. I found my mind unable to totally focus on God in my morning prayer and despite being awake at the butt crack of dawn, I just had this sense of insufficient time with Him this morning.

Throughout working at Carmen Bajo today, I’ve had a lot of important things to discuss with a lot of people and with God and throughout trying to accomplish that, there have been little kids and wheelbarrows and people coming and going through the middle of conversations and meetings and prayers.

Something I’ve been convicted of through this is my attitude toward verbal, out-loud prayer. As a “facilitator” of worship I’m sure it comes with the territory (though that’s not an excuse), but I tend to think about what other people hear more than what I say to God. And He used one of those interruptions to just slam me with that.

He also made an interruption of His own when I failed to be still and listen, probably in a misguided attempt to make up for my distractions by just yakking away. I wrote recently about shutting up and letting God work. In shutting up and letting God speak, He told me to shut up talking and speak (Don’t worry, even at the time of writing I have to think to make sense of that sentence).

Daily lesson: When God convicts you, don’t feel guilty; change. And when He needs to get in a word or Word, let Him interrupt.

Zámbiza Observations

I’m awake and emotionally recharged enough to be able to get down some more thoughts about the dump now. I wrote a lot about Jordan yesterday and how God is his only hope not to be the fifth generation digging through garbage. Not usually one for this kind of metaphor, I was surprised to be struck by this thought, but I realized how much you can apply that to our lives. Christ is the only one who pulls us out of the garbage of sin we build up around us in our own lives.

I also peeled fruit for maybe 45 minutes. The woman who was working in the kitchen asked for some help, and pulled out two long yellow-green fruits maybe a foot long each, and four or five inches in diameter. They also had an in-and-out curving shape around so when you sliced them, the pieces fell in a rounded-off star shape.

The thin yellow-green rind had to come off before she could blend the fruta into jugo. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but eventually I could go around the whole slice and get the rind off in a single piece with not a gigantic amount of fruit in the trash. I was probably three-quarters finished when I thought about this ugly, inedible rind coming off as another one of those sin symbols. God has to strip so much away from me before I can taste good bear fruit.

I’ll lay off the philosophy and let that mean whatever you want.

Broken

This morning was my second visit to Zámbiza, the Quito city dump.

In case you don’t know, trash in Ecuador goes through a sort of cycle. It goes out onto the street and people go through it, scavenging for anything edible, valuable, or otherwise useful. Then the garbage trucks come and as the trash is dumped, the garbage men do the same thing and tuck away anything worth saving in bins on the truck. Finally it reaches the dump where the process happens again, this time by the employees of the dump. But those people were not always employees. It used to be that those people lived in the dump and scavenged for their lives, and possibly went outside as thieves as a living at night.

By the Grace of God, a series of people have been coming and ministering at the dump since 1997, and the curiosity and compassion of one man has grown into Extreme Response and a ministry at the dump of, among other things, a daycare.

Zámbiza has changed drastically since 1997, and certainly even in the last three years. It’s been just over a year since I was last there and I could tell a difference just driving in and seeing the new classroom where the outdoor playground once was. From Youth World’s standpoint, not many teams are going there anymore simply because it has changed so much. In fact, Sarah and I led this team as one of only two teams that I know of to go there all summer. And that’s not to say that there is no need at the dump anymore. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It actually disappoints me a little bit, particularly after seeing how impactful an experience it was for thirteen people who had never been before or had any clue of the existence of such a place. And particularly after how broken it made me.

I had heard from the 2006 EC Ecuador Team about the dump, and the need there, and the ministry. I went there myself last year. I know all about Extreme Response. The place the guys are staying is the home of people who work with ER and there are pamphlets and information in every desk drawer of this place. I knew walking into the daycare exactly what it would be like to see and be part of. And I thought I knew what it would be like emotionally.

I spent most of the time that I wasn’t peeling fruit (may write another post on this topic) holding and playing with two little boys. I would guess that Jordan was 7 or 8 and Cristion was 5. Jordan was crying when I walked in. Bawling really. Most people go straight for the cute kids, or the ones by the door with their arms raised in a silent cry of “hold me!” I go for the “tough” kids, and Jordan had “not remotely easy” written all over him, or at least what I could see of him curled up making a puddle of tears by the wall.

Usually it just takes a little attention, maybe a smile and a hug and some mangled Spanish, but this kids pipes would not turn off. After what felt like an eternity holding this crying child and beginning to wonder why I didn’t go for a cute smiling baby, I noticed something plastic and yellow in his pocket. “Que es eso?” I asked. Bingo. The second the avion came out (I don’t know the Spanish word for “Space Shuttle” and he just cared that it was something that flew), the tears stopped, and we were rolling the little plane around the floor and “flying” it through the air and making sound effects.

Eventually he got bored with that and I held him for a while. I would sit on the table and clasp my hands behind his back with the little guy on my lap. Then I would lean over so he was completely upside down for a second or two, and quickly swing him back up and go “Whoooosh!” He loved it.

As I hugged this little boy and watched him giggle and smile, I thought how similar we are. At some point in my life, I was a foot-and-a-half tall giggling little boy and my dad probably swung me around the same way. God has given Jordan the potential to be and do whatever he wants. All he needs is the opportunity. And yet here he is in a daycare in a city trash dump in Quito, and his only hope not to be the fifth generation digging through trash (under whatever circumstances) is the possibility of education that Pastor Jose and Extreme Response try desperately to provide for these kids. Ultimately only the Lord is able to offer him that chance.

Hours later I sat teary-eyed below the cross at El Refugio with Jordan and the other kids on my mind. Pastor Jose and the other missionaries in Zámbiza have just about given up on trying to get the workers at the dump to leave and try working in the city. They’ve grown up there and no nothing else, and in general have low self-esteem when it comes to their chances in the outside world. I wonder how much that social structure and history will play a part in the future of those kids. What will try or even succeed in giving them that same outlook and taking away their opportunities. Some of them will probably go to school and get jobs, and maybe some will even become a part of Extreme Response. Some will probably follow in their parents’ footsteps right there in Zámbiza. I hope and pray that God has more in store for them than that, but I wonder.

I wonder how much I personally do that perpetuates a system where such poverty can exist, and where people can seem to be sorted into “untouchable” classes in which they don’t even believe they could do a less-than-minimum-wage job outside the walls of stone and garbage. There are thousands of pounds of trash within those walls, but also hundreds of Children of God. I wonder when spiritual, intellectual, and social prejudices can be dissolved to allow everyone to see that.

Jungle revisited

It’s amazing to see just over a few weeks how certain things are constant and others change. This week has been my second visit to Tena, Capricho and Shandia. In the middle of June I stepped into Hotel Vista Hermosa for the first time, not having a clue how to get to Cafe Tortuga or Parque Amizonicos, or what the churches in Shandia or Capricho would look like. This time around I could lead 13 gringos anywhere we needed to go with no problem and I had faces in mind when I thought of going back to the ministry sites.

I have to say I learned a lot in the jungle this time around as well. I had a lot of practice figuring out songs by ear, which was particularly good practice for me when I’ve been uncharacteristically trying not to play guitar this summer. (For those of you to whom I’ve mentioned that, I think I’m over it). I also got to sit back and worship in church.

That’s a lesson I’ve been learning over and over this summer. Sitting back and worshiping. At home I’m used to being the guy doing the “important stuff.” If I’m at church I’m playing guitar (or another instrument) or singing or preaching or running the sound system. And through facilitating worship for others, you worship by giving back the gifts that God has given to you. But it’s really easy to get caught up in that also, and in many instances hard to find that sense of worship, particularly in the moment.

I saw that actually accomplished in Elysaul, in the way he played at the colegio in Babahoyo after giving his testimony. Tears streaming down his face and snot dangling all the way to the neck of the guitar, he sobbed and played gorgeous music, praying all along and knowing exactly how much his gift was affecting what was going on around him, despite probably barely being able to see what was happening through his tears.

This morning I learned the same thing by seeing and feeling something totally different. I listened to T.J. preach, and watched the group do their Prodigal Son skit. I hadn’t been part of the planning process for that except to listen out for cultural gaffes (and I was mostly asleep on a pew for that). I love just being and worshiping in the presence of God and surrounded by his love shown in the dedication of a baker’s dozen gringos and a church full of people who are still accepting of and excited about every single team of extranjeros that shows up.

God has a lot to teach us when we’re simply still.

Hellos, Good-byes, and See-You-Laters

I hung out with the E.C. crew as much as I could today in between spurts of acting responsible. In fact, Angela and Jerry even left me with “their” gringos to do a Basilica orientation today. Wacky.

A theme of the day for me was going places and eating. I woke up about in time for lunch (it was both an early meal and I slept until almost 10:00 today, only the second time I’ve been in bed past 7:00 all summer) with Christ Episcopal Y Amigos and took off after the Basilica to shop for my team with Sarah. Then it was pretty much right back to dinner at Pinchos with the Elizabeth City gringos. I had to say good-bye for at least a few days, and possibly for the summer when we got back to Extreme Response. With River Oak on the ground tonight and leaving the same day as EC, I don’t know what the possibility of hanging out with them again will look like. I’ve pretty much had to learn to just switch of thinking about it as I hug and besito people good-bye in the moment. Still not fun.

Then it was off to the Jensens’ for Tory’s going away get-together. We had ice cream and hang-out time and played “Speed UNO.” But it was weird when we did the traditional Youth World good-bye. That consists of the person leaving giving us a run-down of their plans for the months ahead and some prayer requests, and then a popcorn prayer for them. I’ve been present for Justin, Rachel, Jenny, and Ashley to do this, but simply because of comparative sheer amount of time spent with the rest of the group, Tory is and has been one of the gang since day one of training, and she’s truly not leaving too far ahead of the rest of us. It just really hit home both that she’s flying off at 9am and that sixteen days isn’t really long for the rest of us.

Even stranger was the fact that I’m “back on” tonight, and as we say at El Refugio, it’s time to “be [all] here now” for River Oak Grace Community Church and Block 4. We picked them up at the airport with Ashley (who will be tagging along with us through our time in Shandia and maybe HER as this is one of her supporting churches). It was also strange to roll onto Nelson’s bus with only 16 bodies after hauling around 41+ for ten days, but I think I actually know everyone’s name the first night so I’m stoked about that. We’ve also got another group of prayers, I can tell already, and I love it (prayers as in verb: “pray” noun: “-ers”).

Tomorrow’s the Basillica, Alliance Academy International, YW/Partnership/other orientations, Fruiteria and Pinchos. Basically a lot of my day today over again except I have to be a real host. Maybe that will at least take my mind off the many people I love with whom I won’t be in direct contact. But that shouldn’t be too hard knowing that I’m headed back to Shandia!

(EDIT: Observation- I love how my writings tend to include the word “gringos” as a categorizer as if I’m not one).

How I Roll

The Elizabeth City group got here tonight and I got to go to the airport with Jerry, Angela, Cameron and Roberto to meet them. We stood around for a couple minutes, and I heard someone behind me trying to get my attention. When I turned around, it was Rodrigo. Even though I’ve been in Ecuador since May, I haven’t seen him for a year, but he came straight at me and gave me a huge hug. Maggi and Lourdes were not far behind, and I was so stoked to have a reunion with some of the Emaus crew before any gringos even came through customs.

Then the gringos did start making their way out of customs. Anna and Betty and Wood rolled out, and soon my adoptive mothers and the rest of the team were out. The airport security guys were yelling at us to get out of the way and stop hugging right where everyone comes out. Angela was trying to do her job and heard us all to the bus. I just enjoyed the fact that I was off and my friends were here and laughed and hollered and hugged with absolutely no regard for “Low American Profile.” It’s my day off. That’s how I roll.

To top it all off, Jorge is their bus driver and he was telling anyone who knows Spanish and would listen about how many goals I scored in soccer the other day.

I’m disappointed that I won’t get to spend a huge amount of time at Emaus, and looks like none at Casa de Fe. But not as disappointed as I would have thought, and being stoked about going to Shandia and meeting 13 new gringos is a pretty sweet consolation prize. And what time I do get to spend with everyone tomorrow will be pretty cool because I don’t have to be responsible for anything while I’m with them and we can just laugh and tell stories and talk about chicken wire while Jerry and Angela do all the work. Sorry, “Jer-Bear.” Also how I roll.

The Next Mission Fields

The team left this morning bright and early. I got to Hotel Galaxie at about 5:15 and we actually rolled out on time, with tons of luggage and 34 gringos in Ecuadorian pants, hats, ponchos, jewelry and scarves and YW t-shirts and hoodies. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re headed back to the States, because it was definitely not a “Low American Profile” this morning.

It was rough saying good-bye, especially because we actually had some time to stand around and talk as 34 people got bags off the bus. Elysaul came with us, and we laughed and hugged and joked and promised to tag each other in facebook photos.

We always say on the first night that in three or four days we’ll know each other and feel like we have been friends forever. I honestly have to say I was skeptical with this big a team, but I feel like I actually got a chance to connect with each person on the team and so even while it wasn’t easy to watch them drag those gigantic suitcases underneath the “International Departures” sign and out of sight, I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing about the fruit that will come about as they go “forward home” and to their new mission field of Holland, MI, USA. And if they were as impacted by the last ten days as me (and I know we all were), then oh what fruit it will be.

Today will be busy, and probably tomorrow as well. I’m looking forward to some fellowship at church and at brunch and here at the “frat house” and to getting to see my “peeps” tomorrow night. I’ve got some inside information on next block already, and I’m doing my best not to look too far ahead after realizing last night how relatively little time I have left here. One more block of teams and intern final debrief. In the words of Bryan, “Whoazers.”

Back from Babahoyo

I cannot begin to describe the events since we took off for the coastal city of Babahoyo on Saturday. I’m not even going to attempt it at 11:42 at night after a full day at Hacienda El Refugio and two (count ’em, TWO) debriefs tonight. I think I’m finally going to do what Bryan tells me to do all the time and hide out for a while tomorrow in some quiet spot on the property while the team does their work project. I’m desperately lacking in both quiet time and time to catch up on and balance finances for this block.

I just want to say I’m alive and have had some intense, awesome, God-filled, fruitful experiences and this team is amazing and I can’t wait to give everyone a real update.

Partnership in Ministry

Time off? HA!

Since getting to Babahoyo, the Beechwood team has had two main focuses: worship services at the Centro Cristian de Babahoyo and evangelism ministry at Colegio Eugenio Espejo.

After doing their prepared drama three times at the church and sharing testimonies (many of which I truly doubt would have been possible if not for the outpouring the Holy Spirit last Friday), Sarah felt led to ask the group to circle around the sanctuary for church members to come and pray with people one-on-one or in small groups. If I could sum up Partnership between C.C. de B. and Beechwood so far, that story would be it. I’ve never, even out of all the ministry sites and teams I’ve served, seen any connection like that. Ask me about it some time.

So when the drama and the testimonies were over at the Colegio, the one-on-one prayer thing became a part of the ministry. We perfected our plan of implementing that over the course of the seven programs we did in two days. By the last one, it was (for lack of a better word) and Altar Call with us praying alongside the miidle- and high-school kids who came to know the Lord.

Believe me (and we’ve had probably a half dozen conversations about this inside four days) I struggle with the idea of Altar Calls, but especially after a mind-blowing testimony from Elysaul and then Carely just ripping to shreds any thought of raising your hand because someone else had theirs in the air, I truly believe that God is working in that place and that there is enough of a support network in place between all the kids their and the church in Babahoyo that it will bear fruit beyond “that time 40 Gringos came and did a cool skit.”

And can I just mention the fact that the administrators not only let in 40 Gringo missionaries to talk about Jesus in a public school, but that they asked us to do an extra presentation so more kids could hear the important message of Salvation? Are you kidding me?

We were more than an hour behind when we pulled out, and still had a program to do at an elementary school down the road. I love watching the adults do “Father Abraham” when I play for the kids at church at home. If you think that would be funny to watch, let me just say that 40 Gringos doing Spanish Zaccheus and then Tutuwa (sp?) was ridiculous. It is encouraging though to see so many kids so excited about the Lord, and it’s also encouraging to see Him moving through the Colegio. I pray that that’s a much less dark place by the time those little guys get there.

Dinner overlooking the Babahoyo River from Restaruante La Carreta was awesome, the guy there was totally cool about losing track of how many plates we’d gotten for what’s grown to a group of about 50 people. It’s a good thing the church is cool about being on Ecuadorian time, because we were way late to getting back to the church as well, and it turned out that the group did 90% of the service again tonight.

Upon talking about it later, Sarah and I agreed that neither one of us has ever seen (or had) a rougher time leaving a ministry site. I know for me personally, praying in a group with Arturo just got to me. Half way through he just dropped to his knees (so I pulled the rest of the group down too) and prayed in Spanish straight out of his heart and totally lacking the energy to translate. The guy was just weeping, and when we all broke apart at the end he just grabbed me in a bear hug and said “My brother.”

Thank God for Facebook. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see most of those people again. Elysaul is coming with us back to Quito, and I’m sure that Arturo and I will be tagging pictures of each other for weeks, but that doesn’t make it much easier to leave a group of people with whom you’ve been working and sharing and worshipping and ministering.

There have been some rough patches, and debrief tomorrow night will not be easy, nor will it be short. As for tonight, I told Eric I couldn’t imagine a bad debrief after that and said “Just do your thing.” For my part, I’m exhausted, I can’t wait to check in with Sarah, I’m looking forward to sleep and to getting to see the guys in Quito, but still not totally ready to leave.