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.
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.
