Category: Ecuador

Yesterday was the official last day of training. We theoretically know everything we need to lead teams. (HA!) We spent the morning doing worship here at Adam and Sara’s and then headed to the park up near Chet and Katie’s to find out our parejas.

“Pareja” is a Spanish word that literally means “pair,” and we also use it to mean “partner.” Each pareja is one male and one female who will host one team together each block. They may or may not change over the course of the summer, but we will definitely be working together through Block 2 (the first block we will be leading teams) and getting some practice leading debrief during our visit to the Huaorani this coming week.

We went up to the park and split into guys and girls. Bryan took us up to the soccer field and we talked about training, good experiences, bad experiences, what really hit us in the face and what we hide behind. I think all six of us expected this to take about 10 minutes and then we’d have time to play football. It actually ended up stretching to an hour, drawing a few tears and a pretty long prayer session and being a really awesome, honest bonding experience for us all. We did end up having a little time to toss the ball, but only because the girls took longer (as the staff and site hosts were with them and they don’t all live together).

When everyone finished, we got in a big circle in the park and Dana and Bryan made us close our eyes and stick out our tongues. We really trust our Maestros. They put an M&M on each of our tongues and then had us open our eyes, not being able to see what color was on our tongue and find out who had a matching colored M&M. That was pretty hilarious. Matt and I both dropped our M&M before we were supposed to open our eyes and had to have them replaced. (I hope Dana gave me a new one…) When we did get started, we were all “taakiiii liiide diiis” and trying to find out what color we had. Angela got “owage” across to me pretty well, but I had to point to Dario’s shirt for fear of losing my M&M again in saying the color “bwue.”

So eventually we figured it out. Teddy with Nicole, Matt with Angela, Lane with Danielle, Jerry with Necia and me with Sarah. First off, I’m excited because Sarah’s just awesome, and secondly because she speaks Spanish and because she was a QQ host last summer. So now that that was figured out, we passed around “case studies” and talked about them with our pareja and then with the group. Some were a little funny, some were pretty scary, just about all of them had happened to one or more of the full-time QQ staff when they were hosting teams in the past. Ours were pretty easy because one happened to our team last year and the other had really clear rules laid out by Youth World and International Teams. Hopefully we won’t lose anyone or run into any riots or have 17 people get sick, but I’ll know what to do in any of those events.

Lunch was sort of a reward for finishing training. We walked down to Crepes &n Waffles, which is an extremely high class South American restaurant. It’s someplace not many teams go, and only to use as a learning experience about the social stratification here (in the same manner as the mall after the dump). Not that we haven’t been eating fantastic food and Pinchos and Yalo’s and the Vivancos’ and the Jensons’ and the DeVries’ and the Williams’, but I have a new favorite. And I’ll definitely appreciate it this week when we’re in the jungle having rice and yucca all the time.

The afternoon was ours off. We (the guys) went home and changed and then headed back to the park to play football for two hours before we needed to be at Chet and Katie’s for dinner and Huaorani briefing. We played 4-to-score 3 on 2 all-time rotating QB, rotating Q, O and D. And if you’d said that to me Thursday I would have had no clue what that meant. I think we’ve all got some battle scars, and I earned mine (as well as the name “Wheels McGrath”) with an 80-yard (scale) dash to within a couple yards of the end zone that ended in a front-flip roll into a flower bed. Jerry was definitely the MVP with another such dash that actually scored in the same play, as well as blocking like no other. Lane spent half the game diving for the ball, commonly seen in a Superman pose in the air. (The title of this post is a Teddy quote aimed at him).

We were exhausted by 5:00 when we walked down the hill to the Williams, but were sent back to play soccer with the kids (Tanner, 8 Brooklyn, 6 and Skyler, 3- ages are my approximations) because Chet was still at the mechanic’s with their car. When we did eventually get there, we began our briefing on what we’ll be doing and what to pack to go to the Huaorani (which has to be 25 lbs or less because we’ll be flying in from the MAF strip in Shell to a strip in the jungle). After a delicious dinner (I’m just taking my teams to Katie’s house for meals) we watched “Beyond the Gates of Splendor,” the documentary on the five missionaries killed by the Huaorani in the 1950s and the transformation of the tribe since then. That was really cool and really moving to watch, especially because we should be able to meet Mincaye next week.

Overall, it turned out to be more spiritual, more informational, and more fun, more relaxing (but still more exhausting) day than anyone anticipated. I’m looking forward to the jungle and to working with my pareja, and just thanking God for all the people around me.

Just for kicks, I’m going to do the day in reverse today.

We’re back at Adam and Sara’s now, and Teddy, Lane and I have been practicing music for tomorrow. The three of us and Jerry (on djembe) will be playing for the morning worship for the interns at the Parque de Carolina. Pretty cool. We’ve each got our own little musical niche and it’s awesome playing with them. We also got a verbal dissertation from Roberto this morning (as much of a dissertation as you get from Roberto) about using your gifts to worship God. My guitar-playing “gift” has got nothing on Roberto’s or Teddy’s, but it’s still a sweet way to express myself. Yay God.

Before that was Chifa. Chifa Lung Wah’s to be exact. I was hoping to put off eating Ecuadorian Chinese a little longer, but it was pretty good. And we learned how to order for our teams, which was really good. I also learned why we ate so much Chifa last year when considering the budget with team money. Just warning you guys, if you’re on my team: Chifa. Laura, Jorge, Dario, and Christy joined (most of) the interns and Maestros for that and it was pretty fun. Probably also due to us being a little slap-happy of exhaustion.

That would be due to the Basillica visit before dinner. Bryan and Dana dragged me into the ticket office and I actually requested the tickets (diez personas y tres guías por favor…. I think I can handle that one with a team). We also totally lucked out. The tour guide that was there today is friends with Cameron so he’s very familiar with Youth World, and since we will be guides the rest of the summer, he took us into the catacombs. For those who have been to the Basillica, you know those stairs that go down below the courtyard outside with the HUGE locked doors at the bottom. That’s where we went. There are only three people important enough to have been buried there, but it’s a pretty large space. Pretty cool, though kinda weird. I’ve never been big on going to places where dead people are stored.

We climbed the inside and the first tower, but skipped the second for lack of time. It was pretty fun, and not as nerve-wracking the second time around. I’ll be an expert by the time I’ve taken all my teams there. It was also funny to be back climbing up that chicken-wire-filled staircase and thinking about my first full day in Ecuador last year, how I’m different, how I’m the same, and how well that climb still sums up so much. (PS, Deborah, if you are reading this, you’re totally busted on the missing hair last year. I’ve seen the anklet.)

The afternoon was lunch from Yaro’s and staff meeting at the Mundo Juvenil office. We did conflict training that I hope doesn’t need to be put to use this summer. We also had worship and prayer time together. Our table (Teddy, me, Lane, Nicole and Jerry) was totally lost during one of the activities, so we just did a mumble prayer. It was awesome. Totally using that with my teams (thanks, Teddy). We also ate WAY to much food. Yaro’s is a cheese steak place that’s a little pricey, but very worth it. Not even Matt could finish two whole ones.

Morning activities were training on the final part of the life of a short term mission at Matt and Marlo’s. It’s a little scary (and by a little scary, I mean totally terrifying) that we theoretically know everything we are supposed to to host teams. We did a couple of case studies (though we’re saving most for tomorrow) on real-life teams and problems that can come up. One of our topics was even “How to save a VBS.” It made me realize how well-prepared the Christ Church team is in general, even when we thought we were crashing and burning last year. (“I don’t sing!” “I don’t speak Spanish!”)

And finally, the very first thing was breakfast and worship and Chet and Katie’s. Breakfast burritos and cinnamon buns. Even though I’m totally wiped out right now, it makes me want to do today over again just for those.

Today, training continued. The PLAN was: Part 1 (of 3) of Short-Term Host orientation, Carmen Bajo orientation with Pastor Fabian, Hostal Bosque visit, Debrief, Dinner, game night.

STM training was good, if intense. Julie, the CFO of Youth World, said she had a lot of blank stares at the end of her presentation. Not that we didn’t all take everything in, I think it just hit us all the incredible responsibility we will have for each team, even with a pareja. Even the interns who were here last year had questions, and we really needed the chocolate chip cookies by the end. I think we are going through a year’s worth of the long-termers’ North American chocolate stockpile.

Off to Carmen Bajo. The CB site hosts and Laura were already there, so we managed to pile into two cars, Cameron’s and Chet’s. Teddy and Sarah and some of the others had been to CB before, but for me it was a first. Much like Emaus and Argelia Alta, it is an ever-growing church in both the sense of the physical building and the ministries and programs there. Even as we were having (an incredibly delicious home-cooked) lunch upstairs, a (non-YW) mission team was getting back to work on some major construction outside. We got a tour of the place and met a lot of the kids, who were there for the Compassion program. Grace and Rosa gave their testimonies and told us the history of CB. It is always amazing to me how people will just open up about anything to us, no matter how painful a memory or personal a story might be, just because they know we are fellow Christians.

That’s especially true considering how hard it was for me to talk about my experience so far in Debrief when we got to Hostal Bosque (home sweet home for Teddy, Emily, a couple others and me). We played a game and then discussed how to go about Debrief with a team… and then we did it. What was really cool was doing both the “single word to describe your experience” thing and splitting into pairs with a two minutes to talk and 30 seconds for your partner to give your answer back to you, and then a switch for the other person to do the same thing. It gave us all a chance to get out whatever we wanted without interruption and without taking up the whole Debrief, but it was definitely hard for me to fill up two minutes with my experience. Even though it’s been incredible, I do a lot better writing (as you can tell) than verbally processing my experience, but my partner for the exercise, Nicole, was awesome in pointing me in the perfect direction to continue, even though we broke the rules (only one person talking). I think that’s going to be a theme of the summer, Interns breaking rules. We cheat in every game.

At any rate, my word for the day was “refueled.” Initially I was thinking something along the lines of “overwhelmed” or “intense,” but I realized in listening to everyone else and in really thinking about today especially that Carmen Bajo reminded me why I’m even here. To see all the construction, and to see what God is doing there through the children’s and medical ministries and the teams that are working was definitely what I needed today. Not that we’ve really put any of our STM training into action, but it’s refreshing to see accomplishment because of faith and hard work and knowing that that’s what gave me such a growing experience last year that I hope to continue. Not to mention that very faith being so evident in the trust of the children who crawled all over us and the women who told us their stories. Just going over that was a learning experience. I love Debrief, even though it stretches me a lot. Or maybe because it stretches me a lot. And this one was definitely a deboxer (for the CEC crew that knows what that is).

When we left Debrief, we walked to Pincho’s. First off, it was great to know where I was going. If there’s one place in Quito to which I can make it from a certain start point, it’s Pincho’s from Bosque. And Pincho’s is probably my favorite place to eat here. I say probably because I’m possibly biased, having been there twice as much as the next-most familiar Ecuadorian restaurant to me and because it’s really easy to order there (“Pincho de Pollo y agua sin gas por favor”). It was pretty cool to continue some of the topics from Debrief with Christy, Matt and Jerry and to talk and get to know each other more over delicious food. As we said last year, I feel like we just bounce from one meal to another with a little missionary work in between. I have no idea how I consume so much food at EACH meal and am still ready for the next. Good thing I’m working it off with all the hiking. I forgot how winded you can be just strolling down the street at 10,000 feet above sea level.

Originally we were going to have game night at Matt and Marlo’s. Christy even invited us over to watch the big game (one of the Ecuadorian teams is playing for the league title… or something like that. Nobody can really explain it to us except that it’s a huge deal). But we actually hit Adam and Sara’s (home for the guys) for dance lessons with Sarah. (It’s just slightly hard to keep my Sara/Sarah’s straight). Laura and her “hot, good-smelling” boyfriend Jorge even came for a while and were amazing and hilarious. Some of the rest of us were hilarious just because we’re terrible at Salsa and Meringue. And by some of the rest of us I mean me. And by Salsa and Meringue I mean dancing in general. I’m the epitome of a gringo.

Cameron figures I was growing because of my love of the zip line. I figured I grew just a little because I did at least attempt it. Jerry pretty much had to drag me out of our room though and pulled his dad’s “disappointed” line. I need to tell him that that is going to work really well when he has kids. Jerry Drew IV is definitely getting that one. Tomorrow is STM Part 2 and Casa Gabriel. I can’t wait.

PS- Thanks for the prayers, I think everyone is over their altitude sickness now.
PPS- Billy says he wonders what we are doing down here. I promise we’re not just playing around. We’ll be so ready for our teams when they arrive if our brains haven’t exploded first.

So I’ve gotten all my forms off to International Teams and received my login to keep an eye on my support raising account. Not that that’s extremely exciting, but for me, sitting around wishing it was May 29 for the next 90 Days, it’s just a little step closer to Quito. Everyone just pray for me and Jerry(and the other six Interns from Tennessee to California) as we go through this whole support-raising process preparing our hearts and minds and bank accounts to be the leaders that God and Youth World need us to be this summer.