Category: God

Breakfast

Lydia, this one’s for you.

Even when I was little and my mom actually made me breakfast, I just wasn’t a big eater in the morning. I’d have a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice and cram it down as fast as I could so I could go play before I had to go to school.

I think it was about the seventh grade when breakfast became a Pop-Tart on the way out the door and definitely in the ninth grade when I just gave up on breakfast all together. In fact, from about Christmas of 2000 until summer of 2007, I might have had breakfast once a week, on Thursdays, and later on Fridays, depending on the day of our Sr. High Bible Study at Rachel’s Place. Even when I came home from Ecuador last year, much as I enjoyed eating breakfast and having coffee with Edla, Holly, Hunter, Julie, and Katie, I was pretty much totally unmotivated to get out of bed more than half an hour before I had to be at church, school, or work.

Maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve been eating pancitos y huevos for three months and I’m used to it, or maybe it’s that I just enjoyed feeling functional before 10:00am. But despite sleeping through my alarm for twelve days straight, I shot out of bed this morning at 7:13 and made breakfast.

It’s the first day of class and I’m motivated, but I think that more than that, it’s the idea of having somewhere to be. I haven’t had to work or go to class or go to meetings or my team or basically anything since the 7th. I had church on the two Sundays in there, but I knew that my mom would wake me up to get in the shower before Colin. This morning it was all me, and not because I’m ecstatic to be heading to COA by any means. I was actually happy about breakfast.

Seriously, Lydia. Just shut up. I know. You win.

Cereal, toast, juice, milk and café con leche (I was too lazy to scramble eggs- give me a break, that’s pretty good). And somehow I still managed to be an hour ahead of schedule to have time to do my quiet time before the rest of my day suddenly happened, and to sit down and write this before I even take off for class (even ahead of schedule, I’ll probably end up late now because of this).

In many ways, breakfast is a lot like God. I want to look forward to prayer time and worship (and lately I tend to a lot more) rather than feeling obligated towards them. And He recharges us and equips us for that to which He sends us much like how fueled I feel for my day thanks to a cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I know it’s a pretty stupid analogy. Really, I do. I’d elaborate on it some more (anyway) if I wasn’t trying to make this a “good student” day and be somewhat on time for my first class. But you can connect the dots however else you’d like. As for me, I hope I go into today (and this school year and coming weeks and months back at work) looking forward to what God has in store for me, and fueled and ready for it.

And I’m going to have to find some mermelada de mora.

Just What I Needed

This morning I went to the early service at First Methodist. After three days Stateside, I was pretty much prepared for the onslaught of old ladies asking me how my “trip” had been. I could, however, already feel myself slipping into laziness and responding that it was “good,” which I have since been making an effort to fix. I’d rather someone “glaze over” than I waste an opportunity to talk about the last three months.

I would say it was a fairly normal service, except that for me, when Mike finished preaching and the service suddenly started to end at 9:20, I looked at my phone like “You can’t be serious.” After three months of hour-long or two-hour-long sermons, even at Gringo church, I was just getting going. And the sermon was on Matthew 15:21-28 when the woman begs for Mercy from Jesus and he ends up admiring her faith. I, of course, took something totally different out of it than was intended or than probably anyone else got, but it was the beginning of a learning experience that lasted all day.

After that I went to play for the “munchkins.” Turned out only three of them were there (though one of them was Christopher Alexander, so I got to meet him). I mostly just talked about Ecuador for the benefit of Dianna) and played a couple songs. Davis and Taylor sang enough to humor me, but I was glad to see them all and in one of the best moods I’ve been in when I headed off to Burger King in my usual avoidance of going to any of the Sunday School classes in which I just don’t fit.

There I got a blatant example of how useful my time in South America has been on simply a surface level. There was a Spanish-speaking couple in line behind me, and the girl at the counter was speaking loud and slow, trying to explain to them what time breakfast ended in a language they didn’t understand and as if they were stupid. I feel like “desayuno por vente minutos mas” is a phrase I would have been able to spit out in April, but actually have the confidence to do so now (at least without someone fluent in both languages standing around and able to tell me how idiotic I sound).

Having left FUMC and having heard the sermon already, I decided to go to the 11:00 service at First Baptist. I’d already made up my mind to go to church later anyway because I am so often lazy and only go to a service if I am a part of it: playing guitar or some other instrument, preaching, running the sound system, etc. In the Methodist church all the vows always include our support through “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service.” I’ve been nailing the last two for quite a while, and I wanted to go to a worship service and worship and for once through the rest.

Granted I got there and Billy commandeered me to play guitar for a hymn, but I didn’t plug in and most people probably couldn’t hear me, which was fine. And, maybe because I was simply aware of it this morning, or maybe because God was actually directly teaching me something, I just kept getting slammed all service long.

Steve’s Invocation was a thank-you to God for interrupting us, and the opening hymn was “The Solid Rock,” something to which I’ve absolutely had to cling for the last half a week (or summer, for that matter). The choir’s anthem was “Give Me Jesus,” and though I like the Jeremy Camp version better, the words are the same and seriously… after over three days Stateside I’d like a T-shirt that says “You can have all this world. Give Me Jesus.”

But wait, there’s more. Mason’s sermon, “Behind the Scenes” just kept hitting me too. It was about faith, and it ended with us singing my absolutele favorite hymn of all time, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

The rest of the day, I got to hang out with Megan and get ice cream, I went to the recorder ensemble at FBC (there’s a method to my madness, just wait), praise band/the Celebration! service at FBC (another message on faith and the opportunity to rock out), and Ruby Tuesday’s and the Stevens’ house with most of the Christ Episcopal Ecuador Team to play the cup game and look at photos.

I’m not necessarily glad to not be in Ecuador at this point, but rather than feeling stuck in North Carolina now, I feel home.

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.

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.

Shut up and let God work

I am absolutely going to be stretched this block. I’ll skip right over the Basilica and orientations and meeting the team and head right on into debrief tonight.

We finished up dinner in the meeting room of Hotel Galaxie and I started what I thought was a pretty standard first-full-day debrief. We did the “one word” exercise to sum up the day and then had anyone who chose “unpack” their word and externally process the day. Eric jumped in a lot more than the team leaders I’ve known before (granted, that’s a total of two). I was initially glad of that just because he knows the team so well and I’m still trying to figure out 34 people’s names (and it doesn’t help to have Lindsey, Lizzi, Liz, Lacey, Lorie, and Laura all sitting next to each other). I ended up being glad of his input for a totally different reason as I finally learned to shut up and let God work.

By the end of what I originally planned to be a maybe 45-minute debrief of the few events of the day, Jodie had spoken in tongues, Liz had been healed, half the group had been prayed over and we’d had probably more than an hour of on-the-fly testimonies and confession of sins.

Not to brush off the experience with a joke, but Eric said smiling at the end “Sorry, Danny, I know this usually doesn’t happen until the last night.” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me until then, but from that second I knew that first, this will be an amazing and fruitful group and that second, I am going to be stretched beyond my imagination for the next ten days. Other than that, I’m not going to even try to describe it because I absolutely cannot do it justice, no matter how much my Grandpa and my pareja think of my ability to write. I’ll just say that I have a lot to process, and that the Holy Spirit was present.

Sarah asked me in the Taxi on the way home whether I’d ever been a part of anything like that. “Nope!” She just laughed. I’m so glad that Cameron told us during our meeting how important it would be for Sarah to just be a member of the team and for me to handle logistical things, because I can tell already how important it is going to be for me personally to be an observer here and for her personally to get to worship through a kind of service and with a group of people that are both right up her ally. Not that I plan to set myself apart from the group, and not that Sarah is not going to be a leader, but I feel like God is pulling us to totally different rolls than last block and where we will be able to serve this team and serve Him and where we will both grow ourselves.

Helpless

The guys went to go see the 9:30 movie tonight. All six of us went, and when we were walking back, we passed a guy laying on the side of the street. He was on the sidewalk on Av. Americas in front of a pretty well-lit building. I saw him, and he looked kind of rough, but being a stupid North American, I just initially assumed he was drunk and glanced away to keep walking. Most of the other guys did too. I’m not sure who first said something, but even Bryan (the only Spanish speaker in the group and the only one who has lived here long-term) shrugged it off. When we were a little ways down the street Lane really stopped him.

He said the guy’s wallet was laying out next to him and it looked like he had been mugged. We turned around immediately, though we were a little slow to go up to him. At first it was hard to tell what was going on for sure. He had some leather cases on his belt that were partially covered by his sweatshirt. Teddy and I were a little worried about those, but he finally just pulled the sweatshirt up to see that they were empty. One was definitely supposed to hold a cell phone.

When we got down really close, he started to move a little bit. He would pull his head up almost like he was doing crunches in a constant effort to get up. He was hardly moving, but he was determined in a desperate sort of way, which is really what told me that he was a victim. The blood under his nose and the cut on his left thumb were what gave it away to Teddy. The way his wallet was laying in an obviously dug-through manner with cards laying out gave it away to Lane and Matt.

Bryan called the emergency service and Lane and Matt took off to find a cop. Teddy and I got our outer shirts under the guy’s head and Bryan tried to convince him to stay lying down as he was switched from operator to operator on the phone.

Teddy flipped through the cards in the man’s wallet for information as he tried to put it all back in. In seconds he’d determined his name (Fernando) and that he was a Christian and that he has a family.

A car came around the curve in the road and noticed us. A girl probably a little older than us got out and asked what was going on. Bryan told her in Spanish in between operators on what I had by this time determined was not an effective emergency service. (Iknow, Partership. Die to your prejudice. But this is one of those things that I can identify in a foreign culture as not good, not different, but bad). The girl was on her phone immediately. I don’t know who she called or what she said, but I could see concern, and that was more than anyone else who arrived on the scene from that point forward could show.

I called Lane, but he and Matt were already on their way back by then. The had found a guard down the street who had gone to call the police. We continued to try to get the man to stay down, and he continued to try to get up. We knew he wouldn’t go very far if we let him up, and I rubbed his hand to try to get across a sense of comfort and compassion so that he would at least know that we were trying to take care of him, not force him.

When the three police officers finally showed up in a Policia Nacional pickup truck, we waved them over to his location. Fernando, the victim, had gotten to a semi-sitting position. He had not opened his eyes, and only once had made a soft groan. His hands moved back and forth from his stomach when he was curled or stretched out on the ground, and to his head the more he tried to sit or stand, all in obvious expressions of trying to subdue pain.

The police did not take his wallet when Teddy tried to hand it to them. They did not try to help the man up, nor did they try to even talk to him or convince him to stay down. Because he was nearly sitting himself now, and trying to stand, Bryan and Teddy helped him up. The second they let go he started to fall over on the police officer, who grabbed one arm as I grabbed the other to steady him and help him lean against the wall of the building.

The police said he was drunk.

No effort to help whatsoever. They didn’t care that he was bleeding. They didn’t care that there was no cash in his wallet (“everything is there,” they said). They didn’t care that he was “drunk” with no sign of a bottle anywhere near him. I got really close to listen to his breathing and make sure he wasn’t swallowing or choking on blood from his nose. If anyone would have, I would have smelled alcohol on him, especially if it was enough to take a man down like that.

After about a minute and a half after the arrival of the officers, Teddy looked at Bryan and said “Our job is done.” None of us, Teddy included, felt like our job was done. None of us felt right leaving him. None of us felt right leaving him with the police. But this is not the States. I’m truly surprised we weren’t questioned about it immediately, as in, if we had been involved. I’m also truly surprised they didn’t ask to see our wallets to see if we had taken anything from him. It’s just that the corruption of the police manifested itself in apathy rather than taking down some gringos tonight. So when Teddy said “Our job is done,” he meant not that we could check this off our feel-better-about-ourselves-list or that we had truly done everything in our power to be good Samaritans, but that we had done all the police were going to let us do.

We were angry when we left. Matt said “We should pray for him, whatever that means.” I understood the second part of that sentence for what he meant and what he felt. I know how the system works here. And I don’t know for sure where Fernando will end up tonight, where he’ll wake up tomorrow. But I can say for almost certain that it will not be home. It will not even be a hospital. Jail would not surprise me, but I feel it more likely he’ll be just a few meters farther down the street than where we found him. We were angry because we felt helpless.

No one was going to use that word. But that’s what we were all saying. And that’s what we’re all dealing with now in our own individual ways, on the phone, smoking a cigar, sitting with each other, or writing. I’ve already talked about people I will probably never see again in this life. I would imagine that Fernando is one of them. I hope and pray that he is okay. I hope and pray that his family sees him tonight. I hope and pray that whoever did that to him realizes what they caused and finds something better out of it. I hope and pray that six interns really did finish their job tonight. I hope and pray that I never feel that helpless again. I’m thankful that we did find him, and I’m thankful that it was not worse.

Please pray for Fernando.

Called to be Where We Are

Bryan asked me last night if I was ready for my team to leave. I said “no.” And now they’re gone.  It’s a complicated emotion.

In one sense, and very much on the surface, I’m glad to have some time off. There’s still work to do to finish out Block 2, and it will be fun to remember what “sleeping in” is like.  I get to see the guys now, and even most of the girls are over at the “Frat House” tonight.  We successfully hosted a team, saw them learn and grow.

But we also met brothers and sisters in Christ, and became friends. And now they are on their way home. Sarah said during final debrief that while this has been an incredible experience, now God Calls them to be in Woodbury, Minnesota. And I believe that, but I’m just not good at good-byes.

To top off the fact that the group left, they left us with some very heart-felt letters, some totally unnecessary but greatly appreciated parting gifts (Sarah and I are going back to Crepes & Waffles very soon) and a lot of tears. Paul left giving his sweatshirt to Sarah and his necklace to me, and after having watched him grow so much this week and learning from him, it truly made us feel like we were a part of that. And he’s not the only one who has touched us either, and I just gave out a lot of hugs and tried not to think about it as Amy, Calley, Denise, Erik, Gary, Greg, Jenna, Katie, Lauri, Maggi, Mari Jo, Matt, Mike “Curley,” Mike “Moyer,” Natalie, Paige, Paul, Rob and Robin hugged, squeezed, besito’ed, laughed and cried their way into the airport.

More than likely, there are some in that group that I will never see face-to-face again in this life. I feel honored to have been a part of their experience and blessed to have had them be a part of mine, and thankful that God let our paths cross for nine days in Quito, Tena, Shandia, and Capricho, Ecuador. I’m anxious to see and hear about their fruit, and to be able to share mine with them, which they have definitely impacted, as a group, and as 19 amazing individuals in my life.

I talked to Heather this afternoon when I came back to the house. It was awesome to hear the voice of both someone from home, and someone who can understand this ongoing experience. I missed the “Tangent Minds” so much it hurt this afternoon, and I can’t wait for the other one in South America to make his way back to the Frat House tomorrow (I keep typing “Fart House,” which also would not be far from the truth). At any rate, we talked about being sent to do God’s work, and about (as Sarah put it, which will always stick with me) being Called to be where we are.

I’ll try to convert some of my writings from this week into pre-dated blog entries. But I also had a conversation with Matt Jenson this morning in our meeting about playing “catch up,” and I might just choose not to butcher a good chunk of it.

I love seeing new user registration notifications in my mailbox! Keep the comments coming!

The Nosedive Five

EDIT: This is actually being posted nearly two months later. It’s been sitting unfinished in my drafts folder for all that time, and though I don’t feel like I can do it any more justice than I could when I started writing it, I wanted this day to be recorded.

Travel Day: 8
On Ground Day: 6
Nicole’s Birthday
Final Day

This morning was early. Granted, we are used to that, and I would have rolled over semi-consciously when the stupid roosters started crowing anyway. But seriously having to roll out of bed at 4:00 AM and go to the kitchen would not have been on my to-do list of choice if I’d written the schedule for our eighth day in the jungle.

Breakfast meant seeing the kids for the last time. They came in basically in the dark and still sang their pre-meal songs and prayers. We definitely have our system down pat by now, and since some of the kids left last night, there was only one super-fast breakfast shift, another hearty meal of the brown sardine mush that makes me praise God for Chet’s dwindling supply of Nutri-Grain bars and sick at the thought that some of these kids are 5 years old and they are hiking for up to a day or more and probably will eat nothing else on the trip home.

That thought just kept slamming me as I watched groups trickle out into the jungle, mostly groups of tiny kids with one adult guide per group. And I was sympathetic before it started raining. And raining. And raining.

The gringos went back to the church to begin packing up. Chet handed out beef jerky to the guys before the girls came over. I’m really glad that he can’t go for days straight on yuca and rice either. Fabian sat singing “His Cheeseburger” from Veggietales and peeling us grapefruit, putting a candle-sized hole in one for Nicole. I’ve had weird birthdays. My 16th and 19th stick out in that regard. But Nicole’s a candle-topped jungle grapefruit takes the cake (no pun intended).

Chet talked to us for a while about the rain. The original plan was for us to go and bail out the runway with cups from the kitchen so that the water wouldn’t stop the planes from landing.

For emphasis and so that you know I’m not kidding, let me just say that again. We were going to go and bail out the runway with cups from the kitchen so that the water wouldn’t stop the planes from landing.

He also mentioned the possibility of planes not getting out, and that the order of flights would be two Ecuadorian groups (including Giberto (sp?), whose wife just had a baby back home), three gringo flights (Chet’s group being last) and then the rest of Rey’s crew. As a bit of foreshadowing… flex and flow, right?

As it turned out, Rey and Palabra de Vida wanted to give us a break. I don’t think I could have felt more appreciated (as I tried also not to feel guilty) for our work than by walking to Toca’s house down the runway as the Ecuadorians seriously did bail out the runway with coffee cups as the bit of afternoon sun helped to clear it up a little. Looking down at the still soaked and muddy landing strip and up at the 80%-gray, cloud-covered sky as we trekked to lunch with the Vice President, I was already skeptical that eight flights would get in to Toñamparé, much less out.

We were all pretty tired, and there wasn’t much talking over the delicious arroz con pollo. Sarah even had to jab Teddy a couple of times for that whole facial expression thing (as he can’t express himself of Wao) so he didn’t look like he hated the meal as he sat staring blankly into space from exhaustion.

Hiking was another one of those things that just would not have been in my own plans, but as it turned out, getting a lesson in jungle flora and fauna was pretty sweet, and so was standing by the beautiful, gigantic waterfall when we got to the end of our jungle journey. And somewhere in the discussion on the way back, Toca decided he’d teach us to shoot the blow gun. The big one. (As in “Keep-out-of-reach-of-chiiiiiildren.”) He set up a watermelon, and I just about hit it, and most of the guys came close. Necia and Danielle didn’t do bad either, but Jerry nailed the thing. I don’t think many gringos do that (though I don’t know how many non-Huaorani other than Chet they’d let try).

By that time, Chet decided that we couldn’t hang any longer or we’d be cutting it too close on the planes. We made it back to the church and actually part-way back to town when we heard the first engine in the sky. We RAN. I’m stunned we actually got all our belongings into various backpacks and Williams’ adventure racing bags, especially in so little time, and all of us were back at the other end of the landing strip as the first planes took off and the second set got ready.

That was the two Ecuadorian flights, and the first gringo flight did get out with Jerry, Necia, Matt and Angela. Next was supposed to be Teddy, Nicole Lane, Danielle and me. Somehow we switched with Chet, Fabian, Bryan, Sarah and Dana, and then again at the last moment, Dana and Nicole switched. Praise God- this turned into another birthday present for Nicole and a very much needed Spanish speaker in our group. She thought she’d just be the translator for the pilot, and I also think she might even have had the foresight to realize that another plane was NOT getting out. I should have known that after seeing a North American pilot scream in Spanish at an Ecuadorian pilot who had sat on the ground for 30 minutes and knowing how concerned he was as our time was being gambled against the ever-darkening weather.

Chet turned to us as it began to rain (having been misinformed that our plane was already in the air from Shell) and said “See you in Shell.” To give you an idea how confused things were already, the pilot (coincidentally named “Dan”) turned to him with a strange look and said “You’re going to Arahuno.” Chet’s smile faded just slightly, but he shrugged and said “Okay.” As he hopped into the cabin.

As the five gringos and Fabian faded into the looming clouds, we heard our last airplane engine for the night. That was it. There were no more planes leaving the ground, and in fact, we found out later that the ones in the air were disallowed to land in Shell, having to make instrument landings in Arahuno. The pilots used our sleeping pads to crash in the cargo areas of their planes.

Forgive me for the consistent redundancy in this post, but here’s that statement again: The pilots used our sleeping pads to crash in the cargo areas of their planes. That meant that our sleeping pads were in Arahuno, and we were in Toñamparé.

It was a pretty sad moment for us as we unpacked again, Teddy, Lane and I in the church (praise God we didn’t cut our lines and could re-hang our mosquito nets) and Dana and Danielle back in the house across from us. After that we walked back down the runway for the beginning of at least the fourth round trip to town that day. We felt appreciated again though, as the Ecuadorians did the “ritual of the rain” for us as we entered the kitchen and made us sit and be served first. And as for dinner, at least we got eggs again. My mom will think I’m crazy when I start putting eggs on my rice at home, but it was delicious.

We went back to the church and Dana went right into Maestra mode. Or maybe mom mode. Or at this point I’m just thinking that’s Dana’s all-the-time mode. We went around the circle of the five of us and talked about or feelings. Amazingly, all five of us had already worked out exactly why we were there, why God picked us at the five to be left behind (the “Nosedive Five” as Teddy named us), the individuals who needed to learn a specific lesson. All of us had different reasons, and all of us were pretty honest about it, to the point that it wasn’t hard for me to open up and express myself at all, and that I could gain a newfound respect for two people in the group, and an unexpected friendship with another. I doubt that that conversation will ever leave that circle, if only because there is absolutely no one who could understand it without being there. We say that a lot about experiences with Youth World and Ecuador, but this is one that I will not even attempt.

I played guitar in the dark and prayed to close us out, and it was cool to have five musically talented gringos singing praises and choosing joy despite the ridiculous circumstances. I realized about halfway through my favorite song of all time that we were probably waking up Dayuma next door and tried to keep it down, but just couldn’t help it. That will go down as one of my favorite and most meaningful worship experiences ever.