I realized a few days ago how little I’ve been blogging since ijve been here. Obviously I’m doing better than I was for the last ten months that I was back in the States. But I forgot just how little time you have when you’re hosting a team. I hung out with teams last summer, particularly in June and August. But I didn’t really think about the fact that I hadn’t hosted a team since last March. So now that I’m not quite so sleep-deprived, I’ll recap what I’ve been doing since our team hit the ground.
Amalia and I were working with Christ Church Episcopal School from Greenville, SC. I had met a couple of team members last year, particularly Elizabeth, the team leader, when I was working with them in Riobamba, Ecuador. Amalia had actually hosted them, so there were a few returning team members she already knew pretty well, so that was a nice little head start. It was also cool working with Amalia. We’ve known each other for a while and knew already how each other work. I can handle her silliness and she can handle my sarcasm, and overall I think we did a pretty good job of splitting up the work.
So the team got here on Monday night, June 6. Tuesday was a pretty normal day of orientations (see this post for more), and then we headed out to Carmen Bajo on Wednesday. I love being back there, especially since this was my first chance to see a lot of friends who I hadn’t seen since last August. But as a team host, something really cool was seeing the group really plug in there. They all tried out what Spanish they knew, to the point that by Thursday I just found a single job and stuck with it, rather than running around to translate. I figured if they needed to figure something out, they knew where I was. This also allowed me to get to know some of the guys that I was working with (seems like that always takes me longer when we don’t start out the week with a six-hour bus ride out of the city).
Another thing was seeing how much the team members got out of their comfort zones in ways other than language. Thursday morning it was our turn to lead morning devotion, and different people variously played guitar, taught Scripture, and shared parts of their life story. Especially with the sharing stories part, that’s not necessarily stuff they were used to (something to which I can relate), so I was really appreciative of their participation.
While we were out at Carmen Bajo, our main project was to move a pile of sand that would eventually be used to mix concrete. Now that might not sound like a big deal from a North American perspective, but it was. Sometime before Tuesday morning, a truck had dumped the sand in front of the project building. This meant moving it up by wheelbarrows to the patio on the first floor, where it was shoveled up into the back corner out of the way. Once about half of the truckload had been moved there, we started moving it again, from the patio directly up to the fifth floor via pulley. One bucket at a time. You also have to imagine this pulley. When Jose rigged it up, he looked to me and said in Spanish, “I have a job for someone. Someone who doesn’t have vertigo.” Whoever was at the top of the pulley system had to reach over and grab the bucket full of sand. Jose’s suggestion was to sit on the ledge with one leg hanging over the 50-foot drop. Not a job for me. Fortunately, our North American boys were all significantly taller than Jose, so they figured out eventually how to do this while standing (semi-)safely in the inside side of the wall. But safe or not, it still took a took a looooooong time. There were only a couple of buckets dropped accidentally (and one very wet sponge dropped several times very purposefully on unsuspecting heads).
Over the course of our three days working at Carmen Bajo, we got all the sand at least up to the patio, and most of it up to the fifth floor. I know it was hard for some of the team to not see the project 100% complete, but in some ways that’s a good thing. I hope we were able to help them see that they were a part of something, and that missions is not about building something and putting up a plaque with your name and the date on it. Because while they were moving all that sand, they were giving wheelbarrow rides to kids. They were laughing with the adult workers. They were speaking as much Spanish as they could and learning about lives and families and culture and faith. And they were sharing their own.
And even more importantly, we had two more days to go to Carmen Bajo even after our work time was up. Time to spend with people, and time to spend in worship.
We went on Saturday to the market, and then to Casa G (an interesting juxtaposition that I hope was noticed). Again, I have to say that I was impressed with the way the team plugged in with the boys. Phil had a couple of guys share their testimonies, but in between each of them he asked some team members to share. We hadn’t warned them that this was a possibility, so there were some awkward silences, but someone volunteered each time, and I think that the back-and-forth was one of the things that helped build such a strong relationship between the boys and the gringos. Especially thinking about teams I’ve taken to Casa G in the past, I really loved seeing the interaction between two groups people that I also love. I even left for a while as they were playing soccer to pop into the Alliance Academy senior day to show support for Hannah and to see her sister and my first-ever Quito Quest pareja, Sarah Miller.
Hanging out and catching up with her in person was pretty great, but so was taking the team back to Carmen Bajo with the Casa G boys for a concert at the church. Roberto’s band, Gedeón, was playing, and some of the boys performed dances and raps, and a couple of guys from CB also sang and rapped. We got to catch up with another Quito Quest team (some of whom I’d met last summer) and their hosts (who were shocked at my newly-shaven state and helped me with possibly the most ridiculous Spanish food order/phone argument I’ve ever had).
When we got back to the Casa G house and ate with the guys, I literally had to drag some of my team out of the house to get debrief done at a reasonable hour. I pretty much consider any day a success when you are dancing out of your ministry site with the people you’ve been serving with.
Sunday was worship at Carmen Bajo. Fabian preached and Thomas got up and taught a little bit, and then suddenly it was time to say goodbye. Again, there was quite a bit of dragging to do, and translating and talking throughout. Another friend of mine (somewhat jokingly, somewhat seriously) doesn’t consider teams a success if they don’t cry. By that standard, Sunday morning was a pretty resounding success.
We took off Sunday for Hacienda El Refugio, Youth World’s training and retreat center just outside the city. While we had some work projects to do there, Sunday afternoon was all about connecting to God in that place. We had several hours of quiet time after our orientation, and at least for me, it was very much needed. My two favorite places on the property are at the top of the mountain where you can see all the other peaks around, and in this tree near Casa Grande that I just can’t help but climb. If you ever need a reminder how small you are and how big God is (and you’re not near the ocean), look at a mountain. Or climb a tree. You can’t help but feel like a little kid when you’re in a tree. I just sat there I. The branches after my hike and was still.
A cuy roast and 8 hours of “ocean” sleep-machine effects later, we were jumping into our work projects. Some of the guys poured concrete steps and then took them up to place on the path to the high ropes course. When they were done, they joined my group in the prayer garden digging ditches. We needed a series of shovel-width ditches 24 inches deep (which kept making me think of that old Jibbs song) so that the electrical could all be put down where it would not later be disturbed. This project lasted us the rest of our time on the property, and we were worn out at the end of each day. Especially the night that Amalia, Bryce and I shared our testimonies with the team.
Elizabeth asked us (Amalia and myself) to do this one night, and we dragged Bryce into it as well. Now I say “we dragged” because that’s how it seemed to come about. But hearing his testimony, I know it was a God thing. And as much as I still really don’t like telling my story, I know that that was a God thing too. I was really stressed out about it, but the only time I started to get choked up was while I was reading scripture, and I know that how much I chose to say (quite a bit more than normal) was guided by Him. There have been certain people in my life who have really been able to impact my faith through their stories. And while I’m certainly not a motivational speaker or anything, I know that God uses our stories in ways that we don’t necessarily expect or even see.
Fast forward to Wednesday, and we had one last action-packed day in the ground. We left HER right after breakfast (sort of) and went basically straight to Fundación Las Ganas, an orphanage in central Quito. We went once during training, and I knew that we were one of only two QQ teams going all summer. This is because Ganas is a new ministry site for us, and in short, we’re trying not to overwhelm them with gringos.
Ganas is a tough place. The kids that are there have had some really bad situations in their lives before being placed there. It’s also a place full of love and a place where more than just basic needs are met. But sometimes it is hard for the workers at the foundation to meet even those basic needs. This “recap” is already pretty ridiculously long, so if you want some more thoughts on Ganas, check out my friend Dana’s blog about our training time there by clicking this link. Suffice it to say that the team worked their butts off one last time. They were dropping like flies from exhaustion and various stomach problems, but they got an amazing amount of the work done, hand washing barrel after barrel of blankets with very limited resources.
Finally it was time for final debrief. We talked. We prayed. We cried (success!). We said goodbye. Because really, nobody is fully awake at the airport at 4:00am. I went with them to and through the airport, long enough to be sure they were checked in and their airport tax was taken care of. And then they were gone.
There were plenty of tasks to finish out the block. Debrief with the Maestros (aka Ghostbusters). Cleaning the hostal. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. But the on-field time was over.
I hope the team saw God move in and through them, because I did. And I hope that this continues to impact them in Greenville and that they bear fruit in the post-field. Maybe some will be back next summer. Maybe some will come and do my job. Maybe some will just go home and love God and others in a new way. As Cameron said in Partnership orientation a week and N eternity ago, it would be silly for any of us to tell someone else what their fruit should be. But after 10 days on the ground with them, I am confident that there will be plenty of fruit to go around, whatever it looks like. And I hope I figure out what mine looks like as well.
