Travel Day: 5
On Ground Day: 3
Devo this morning was really cool. I sat next to Sarah, which meant I actually got it translated today, including when some of the Ecuadorian crew got up and spoke about different experiences with the kids, some of them learning and growing, and a couple of them even accepting Christ. Going hand-in-hand with last night, it really made me feel connected to the camp aspect that I’m not necessarily right there for all the time. Rey also had a pretty powerful message just for those of us on the two teams (which I’m really starting to consider one team now that we’ve been working together with them so much).
After scripture we had a traditional Ecuadorian breakfast. For the uninitiated, that means sweet (sort of) bread and café con leche (coffee with milk, though it’s much more milk and delicious). There was also two kinds of cake, but I just can’t handle that that early. During the devotional and breakfast there was a short rain shower, just enough to get us a little wet and seem to cleanse the whole place a little. There’s the recurring theme for the day. Things being washed away.
Breakfast for the kids was super smooth. We had it prepared, set up and out for them, then did it again for the second batch and had the whole thing cleaned up before the program even started.
We got over to the program ourselves and were able to sing a lot of the Spanish songs. The Hudson Taylor story continued and then the game for the session was a sort of scavenger hunt. The whole camp has been divided into two teams. Both are lions (one is named león, lion in Spanish, and the other is named lion in Wao, the Huaorani language). We tell them apart because one has a red flag and the other a blue flag, so in true old-school camp style, they’re the red and blue teams. EVERYTHING is a competition. Even who can be louder singing songs and chants before the blessings each mealtime. The scavenger hunt was pretty intense. The WHOLE team would have to run outside and grab something, say an object a counselor outside was holding for them, or go tag one of the dogs (the Huaorani dogs are of even more interest than other dogs or even Ecuadogs here. Ask me about it some time) or something like that. Whoever brought it back first won a point. Finally, to Chet’s total surprise, Reynaldo called out from the stage that he needed a “pelo de barba de Ricardo” (probably bad Spanish there. But basically he called for one of Chet’s beard hairs- incidentally, his real name is Richard. Never put that together before).
One hundred fifty Huaorani kids swarmed Chet and pulled his (sweet) goatee. He tried batting them off at first but just gave in eventually. There’s no escaping Huaorani kids (EDIT: After this, Rey had it coming to him. See tomorrow’s post about mud wrestling… the Christian kind).
Before lunch while the kids were doing devotionals, we headed out to pass out some tracts to houses in the community. Granted, they were in Spanish, but ever since Cameron’s story about the group throwing them from their car (sorry- I don’t have the retelling ability to explain that one to anyone other than last year’s Christ Episcopal Ecuador team), I just have this bad connotation for tracts.
We split into groups and I ended up with Chet, Toca (the Vice President), Danielle and another Huaorani man. We were told we’d make a stop at Toca’s house to drink some chicha and then be on our way. The whole point of this thing was to just talk to some of the Huaorani because part of their obligation to the camp was that each household was supposed to supply a day’s worth of Yuca. We never made it to any other houses. We watched Toca’s wife and daughter(?) make chicha and drank some ourselves. Chet said he’s had some that will just knock you out, but most of it is not allowed to ferment very long. This stuff was pretty fresh and was more like Sprite than anything. You could feel it going down a little bit, but its less intense than wine. Funny that the only alcohol other than Communion that I’ve consumed in the last year has been champagne and chicha, both in Ecuador.
So after that, we went to pull more Yuca. I wasn’t exactly excited, but I was at least prepared. I pulled one stalk and Danielle and I cleaned most of that. Between us and Chet and the Huaorani we had it packed up in no time. The President grabbed the bag and hauled it out this time. I was very grateful. We made a brief stop at Toca’s on the way back in to the town to collect leg of jungle pig (seriously. A leg of jungle pig) and a bag of grapefruit, which I carried Yuca-sack style back into town. The President beat me by a mile, but I didn’t stop or take it off or slow down too much. But I really couldn’t breathe when I finally got back to the kitchen. It’s a long walk down the runway with a bag of jungle grapefruit on your back.
We were the last group back and lunch was mostly set up when I got there we ate, and were relieved again for lunch. We decided as a group that because of the sheer amount of work the kitchen crew does, the sports people will relieve us of dishes, however, we’re taking our break/quiet time/devotional time in the mornings now so that we can help the relief crew get back to the sports on time and have a bit of down time just before they stand and ref back-to-back soccer and basketball games in the sun. That way, neither group has to work for four hours straight.
The girls went up to take a shower at the “shower”. Jerry and I headed back “home” to the church and took more of a bath in the stream down from us. That was really great. We didn’t have to go far, and you don’t have to be totally covered in freezing water all at once, though it does feel really good when you’ve been pulling Yuca all morning.
Dinner went smoothly, but we were told we might run out of water for washing up afterwards. I’m not exactly sure how the small hose that brings a little stream of water to the kitchen actually works, or from which water source it is diverted. I’m not even sure how they knew it was a possibility it might not be getting any water to us. All I know is that they were right. Fortunatly there is a big oil-barrel-sized-and-shaped plastic container where the hose is placed all day when not in use. It stays pretty full most of the time with clean water and you can dip a pitcher in for water when someone else is using the hose. It does get empty pretty fast when it’s used frequently though, and takes forever to fill back up because there is very little pressure in the hose even when it works properly. I was afraid we’d run out of water before we were finished with the cups, but sort of like 1 Kings 17, the container did not run dry until the hose began to work again.
We went to the program when we were finished. It was fantastic. Renaldo and company did a skit about giving your heart to God for the kids. I know it was aimed at the campers, but it hit me really hard. It was a wordless skit, and the gist of it was that a missionary (Bryan) told an unbeliever (Rey) the Good News. He scoffed at it at first, but then He began to feel it in his heart. They pounded a mic offstage, heartbeat style to make this super evident. He went to go have a beer with his friends, and they could hear the heartbeat. He finally took his heart out of his chest and showed them (symbolizing showing them the Love of God) and they all laughed and wouldn’t give him a can of beer unless he gave one of them his heart. So he made the trade, but they simply tossed his heart around and stomped it into the ground and spat on it. It stopped beating, and they left with Rey on the ground. He tried to revive his heart, and finally lifted it up to God and it began to beat again. Then the process started again with Rey trying to impress a girl (Carolina, 18 one of the members of his ministry who is straight out of high school and did a fantastic job with the girls for whom she was a counselor). He gave her his heart and she held onto it for a while and held his hand, but then another guy came along (Teddy) and she went off with him. He begged for his heart back, but as she held it out, Teddy slammed his hand down and smooshed it with a loud CLAP and walked off with the girl in tow.
At this point I just stopped watching (not out of disrespect, I just had the thing figured out at that point) and listened to the music and prayed. It really drove home for me how much we give ourselves (and by that I mean how much I give myself) to things other than God, and that only He can revive my heart.
I don’t really remember anything else until I found myself sitting in our room again for debrief. Lane and Danielle had us throw out an event, but they didn’t make everyone say anything. I was (unsurprisingly) one of the silent ones along with two other people. I did get a lot out of what everyone else said, but I was mostly just waiting to talk to Sarah about the skit. It’s become basically the high point of our debrief and a great way to end it in splitting into parejas to go in depth. I don’t know if we were just on the same wavelength throughout the program or if she just had me pegged when I didn’t speak up with the whole group, but she talked about the skit before I could even get the words out of my mouth. I love it when things just fall into place.
A fantastic conversation, prayer and half a Snickers each later, it was time for bed. I think the last four days have really been a cross-section of a short-term mission for me, both on the surface and deeper. I’ve had a day of devotion, a day of work, a day of service and a day of learning. Not that each of those things aren’t happening all the time, but one just stood out for me each day, and I’m finding myself really grateful for Sarah, Rey, Roberto and Dana particularly over the course of this week for helping that along.
Thoughts:The quote that is the title of this entry came from Roberto. He said that to Bryan, talking about us in the kitchen, and Bryan told me after debrief when it had been mentioned that we feel like we’ve accomplished something at the end of the day. We didn’t set out to impress anyone, nor am I bragging about it now. It’s just that I find it interesting how much he appreciates us when I feel like he’s the hardest working guy in this camp, and its because of his attitude and the way he pours himself into his work that I think we get so motivated when we are around him.Secondly I mentioned yesterday what an amazing job Rey’s group has done and is doing here. Dana put it very bluntly over our dishwashing conversation: she said that a lot of times we think “Oh, we’ll just be here and do what we can and they’ll never know the difference if it’s not perfect because they’re just the jungle kids.” But these guys have just poured themselves into every aspect of this camp. The actual VBS part of it, the decorations, the food, the games, the devotionals, the relationships with the kids, the music. They aren’t cheating them out of the experience, and in fact I’ve never seen a camp or VBS put on so well anywhere in my entire life. That’s a bunch with true servants’ hearts.
