Hello everyone, near and far!
Daniela and I are still alive from the trip to the jungle with Faith Church from Pennsylvania. It has been a great blessing for both of us to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with this youth group from this church, and to be able to go to the jungle and serve alongside them.
Let me rewind a few days. Faith Church youth group arrived last thursday, and Daniela and I welcomed them at the airport that night. We helped facilitate some team building games and low ropes activities for them on Friday, so they can start bonding as a team, and they would get to know the property of El Refugio better. We finished Friday with the zip line. There are a total of 10 members on their youth team, seven youth and three leaders. Each evening we have a have a campfire, and debrief a lot of the things that happened throughout the day.
On Saturday morning, we left for the jungle which is southeast of Quito. We stayed by a river called Rio Negro, and in a beautiful building called El Monte. Our first afternoon, we went up the mountain a little ways to a village called Azuay, and there we participated in a small church service in their small church there. We then stayed and fellowshipped with the people there, saw the new property that was being laid for their new church building, and played some soccer with the natives. It was a lot of fun! That evening we went back to El Monte and then went for trout at a restaurant close to the river. I generally don't like fish, but this fish was pretty amazing! After a delicious meal of trout, we all went back to El Monte, debriefed, and headed to bed. We found several cockroaches in the building that we often had to fend off or kill each evening! A great cultural experience :)
The following day, we went to a place called La Isla most of the day. It is a property close to the river as well, and there we were in charge of weeding out a lot of the weeds that had been growing up through the paths and in the forests. Another group was in charge of moving and rolling lots of large stones from the property, and rolling them into the river. The final group was in charge of cutting trail with machetes, and clearing more trail visitors to walk on. La Isla is owned by a pastor from the town, and he is using the resort as a way to earn income when tourists come to visit the town. The property is great for birdwatching and has many spectacular views of the river and a big waterfall. That evening we headed into a nearby town and had dinner at restaurant (chicken this time for me) and we returned that same evening to the church in the town were were just working in for a church service. After a few worship songs, Daniela, myself, and a few of the Faith Church youth went upstairs and did children's ministry with the kids. It was a lot of fun! Daniela and Beth (one of the Faith Church leaders) did a lesson on not worrying with the children, and then we all helped them make Fruit Loop necklaces. We then sang lots of songs together after doing the crafts until church was over. It was a fun experience, and a really great time with the kids there in that small town in the jungle!
The following day, we were assigned to do some work on the property that we were staying at, El Monte. We were to resurrect the caretaker's house which is not a long walk away from El Monte, and to repair the bridge over a small river to get to the caretaker's house. The biggest task of the day though was to eliminate an enormous termite's nest that was in the building right next to the caretaker's home. That took about an hour to fully knock it off the wall with an ax, machete, and a hoe. The pieces of the large nest was then thrown into the fire and burned. In regards to the caretaker's home, we had to throw away and burn all the furniture inside, sweep and bleach all the surfaces inside the house, and mop all the floors. The house turned out really nice. There were some teams working on scrubbing the outside of the house for it to be painted. Daniela and a few other Faith youth helped her paint the outside of the building. I was with a team bleaching the floors and walls. I also helped sweep up the pieces of the termite nest as they fell on the ground. That was intense! Below is a photo of Daniela and I from the day with a newly painted wall behind us:
That evening we returned to the trout restaurant for a second helping. We then had our final debrief that evening in the jungle and went to sleep.
Yesterday, we had a long travel day. We went and visited the waterfall by La Isla, and got to see it up close. It was so big and so powerful, and it made me think more of how small we really are in this universe, and great and powerful God truly is by making this waterfall. We then boarded the bus and went up the road a ways for some lunch, and then made a quick stop in a town in the afternoon called Salcedo, which is best known for its ice cream! They are circular shaped, and come in many different flavors. We arrived back at El Refugio last night around 6:00 PM. We had dinner together, and sang worship songs around the fire and talked about our reflections from the jungle.
It was amazing how fast those three days went by in the jungle. It has really been a tremendous blessing being a part of this work group so far, and Daniela and I are so thankful for your continued prayers and support in what we are doing here. We have a day off today, and the Faith Church family team will be arriving in Quito tonight. They are about 20 people, so it will be even more exciting with more people coming here to El Refugio to help serve.
Daniela and I look forward to sharing with you more and more as these days continue about how we are doing, and how our time is going with the groups coming in and with the interns. We had a couple interns come with us to the jungle to help, so Daniela and I had some great talks with the interns in the jungle about their spiritual life, and how they are reflecting and responding to what God was doing there and all around them.
God bless you all! We will write again soon :)
Yours in Christ,
