Psalm 46:10: Waves

Oh my... where to start.

The Lord truly blessed our time on this investigation of the surrounding cities. If you have yet to watch the video on the previous post, I would encourage you to take 5 minutes and watch it (unless you're on a dial-up connection... then set aside 5 hours). It will give a better view of the sights and sounds John Mark and I encountered.

I was especially blessed in many different ways as God grew me in areas I did not expect. I believe I promised a "mega blog" earlier, and while this probably will end up being a pretty huge blog, I'm gonna try to stick to the important stuff (like what God taught me) and some highlights of each day... so here we go!

Thursday, we left the Maust house around 9:30 am and set off for San Isidro, the first of many stops for the trip. We were gathering information such as how many churches, schools, and people there are, if any foundations (World Vision, Compassion, etc) are working in the city, what kind of water system they have, and what are the human needs of the city. After San Isidro and San Andres, we traveled to a small spot on the map labeled "Tuntatacto". John Mark was wondering aloud how we were going to know when we arrived in the community, and I jokingly responded, "there will be a big sign that says 'Tuntatacto'". For the result of that discussion, please scroll down. Anyway, we learned a great deal about the needs of many different places, and I discovered that quite a few of the cities have public both-sex bathrooms. And I'm not talking about the single-person bathrooms, but a six or seven-stall bathroom with a few sinks and no direction as to who goes where.

Towards the end of the day, after "investigating" Mocha and getting a bit lost in the mountains (according to John Mark we were never lost), we were blessed with a young guy who gave us a ride to the road leading up to Yanayacu. John Mark and I were sick of paying bus fees, so JM decided to try to hitch-hike. I was a doubting-Thomas at first, but sure enough, the Lord blessed us with a ride! So once we made it to the road, we hiked 2 km to the small community of Yanayacu. We checked out a small "tienda" at first, asking if there were any restaurants to have dinner in the community. The person running the store, Lucrecia, politely told us that there weren't any, and ended up serving us dinner herself! The people of Yanayacu are "very nice", she said, and this was repeated by many others in the town. It was demonstrated to us when they offered us their community center to stay the night in, although we simply asked for a field in which to camp! Lucrecia has two sons, Bolivar and Eric, and after dinner was finished, the three of us (JM stayed to gather information) ventured out to play some basketball. We encountered other guys out on the court, and ended up kicking the soccer ball for a while. A young guy named "Tony" was the hit of the night, though, as he is born of Ecuadorian heritage, but grew up with his grandparents in Illinois, so when I was told he spoke English and I asked him where he learned, the seven year-old replied, "I'm from the U-United States." He hardly knows any Spanish at all, so I acted as a translator between him and the other guys. He has other family there, but they aren't able to communicate very well due to the language barrier. We all ended up playing soccer (there were 8 of us- scroll down) after Tony went to bed and then had a blast talking. While I didn't understand half of what they said, they were all so funny and so I laughed heartily along with them. Please pray for a revival in Yanayacu, as they are some of the nicest people ever yet I didn't get the feeling that they know Jesus.

On Friday, after a lovely breakfast served by Lucrecia, JM and I headed off to more towns and adventures. After stopping on the road that (eventually) led to Cevallos, John Mark's healing leg began to bother him, so he flagged down a bus while I politely declined because I desired to walk the 5.5 km to Cevallos. Along the way, though, I discovered a town we had not pinpointed on the map, Montalvo. I felt led to go in there and check it out, and had a blast talking with two or three of the people working in the "Parroquial" and asking all the questions I could remember (JM had the book). The Lord blessed me with a fantastic opportunity to use my Spanish and learn more about this small town in the middle of nowhere. The hike to Cevallos was nice, as well, for I listened to Hillsong United (The I Heart Revolution CD... highly recommended) and just worshiped as I walked!

JM and I then had a nice lunch in Cevallos and rode a bus to Quero. From Quero we headed to Rumipamba, and then (eventually) to Pelileo. On the bus from Rumipamba, though, I had SUCH a great time just playing with two young kids, Linkson (no idea how to spell it) and Anderson, who were sitting behind me. They posed for pics and videos (soon to come) and really brought joy to my heart. Thanks for those two small blessings... please keep them and their mother in prayer. It was really cool, too, how their Mom made them get up when other women got on the already-full bus. She was bringing them up as gentlemen... (just for the record, John Mark and I were able to serve in this way once or twice as well, especially JM).

From Pelileo we headed off to Huambalo and were AGAIN blessed with a room in which to sleep. This time, there was a huge fiesta (party) going on right outside the building we slept in, and fireworks went off repeatedly right beside our room. I was again blessed with the opportunity to play with a young kid, as Diego, a little boy hanging with his Mom and Dad in the parroquial, continued to attempt in vain to get to the party through the doorway of which I was the gatekeeper (again- photos and video to come soon). After leaving the next morning, JM and I hiked a good ways to the next town, Bolivar, and then took a truck-taxi to what we thought was Cotalo. We ended up going right through Cotalo and to Pillate, but the coolest part was that it was a truck with bananas in its bed that had a full cab (people already being taken to Cotalo), so JM and I were forced to ride in the back. And the BEST part was that it was raining, we were in a cloud most of the time, we had breathtaking views when the clouds were lifted, and we were FLYING around dangerous curves in the road (see the video from the previous post). Wow... it was a BLAST! Thanks for that blessing, God...

After those two cities, we had fried chicken and some really good fries at a place back in Pelileo for lunch, but a word of advice: never order an extra helping of french fries. It doesn't matter if you're in Ecuador or at a McDonald's in Richmond, just don't do it. I listened to my taste buds (they were really good fries) instead of my stomach. Benitez and Salasaca were next on the list, and we were blessed with the privilege of hiking a good deal to get to and from these places. In Salasaca, we met a very nice Evangelical Pastor who works with Compassion International. He told us of the dental needs of the town... so if any aspiring missionary dentists who want to serve the Lord in a BEAUTIFUL area and learn Spanish read this, let me know ;-). We finished the trip with a much-longer-than-should-have-been bus ride to Tisaleo and then back to Riobamba...

That was a very condensed version of the trip, and I encourage you to watch the video for a visual perspective of our weekend. God taught me a lot on this trip about selflessly serving, as I really was looking forward to hiking a lot but discovered that in order to gather information from the maximum amount of towns, taking buses was a much faster way to travel. This was discouraging at first, but God is sovereign through it all! Also, the Lord really put it on my heart to share my faith with some people, and it was quite difficult at times. When I'm getting buddy-buddy with people, like I was in Yanayacu, it's fun to just keep rolling and making jokes, but when we started to discuss different animals, I laid some Cat and Dog Theology on them, Sjogren style (www.ourjourneywithhim.com). God challenged me in many other ways, as well, including the ever-present challenge of humility, and He REALLY blessed me with an end result of joy, endurance, and patience on the last day of travel. So although trials were thrown at me from various, unexpected directions, God is TOTALLY awesome, amazing, and incredible, and never stopped being that this weekend.

Colossians 1:10-12 says: "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

This is an amazing picture of how we are to live if we are to "please Him in every way". It's something all of us should strive for... to please our Master and Creator in every way. Wow... please keep all of these things in prayer for me: doing good works for Christ's glory that will bear fruit, growing in the knowledge of God, having endurance and patience through being strengthened with "all power according to His glorious might", and always thanking God in every situation. Pray that John Mark and I are able to encourage each other as we serve the Lord in the mountains of Ecuador, and also that we are really able to "preach the Gospel wherever we go" and not get too caught up in gathering information that we lose sight of the REAL purpose of our lives here on earth.