Ecuador

Dear Family and Friends,

            Tentatively, the large bus creaked along the precipice of the mountain as we drove up the winding cobblestone and dirt road.  I peered through the window and saw how easy it would be to slip off the edge and tumble hundreds of feet down the mountainside.  Through the opposite window I could see crops planted on steep hills and families laboring in their fields, working the soil with old hand tools.  Occasionally I’d see cement houses with thatch roofs that were caving in and cows meandering in the road or standing stiffly on the steep mountainside.  Five miles in the distance, I could see the ash and smoke rising from the volcano.  At one point we were forced to stop and back the large bus down the narrow path so a truck could pass in a wider area.  The farther up the mountain we progressed, the more beautiful it became.  I saw gardens, vineyards, and far below a river trickling through the valley, dwarfed by the many surrounding mountains.  I was on my way to Sucre, a small village at an altitude of 10,000 feet.  We had spent the morning preparing Vacation Bible School for children pre-k through 5^th grade.  After a 40 minute drive, we finally reached the village and all 29 of us piled out of the bus.  Four students and I proceeded to get into the back of a pickup truck and drive down the muddy, rocky paths.  We called out, “buenas tardes” to the locals.  The translators driving the truck would lean out and tell the children to come to the school for VBS.  We passed pigs and cows that had been tethered to keep them from straying.  Dogs ran loose, their ribs protruding beneath dehydrated flesh, as they searched for food.  Women held long machetes and eyed us suspiciously as they harvested their crops.  Earlier in the week, I had seen children cooking with a propane oven/stove covered by a plastic sheet while the mother sat by and watched.  A few people stood scrubbing their clothes in buckets of water, wringing them out before hanging them to dry. A rainbow of colors stretched across the sky from the clothesline on the roof.  We drove around a gaping pothole and through a massive mud puddle before pulling up in front of the school.  We hopped out of the bed of the truck and made our way into the courtyard where about 20 children had straggled in.  They ran laughing, smiling, catching Frisbees, and timidly shaking hands with the “gringos” (foreigners).  Another small group of children played soccer, using a trashcan tipped on its side as a goal.  A few team members gathered around one microphone in a small room playing a djembe and guitar and singing.  The music blared out of the cheap sound system, and children could be seen “coming out of the mountains.”  They streamed in and gathered in front of the window to watch the musicians.  We counted 137 children.  A few moments later, we began VBS.  The rest of the afternoon was filled with games, a craft, Bible Stories, and skits.  My fondest memory of VBS was being swarmed by these tiny, precious children.  They were so curious about everything: our soft, white skin, the hair on the guys’ legs (Ecuadorian male’s legs are hairless!), our height, our cameras, our clothes and many of our other differences.  My hands were never empty for very long before some small, dirty hand found its way into it.  When I sat in the dirty courtyard, my lap soon became filled with two or three children.  Watching the joy fill their faces at the love I was able to show them was the most rewarding part of the trip.  The children were reluctant to let go of me or get out of my lap, even when I walked from place to place with them.  The minute I sat down again they would scurry into my lap.  I left VBS that week with my heart aching for two things: a larger lap and longer arms.  One thing my heart did have in abundance was love to give – inexhaustible love.  I found myself loving selflessly, tirelessly, and endlessly.  I know I’m not capable of loving that much on my own, but only through allowing Christ’s strength and love to flow through me.

            In Christ’s Love,

            Janna

P.S. – Thank you all for being a partner in my trip to Ecuador.  We arrived that week expecting to run a camp for high school Ecuadorians, but God had different plans for us.  Instead, we spent our time organizing a VBS, planning and running a day camp for over 60 teenagers and young adults, and helping with some construction projects at the camp.

time

time is a funny thing.

Seconds roll heavily by, never seeming to go as fast as I would like.  Hours, days, and months fly by faster than I would like.  Soon, I find myself staring into a distant past, wondering where I am, who I am, and how I got here.  When did all the changes within myself take place?  When did the people around me change?  I've wasted so many precious moments of my life on such trivial things, like Facebook, TV, and movies.  Why?  My days are limited.  My life won't go on forever.  I am but a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes, a flower that fades and is forgotten.

I'm not one of those people who want to be remembered.  I have no desire to be remembered in anyway, I have no desire to go down in the history books.  Fame in anyway is far from my dreams.  I am no one to be followed.  What I do desire though is to live every moment of my life as effectively as possible.  Is that possible?  I doubt it.  I, a human, am too selfish.  But when I look back, it's not the selfish things I do that I remember.  Those memories aren't those that I treasure and will hold onto until my death.  No, the moments I treasure the most are those that I have given selflessly to others, allowed Christ to love in me and through me to accomplish His will and desire.  Those are the times I remember the most.  Being filled entirely, overflowing with love, compassion, and grace.  Watching the faces of those around me light up in joy when I'm able to show them something they've never before seen.  When God uses me to show the hopeless, the hurting, the abused, the neglected His love.  Those moments are the most valuable to me, and those I shall carry with me forever.

It reminds me that I'm not all that I pretend to be or think I am.  I'm nothing, unable to accomplish anything on my own.  Sure, I can manage to get good grades, have friends, maintain a relationship, show love, but you know what?  I'm never satisfied when I'm doing things of my own accord and desire.  I get burnt out, tired, exhausted, I don't want to try anymore because I find no reward, nothing satisfying.  But when I truly allow Christ absolute control, I find myself refreshed and excited, loving people beyond what I am capable of, not getting frustrated, not losing my temper.  My life is fulfilled because of Him.  I no longer care that I am not receiving any earthly reward.

I now realize that yes, I can do things on my own.  But I can't do them to the fullest extent because my selfishness interferes.  Looking back, I think this is the first time in my life I'm learning to submit... submit to God's will and surrender my life to Him, acknowledging that He is in control, allowing Him to be Lord of my life.  And the results are incredible.

 Singing Happy Birthday to Earnest's Dad in India. :D Yes, I look completely lost because I was completely lost. No idea what was going on, or being said. That song was the only thing in English the entire service, lolThis is what it was like to drive through India....As was this. :)

The Samaritan's Purse... part of the room the children were in, waiting to get their gifts. :)

Andrea giving away a present.

Cute, huh? :)

A cemetery

Jackfruit!  That's how they cut it open.  It's DELICIOUS! :)

Monkeys where we bought the jackfruit

Palm Fruit

Palm Fruit when it's removed from the plant

What part of a tourist city looked like

A Hindu Temple

A truck carryin sugar cane!  that stuff is yummy. :)

When we ARRIVED in Madurai to go to Earnest's parents.    That was really when we arrived in India. :D  They gave us cool flower things!  That's... Earnest, Andrea (sister), my Dad, and Appa - Pastor Clarence (Earnest's Dad)

       I arrived in India on Tuesday, February 13^th after a 16 hour flight from Chicago.  Probably about 11 PM… I was tired and disoriented.  The airport was insane... the first thing I saw when I walked off the plane, was a statue of a Hindu god.  We walked farther down… and into the baggage claim area.  It was insane.  People were everywhere.  There were luggage trolleys everywhere… people coming up to you and trying to sell you tea… dirt everywhere… the smell of dampness, mold, and moth balls, a very common smell in India.

     Andrea and I really had to use the bathroom, heh.  My dad had warned me about this, but I had forgotten.  Andrea and I hurried into the bathroom, I carried my carry-on in one hand, and my passport and entry form in the other.  A lady wrapped in her sari sat near the door with a roll of toilet paper in her hand.  Andrea shoved herself into a bathroom stall, and I pushed the door to the next one.  I froze for half a second when I saw a dirty, wet floor, and a ‘toilet.’  A squat toilet, if you’ve never seen one, is similar to a toilet, but it is put into the ground.  You have to squat down to use it.  I took a step back out, looked around, bewildered.  The Indian lady at the door held out a strip of toilet paper.  I looked back in, and realized there was no toilet paper.  Lost, I took it from her, and stepped back in.  I looked around for something to hang my bag from.  There was nothing.  In a hurry (we had a 'connection' who was going to get us through customs quickly), I put my bag on the floor, along with my passport and entry form.  During the time I was squatting (haha, such personal details here! . . . not really)… I rested my arm on this mop that lay along the wall.  The mop turned some faucet, and water started shooting out everywhere, the floor was flooding, and much to my dismay, it was covering my passport and entry form.  I grabbed them and my bag up off the floor, tried turning the water off, to no avail.  Indians design very complicated things. ;)  I pulled my pants up (haha), shoved the door open and managed to trip out, before I was rushed out of the bathroom by Andrea and Rose.  My dripping wet passport and entry form was given to them… and my bag dripped a huge puddle of water all over the floor.

That was my first adventure in India... and probably the closest thing to a major culture shock I had.

     The food there… everything revolves around food.  And that’s right from Earnest’s mouth!  Breakfast is eaten between 10 and 12.  It usually consists of rice cakes called idly, sambar, chatni, soy beans, red beans, dosa, vada, rice noodles, appam and whatever else they decide to make.  Their breakfast is as big as my largest meal of the day.  Lunch was eaten between 4 and 5.  That usually consisted of loads of rice with ‘chips’ made out of lentil flour, sambar, other sauces like that, fried chicken or chicken curry, chapatti (something like a tortilla), paratha, vegetables, fruit, and numerous other things.  Dinner was similar.  Loads of rice.  There was sometimes rice at breakfast.  Lots of carbs… they eat three large meals a day.  I eat 1 large meal a day, and 2 small meals a day.  This was stomach overload!  I could barely manage it… ‘I think you lost weight,' several Indians I was traveling with said that.  Just because I don't have a gut like them, doesn't mean I've lost weight! ‘Eat more, eat more.’ ‘Do you always eat this little?’  And the worst, most annoying thing was when you didn’t like something, and they put more of it on your plate, after you told them “no, enough, I’m full, but thank you!”  I barely kept myself from throwing up at some of the disgusting foods we ate.  The weirdest things I ate, much to my relief, were chicken heart and chicken liver.  And guess what?  They just tasted like chicken!  The yummiest fruits I had were… their fresh pineapple (much better than the stuff here), and… JACKFRUIT! 

Oh man.  That stuff was good.  There’s absolutely no way I can describe the taste to you.  It’s… indescribable.  The ice cream was pretty good too… not as good as the States, but… very creamy.  My sister said it tasted like frozen whipped cream. :D

anyway, in the process of uploading more pictures.  They'll come soon