We split up into two teams after breakfast for the morning outreach. The group that I was assigned to included Kevin, Rosie, Claire, KK, Julie, Justin, Kiera, Stephany, and Danielle. We traveled to a village called Palmeiras about thirty minutes away down several dirt roads. We rode there standing in the back of a pickup with five little kids and three young men from the church. Ecuador es un pais muy bonita (For any Spanish speakers reading who noticed my grammatical error, I don't know how to make accents over my letters on blogspot's word processor. Any mistakes beyond that can be chalked up to my own incompetence!). The views were still taking my breath away as we travelled through jungles and across a man-made, family owned suspension bridge over el Rio Misahualli. El puente miedoso (the scary bridge) definitely deserved its name. I won't scare any of the mothers reading with the details, a picture should do the trick!
We arrived in Palmeiras and were immediately welcomed by the community. We were their to attend a wedding and the chapel had already been decorated with toilet paper streamers and bows and the shotty P.A. system was playing Spanish praise and worship tunes - some of which we had learned that morning. We had brought a futbol, as we would to each village, and so Justin and I began playing with several of the children. Two little girls who I spoke with on the truck were among the kids at the mass. They were very talkative and really enjoyed hanging out with the girls of our team. Here they are with Rosie.
During mass I thanked God for many things, but especially for the tin roof over our heads; it poured for the entirety of the wedding. We could hardly hear a word of the bishop's homily - not
that it would have mattered much for us English-speaking gringos. The rain persisted until the very end of the mass, at which time fireworks marked its completion. As I left the chapel I noticed two of my teammates in particular connecting strongly with los jovenes (the young people). Justin was bouncing the futbol off his head with a young boy and they were both smiling from ear to ear. KK and Rosie using Spanish that they were picking up along the way to converse with the girls from the truck and they were all sharing dance moves and jewelry. Forget the language barrier, our missionaries were touching the lives of the people of Ecuador from our first day even without any Spanish.We ate lunch with the three young men from Misahualli - Dani, Dario, and Christian - and Rosie, KK, and I took the chance to practice our Spanish with the young community leaders. The trio were all around twenty years old and are the remnants of a yout group in Misahualli. Dani employed our help in organizing a youth night on the 9th. It was our hope that we would be able to show Christ's love to the young people and bring them back into regular Church activities.
Lunch was prepared for us by the bride's family and consisted of arroz con carne y yuca - rice with beef and yuca (more or less a South American potato). Rosie, KK, and I accidentally drank the juice that was given to us, even though it was made with tap water, but nothing came of it.
Despues de almuerzo, volvimos a Misahualli. After lunch we returned to Misahualli. we went to the convent to perform some corporal works of mercy. Los Maestros - groundskeepers for the nuns - were fixing up the driveway/patio and repainting the interior of the church. Some missionaries painted while others sifted through fill, mixed concrete, and patched up two holes where the drainage system travels under the patio. With twenty-two of us present, we made quick work of the projects and ran out of materials after
about two hours. We were all soaked in sweat and the fairer of us - myself included - were slightly sunburnt in the hot, high-humidity, so we took a quick dip in the river. After our swim, we grabbed some tropical drinks in town and walked back to camp completely refreshed.We ate dinner and headed back down to the church for a double-wedding/triple-baptism. This would never happen in the States, so we felt truly blessed to welcome so many new families and family members into the Church. We provided the music ministry for mass, singing and playing the few Spanish praise songs that we knew. The people joined right in and certainly covered up any pronunciation and vocabulary issues that we had. Our collective voice made the mass a joyous celebration and the little kids running around kept us smiling even more. The mass was a terrific way to end our first day in Misahualli.
- Kyle Blackmer- Photos by Rosie Scavuzzo, Claire Flynn, Danielle Natorski, and Stephany Velosa
No comments:
Post a Comment