Dos Semanas

So today marks the 2 week friend-a-versary of me and our amazing Ecuador team. I can't believe that I've already known them for 2 weeks, and yet I can't believe I've only known them for two weeks. You know, it's just one of those weird life things. We constantly share life and laughter together, building each other up and working through things together.

To catch up a bit, on Thursday our team had a break from going to campus so we had a free morning and afternoon. We were told that at 3:00 we were going to make sandwiches to take to a children's hospital, and I thought: Wonderful. What a lovely day off. My Spanish brain gets to rest, and we get to hug small children a a hospital. Wrong. God had much bigger plans for us that day. After assembling hundreds of sandwiches, we were told that our group was going to split up, and we were all going to take turns preaching the gospel in all of the rooms at the children's hospital!! US. Preaching. In Spanish. What?!

Now I know what you might be thinking: Ann, you know Spanish. You know the gospel. What's the big deal? No, preaching and translating and trying to speak love and hope into the lives of these families seemed to be a HUGE undertaking, perhaps even an impossible one. However, God proved to us ever so gently that He was in charge, and there was nothing to fear. I ended up being a translator for our Project Leader, Chris, as we went around to 5 different rooms and shared the hope of God's love with dozens of sick children and their families.

Translating would have been hard under any circumstances, but doing it in front of extremely sick children (from a range of ages and with a range of sicknesses) and their sad-eyed parents was heart-wrenching and scary. Somehow, Spanish words flowed from my mouth even when I was terrified, and although I knew I wasn't always correct- I think they understood me. After we shared, we invited all of the families down to the chapel for sandwiches and tea, and we graced them with several songs in Spanish and English (which we sang rather badly). The guys even got to share their favorite song, "Con Poder," which they have been practicing for the whole trip. Their hearty version of this Salvador song brought a lady to tears, as they sang about the powerful hand of God. I am thankful that we have a God who even cares about details like that! 

Then yesterday we got to spend the day in a nearby town with our friend Daniel, who took us to center where we played soccer and got to swim, then eat at his uncle's AMAZING restaurant! It was a lovely day off :)

Tomorrow we're back on campus, and we're making lots of connections with students, having lots of follow up appointments this week, and just generally loving our time with the people there! As for getting accustomed to the culture, I think our team is doing great. Occasionally we hint about wanting things that are particularly "United States-ian" (dark chocolate, clean tap water, starbucks, diet mountain dew, etc.) and get exasperated about some things that are particularly Ecuadorian (cat calls, staring, buying bottled water, the insane humidity, etc.)... but all-in-all, the beans and rice of Ecuador and the lovely people here suit me just fine :)

Besos,

Ana