I made it! And as I've promised, now that I'm here, I will update this blog regularly even if it kills me to do so. It shouldn't be that difficult really. I already know that I'll have many stories to share, and I can't think of a better place to share them in full detail than here.
My first two and half weeks here have been busy but awesome. People ask how I'm settling in, but I really haven't had a chance to settle in yet. I spent my first week apartment shopping, spending time with the Puga family (my hosts for the time being - and they are amazing people), catching up on emails and updates about the new church plants here in Ecuador and finalizing details for the mission trip team that was arriving a week after I did. Oh, and sitting and watching the hummingbirds at the feeder every morning :)
My second week here was spent hosting my first mission trip team in Manta, which on the coast. So I arrived in Quito on 24 July, flew to Guayaquil on 30 July and then hopped on a bus to Manta on 31 July with a group of 12 other gringos to visit Nuevo Portoviejo, the site of one of the newest churches being planted by Pedro and Rosa del Hierro. To see where in the country these different places are, follow the red lines on the map below. Not bad coverage of the country in two-week's time.
Praise God that even with all of the confusion and last minute changes in setting up the trip, it was successful, and the group seemed to really enjoy the work and treasure their time spent with both the kids in the Compassion project and their own sponsored children. There is nothing better than seeing a child meet their sponsor for the first time. You never know how the meeting will go. Some kids will run as fast as they can into their sponsor's arms as soon as they figure out who their sponsor is...
...while some others are very shy and not so sure what to think.
But what is neat is to watch those shy children open up little by little as the day goes on and they spend more and more time with their sponsors. I wish I had some photos of Nesto, the little guy in the photo above, with Erik, his sponsor, toward the end of the day. It literally brought tears to my eyes to see how hard Erik worked the whole day to break through and gain the trust of little Nesto, and then to Nesto finally smiling and laughing in Erik's arms. I can explain until I'm blue in the face just how special and important the relationship between a sponsor and their child is, just how valuable that interaction can be, even if only through written letters of love and encouragement, but until you've seen how these kids cherish those letters and how they look at their sponsors with such love and admiration, you can't really understand the impact. I'm so happy that there is now a group of 12 more sponsors who truly understand that impact.
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