Guinea Pig Tastes Like Chicken.

Ok, ok, I’m super tired right now, but I feel like if I don’t do this today, it’ll never happen. So, sorry for incoherency. Lots of things have happened since I’ve last posted, but I posted the Living and Learning blog to try and keep you updated, plus my statuses and pictures and stuff. 

Anyway, I guess I’ll start with the Changing of the Guards. That was a super fun time where we went to the Presidential Palace and we got to see a big Ecuadorian event (though apparently they do this every Monday…) but there were still a decent amount of people there, there was a protest going on, and we got to see the Ecuadorian President! And can’t forget the part where he waves at us!

The rest of the week I started classes (and continued with Spanish and Ecuador 250). Spanish has been really intensive and really challenging. Though I did get a 95 on my second Spanish test which I was really happy about! Though, as far as production, I still need a lot of work! Everyone in my Spanish class is really great, they’re very encouraging and hard workers so it definitely makes the class much more bearable! I started my Spiritual Formation class on Tuesday, bright and early at 8am! I feel like this class is going to be extremely challenging for me, but at the same time, extremely good for me. Lately, I have been struggling with setting aside quiet time for God. As you all know, I love being around people, I love doing activities and constantly being on the go. So, sadly, quiet time with God has not been on my priority list lately and I feel like that has really taken a toll on my spiritual growth. Actually, I know it has. This class will really help me to intentionally set aside time for God to read the Bible and pray and to really grow in my spiritual life, so I’m pretty excited.

One thing I love about being here is the community. Every Tuesday the girls have community dinner, then on Wednesdays, we have dinner and chapel together with everyone and then on Fridays we have community dinners with the guys. The guys actually cooked for all of us this past Friday and it was AMAZING. Homemade tortillas, chicken and veggies, guacamole, salsa… I know I’m forgetting more! And desert, oh my goodness, it was so great. The girls have done an amazing job at cooking too, seriously, community dinners are just great. But aside from the food, I love spending time with this group. All of them have such an awesome passion for God and for supporting each other and I think this group is so rare in the fact that we all literally get along with each other. So much fun. We also love to go to coffee shops. I have been exploring some new things! (But still very sweet things, sorry Tim, not there yet…) I love just going to coffee shops and watching the culture around me. It’s just so interesting!

The Spanish churches here are awesome as well. I love the Spanish worship, they are so passionate through their singing and dancing and just through the way they speak. But since it was so hard for me to understand the message, I decided to try out the English Speaking Church this week. I don’t know if I’ll end up going back, but I liked it ok. I made friends, though, which was great! A few of us ended up going out to lunch with two girls, and Jasmyn and I have a coffee date with another girl. They are here with other study abroad programs, but we’re all working on Spanish so it’ll be nice to have other girls to study and hang out with! Pretty excited. 

Today, we went to a place called El Refugio. It was absolutely awesome! Despite the fact that we had to get up super early in the morning, it was totally worth it. It’s a beautiful place filled with so much nature, so we started the morning with a “nice” hike up a mountain. After that, we did a few team games where we really focused on trust and communication. This followed in to our low ropes course game where we had to get everyone across just using three boards and some logs sticking up out the ground. Sadly, we didn’t accomplish this because we were on limited time and we had a few obstacles because of certain rules…  there was also another game where there was a net set  up kinda like a giant spider web and we had to get everyone through a different hole! It’s a little hard to explain, but I’m sure it’ll be posted somewhere and I’ll share it with you. We did complete it! From there we went to the high ropes course which was a completely different experience for me! I teamed up with Mckenzie, we got in our harnesses and took off! We had to walk across a tight rope, then we had to walk across another tight rope by holding on to each other’s shoulders (keep in mind, when you look down, you are SUPER far off of the ground on top of trees and stuff!) THEN we had to go through this course where there are hanging, swinging triangles and you have to get across like ten of them. This was extremely difficult. Mckenzie and I both fell, so instead of walking across all of them we kinda were sitting… and by the time we go to the end, we were EXHAUSETD. So, to get up, we had to pull ourselves back up onto this cord but our upper body strength was so spent it took a little while to get up… or… a long while… but hey, we made it!! A few tears and hugs later, I was back on the ground… but not for long! I teamed up with Drew to go on two more courses, one where you literally had to jump from board to board… which was pretty scary, especially because it was raining which made the boards slippery! But hey, we made a pretty good team if I do say so myself. I felt pretty beastly by the end. But after we were all done we were greeted back with some hot drinks, potato pancakes, steak, coleslaw, watermelon, lemonade and… dare I say it… guinea pig. It actually wasn’t that bad! I mean, as long as you don’t look at the head… that still looks like the animal… and I don’t recommend watching Drew pull the tongue out for Kim to eat ever again.

I am so excited to be a part of this team this semester. If I learned anything from today, it’s that I have the most supportive and encouraging team ever. Even though we have some natural born leaders, and some really competitive people, while others are natural followers and extremely non-competitive we all respect and admire each other’s given gifts and instead of fighting against them we work together. I appreciate that about this team so much. It’s just crazy to think that God chose each and every one of us out of the whole United States (and Canada!) and put us here together and we all work so well together. It’s a very rare thing. Our unity as a group is amazing, seeing that we’ve only been here three weeks!

It seems so long, yet it seems so short. It’s crazy to think about all the exciting opportunities coming up such as going to the jungle, moving to our homestays and starting our internships soon! Prayer is definitely appreciated!

God has just been teaching me so much about community as well as myself. I have been constantly reminded about my identity in Christ and about my worth and value of being a daughter of God. I have struggled with that in the past, thinking that I’m not good enough and sometimes feel like giving up because I’m tired of disappointing Him. But I have been so blessed to be reminded over and over again that my value does not come from the things that I do, it comes with my satisfaction in Christ. I will never understand His love, but that’s the great thing about it. His love is just so incomprehensible, it is so indescribable and that’s what makes it so wonderful.

I have already had my life impacted so much and it isn’t even close to being over! I just can’t explain how excited I am to grow closer to this team and to grow closer to my Loving Savior.