Crossing the Line (0˚ Latitude that is!)

Truly living means occasionally living life on the edge….

One of the things that has impressed me about the boys at the Casa is their sense of selflessness in every aspect of life. Today we ventured out of the comforts of Quito into the jungle where the rain hit very hard this year. With Phil at the wheel of the “Beast” (basically the oldest surburban I’ve ever seen) Marcelo, Gustavo, Daniel, the rest of the film guys and I set out for the Jungle. We were going to see if we could help a family Phil knew of whose home was damaged by the torrential rain they had been experiencing.

The drive was absolutely beautiful- it is hard to describe but I felt like we were in a scene right out of Jurassic Park. Ecuador has more types of plants and fruit than I have ever seen… the Lord is truly a very creative Artist!

The house was hardly a house by North American standards… A small structure held together with rusty nails standing on rotting planks, it would hardly be suitable to store junk… let alone be called a home and provide shelter for a family. But, again, my North American definition of a home may be skewed all together. The mother was at work when we arrived and the father had been in jail for the past 3 years, accused of murdering the mayor… and with no money to buy food, let alone hire a lawyer they had little to hope for in terms of his freedom. Because both parents were gone this day, the three children were being cared for by Juan Luis and Carmen… their Aunt and Uncle. (Juan Luis parks cars in Quito, which is how he met Phil and how Phil learned of the family’s need.) While our original mission was to capture the boys serving others- as this is a very important part of their “training” if you will, the situation also provided an excellent example of why kids are on the street in the first place. Because basic needs become so hard for a family to meet in conditions like this, children often leave the home in favor of the streets. In this case, the family’s eldest son had left the home and was now a “street kid.”

While we weren’t equipped to do any real work structurally on the house, we did get to spend some time just being with the family. Timid at first, the two little girls, Shirley and Michelle, warmed up to us quickly. I tried to teach them how to use my camera, but like any little kids they couldn’t quite grasp the concept of not putting their fingers over the lens. But I’m quite sure they had never seen a digital camera before, and just seeing the their faces light up as they snapped a gazillion photos of the dog was such a gift. My Spanish skills, like I’ve mentioned, are quite limited… but this didn’t seem to bother the girls. To them I wasn’t out of place, they wanted to be with me just because I wanted to be with them! In the communication realm, actual words make up the smallest amount of our day to day communication- so in that respect we all do have a universal language.

Despite the fact we couldn’t work on the house, we were able to buy the family some chickens and help them set up a pen so that they could start to raise them, in the hopes of selling them for an additional source of revenue. I love this idea of not just giving them what they need, but helping them to achieve it themselves. I feel like this feeds not only their physical bodies, but also feeds their souls… it is a wonderful feeling to know that you’ve been able to accomplish something on your own.

It was sad to leave the family, but I am glad we were able to spend a little time with them. As we left the girls kept shouting “Ciao professora!” which translates into “bye, teacher!” which was so sweet, but slightly ironic at the same time. While I maybe taught them to use a camera, they taught me a little about living in love and joy no matter the circumstances.

Since we were already a long ways from Quito, we decided to travel to a waterfall nearby that Phil knew of: So we all piled into “the beast” and headed for adventure. While several U-turns proved that we didn’t really know exactly where the falls were… we found another place that we could hike to a waterfall and swim. (For $1 of course… you can get pretty much anything here for a $1) I was totally up for hiking to the falls, but since I didn’t have a bathing suit I was a little unsure if I would be able to swim. But after 20ish minutes of hiking (and a whole bottle of bug spray- I’m pretty sure if it was possible I would have overdosed on DEET) we reached our destination and the falls were glorious! I was totally going in… bathing suit or not. So while a sports bra and cargo shorts aren’t as cute as my bathing suit- We were in Ecuador and I wasn’t going to miss a second of anything!! We jumped off the waterfall and swam till it started getting dark, and then started out on the hike back.

We probably started the hike back a little later than we should have, but we made it back to the Suburban just as the sun was setting. The boys were so sweet- Daniel (who is probably about 14… they don’t know his real birthday) stayed right with me the whole time to make sure I didn’t fall or trip on anything. He calls me Cortina… which means “curtain” as a means of teasing me I think, because he knows my name. He also calls Brian “Flaco Blanco” which means basically skinny white guy… Daniel is definitely a joker, but I think it is how he shows endearment! (Daniel slept the whole way home on Brian's shoulder- it is amazing how much these kids respond to positive male role models.)

The Lord works in Mysterious ways… some are easier to see than others, and the drive home the Lord was blatantly working to keep us safe! I’m not sure how much upkeep the "beast” has had lately, but on the way home it was obvious that it needed a check-up. The windey roads through the jungle are one lane each direction with no dividers and often no guardrails lining the steep drop that would await an unlucky vehicle. Driving here too is quite different… cars pass whenever they feel like and there was more than a few times I thought I was going to witness a head on collision between an impatient vehicle and the unlucky car coming the other direction. At one point we stalled in the center of both lanes (our lane and oncoming traffic) and miraculously, Phil was able to start the engine abnormally fast to get us back into our lane. Leaky exhaust and sketchy breaks didn’t help the situation… but the Lord was looking out for us. The fog that normally plagues the roads during the evening hours was absent this night and we had no trouble getting back to the Casa. I know we weren’t alone.

I am in awe today of God… His Creation, His People, His Grace, and His Power.