Let Go and Let God

date: september 25, 2018

location: who knows ecuador 

company: savanna, cat, milena, shekinah, jacob, ben, caleb, joshua, brenden, elijah

today started out just like any other ministry day except for that it was joshua’s birthday so we planned to go out to eat for dinner after our construction ministry. we woke up, had devos at 7:30, ate breakfast, cleaned the bathrooms, and headed off to our first of 4 bus stops to get to dumnamis. normally we have more people with us like carter the responsible team member that knows the buses like the back of his hand and leaders like stephen who know what to do in a crisis. however, many of our teammates and leaders were sick so it was just us today. we got through all 4 bus stops with no trouble and arrived to dunamis at a normal time (11:15ish). we started off the work day by finally getting to meet the girls who were saved from sex trafficking. when we found out we were going to meet them today all of us had envisioned talking to older girls starting at our ages and up. however when the girls walked out the door we were stunned, they began introducing themselves saying their names, where they were from, and how old they were. the oldest girl there was 17 the rest were around 13/14. to think these girls had already been sexually abused by older men, and for many of them many times filled me and my team with a horrifying sickness and to find out that many of their own parents sold them into sex trafficking just to make money was an even more sickening story. there is even a girl at dunamis who is 10 and already has a child. these thoughts are incomprehendable. although these girls were treated so horribly they still had so much joy and were so friendly they were so happy to talk to us and ask silly questions like “do you eat dogs?” to jacob (he’s Korean) and we were so eager to answer and ask questions back. it was heart breaking to now be able put a face to the word sex trafficking. we worked hard on our construction after that with much enthusiasm because we knew who this was all for. we made cement by hand for about 3 hours because like always the cement machine is broken. we finished a little early so we headed up to the bus stop. when we got there we realized we had about 40 minutes until the bus would arrive so we contemplated waiting or walking down the mountain. finally we decided that we would get on the bus the first time we saw it to waste some time and see what’s up the mountain (we take a red and white bus and every day it passes us going up and comes back down and we get on and ride it down when we see it the second time) so we asked the driver if it would return back down to quito and he said yes we enjoyed the view and began to watch time pass and it was getting a little too late. if the bus did loop around it would already be back at our bus stop and we haven’t turned around yet. finally the bus stops and we are in a ghost town village called “nono” ironic i know. some kind lady informed us the the bus doesn’t return to quito until 5:30 so we were told to get off the bus and had an hour to kill in this strange very quiet town. we call our leaders saying we took the wrong bus and will be home at 7:45. we started to walk around, i’m freaking out inside and out. we start to look for restaurants and of the few that we found none were open. the town is silent we pass maybe 3 people a few dogs and a cow skull in the road. finally we run into a family and the team begins to try and speak spanish, thankfully milena is pretty good at it. the nice family informs us that restaurants are only open on weekends and invites us inside for coffee and croissants. they couldn’t be happier to share what little they had with us and kept telling us to use sugar in the coffee. milena was able to say a prayer as we all held hands around their small kitchen table, we got to see some beautiful cross stitch work that her daughter sells and they even gave us some for free, they took pictures with us and we made plans to meet up sunday for a picnic. during this whole thing they had someone waiting outside for us to make sure we didn’t miss our bus. i have NEVER met such sweet people in my life. they were the most genuine, hospitable, generous people i have ever encountered and i couldn’t help but feel guilty for the way i’ve acted for example being hesitant to share clothes or food when i have so much more than they do. so everything was incredible this stressful day turned into such a blessing, they showed me god when i had planned to come here and show god to the people i met. i was so much more touched than i could’ve ever touched them. we head down the mountain take two buses and get to condado shopping (the mall). nothing can go wrong now we know this place so well. we go inside to eat food court food for joshua’s birthday dinner because we had already told our host Mabe and Fabi to not make us food for tonight. i had the BEST banana nutella waffle with whip creams since cream and got a double cheese burger meal from mcdonald’s to go. bellies and hearts so full we head outside to get on our second to last bus. i’m outside singing looking like a dork. my life’s at an ALL time high right now. we get on the bus and ask if it was going to terminal carcelene (our bus stop) and we were told yes. things start to not look familiar so josh and jacob talk to the bus driver. all of a sudden the bus stops doors open and we are told to get out and walk straight. we are in the middle of no where, the literal ghetto and it’s almost 7:45 and that’s when we told them we would be home, and 8 is team time so we have to be home by then. and of course the team phone is dead. we start walking for a while and decide to ask some people were the bus stop is everyone points different directions and finally some guy tells us we are like 3 miles from the bus stop and we should probably take a taxi. not wanting to split up at night we look for a bus but there is literally none which is very weird for quito. so we make a plan to take 3 taxis back. two taxis with one boy in the front and 3 girls in the back and one with two boys and one girl. we plan to all meet at the bus stop and walk home together. by this point it is way past 7:45. so the three girls who were the most stressed aka me sav and cat get in a taxi with caleb and ask to go to terminal carcelene. all is going good and then after about 10 minutes of still not recognizing anything we start to freak out again. we pull over and he asks us our location again and pretends to have not known where we were going and says “ohhh terminal DE carcelene” we turn around because the whole time we were going in the wrong direction. now we are stressing again because we were the first taxi to go and everyone is probably already there and wondering where we are and probably already walking to the house. we finally get to the bus stop see our friends i give the bus driver too much money throw my never been touched mcdonald’s meal in the back seat and run to our friends, we hug and begin to run again, across the street and up the hill. finally arriving to the house at 8:25 where we are greeted with our patiently waiting slightly worried leaders. i wouldn’t have traded today for the world. all the chaos and stress has taught me so much. if we didn’t take that first wrong bus we would’ve never met our friends betty and jose in nono. even though i love to plan and be in control of what’s going on, my plan can and will never compare to what god has in store, so it’s best to always let go and let god, because he has far greater things in store.