Day 3 (2018)

Today we woke up at 7:30 and had a variety of breakfast choices, including cereal, eggs, Ecuadorian fruit, toast with jelly or butter, etc. Mrs. Strayer made me scrambled eggs, and I had butter toast with Granadilla (snot fruit), a fruit from Ecuador. 

We left the hostel at 8:15, and it took and hour to drive through the morning traffic so we arrived at Buen Pastor at 9:20. It was very, very chilly. We heard a devotion from our friend, Patricio, about how God has helped him through life and he now wants to become a priest. We all then got in a circle and prayed for Patricio and for God to be with him always. Then Juan Carlos spoke about Buen Pastor and it’s youth. Something that Davis said stuck out to him was that Juan Carlos mentioned that the majority of the parishioners are teenagers, and the kids are beginning to be the ones that are encouraging their parents to come.

After the good devotional, translated by Pablo, we were split into three groups. One group painted murals in the Sunday school room, another group sanded down the outside walls of the church, and the last group put a fresh coat of paint on the sanded walls. I was in the group painting murals. We painted one of a large cross made out of the handprints of the youth. Bella and Danishi painted one of a large hand that had inspirational words on the fingers. Davis and I painted one of two kids standing on a bible with Jesus in the middle, rowing the Bible like a boat. Catie and Emi painted a rainbow coming out of a tree that had butterflies and flowers on it. Lastly, Caroline and Tommy painted ‘Sunday school’ on the outside wall, in Spanish. (Pablo was the best in all the activities, I want to be like him in a couple of years - says Pablo, our rockin host)

We ate lunch at 1pm: we had a beef and pepper kind of stew with rice and plantains and we got COKE!!!!

After lunch we put on a VBS lesson about the Feeding the 5000. During VBS Catie, Sibley, and I stuffed candy into goodie bags for the kids at the children's festival we will have tomorrow. The group leading VBS acted out the Bible story and then made fish out of paper plates. They also played duck-duck-goose, but as pan-pan-pescado (bread, bread, fish).

On the bus on the way back to the hostel, we shared tongue twisters in Engligh and Spanish, and I worked on my friendship bracelet. When we got back to the hostel we had 2 hours of free time. The boys played basketball, and Emi, Mrs. Strayer and I played double Dutch. For dinner we had pizza empanadas, which are like calzones, and potato soup. At 8:20 we did debrief, saying our highs and lows and where we saw God in the day.

Con mucho amor,
Mary Mac

(written by Mary Mac Krause)