Day 80
My last full day in Ecuador….bittersweet….
I had my last Spanish class with Margi this morning - lots of review of EVERYTHING. And we said goodbye. She was such a great teacher and I learned so much from here. I will miss her smile and all the laughing we did while practicing random Spanish sentences.
This afternoon I went to the Compassion Project at Comite Del Pueblo for the last time. Everyone was happy to see me one more time, but it was like all afternoon we were saying goodbye. They threw another party for me today and gave me a T-shirt and a little wooden replica of the Mitad Del Mundo monument. The kids all wrote on cards to give to me. Ximena, the director of the project, gave a little speech saying how happy she was and how happy all the kids were that I could spend these months encouraging them and working alongside them. I had a chance to read a letter I had written for our class and give them a bunch of the pictures I took last time, which I had printed.
Out of 185 kids in the Compassion Project at Comite, 8 were unsponsored. Now there are only 6 unsponsored kids there because two supporters wanted to sponsor one. So I got to meet these two kids and get a picture with them. They really have great needs and it will be so good to have people from UCC writing them and encouraging them and praying for them and supporting them. If anyone reading this has had a tug on their heart and wants to sponsor one of the remaining six kids at Comite, call Compassion International in Colorado Springs and tell them you want to sponsor one of the unsponsored kids in project EC-107. They might be able to work it out! How cool would that be if we could kind of adopt the project and support it as a community?!
After saying goodbye to the kids and teachers there, I grabbed a taxi to La Primavera and put on my new suit and my Pooh tie so I could be all spiffed up to preach. Carlos has been looking forward to this day for over a month. He always has been saying, “Alex, before you leave, you will preach in Spanish with your beard and your suit and encourage the brothers!” I must have heard that from him twenty times this month. Well, his dream came true tonight and he got a break from preaching. Andy and Jenell Pluim came to the service, along with Herb Clauson (Nils’ dad). I usually miss the half-hour prayer time before the service on Wednesday nights because I am at Pan De Vida. But tonight I got there in plenty of time to pray with everyone beforehand and it was so good just to reflect on my time there and on the work God is doing in La Primavera and in the lives of each person there. I have been so encouraged by each person in the congregation and I am so grateful for their friendship. The sermon went pretty well. I never imagined when I came here that I would speak in front of the congregation for 40 minutes in Spanish! I spoke on Romans 8:28-39 and the unconditional love of God in the midst of everything we go through in life. Afterwards, one of the sisters came up to me and told me how much it spoke directly to her heart. Pablo told me I only botched three words J.
The service concluded with a group photo of the entire congregation and hot coffee and reminiscing together. We looked at a lot of the pictures I had taken over the last three months and everyone joked that Pablo is always in a picture with a (different) lovely young woman. Every time his face appeared on the screen, everyone shouted, “PABLO!!!!” and whooped and hollered. I said my last goodbyes to most of the congregation tonight - especially the kids, as only a few will be able to come to the airport tomorrow. I told Kevin how proud I am of him and how awesome he is and how much I see God working in his life. He got all teary eyed and told me how much he was going to miss me. All the kids in the church gave me little cards, and Kevin’s had John 11:35 written in it: “Jesus wept.” And he said, “And me, too.” If Mexicali goodbyes are tough after a week, how much more the goodbyes after three months! It took us at least an hour more of trying to leave and hugging and saying goodbye to everyone before we finally were able to get in the car and go.
We got home and I tried to pack, but discovered that I had more stuff than when I came, so I had to give Jimmy five shirts (including two Edge T-Shirts he had been begging me for for two months), a pair of shoes, a towel, my sandals, and a bunch of other stuff. He suggested that to save more space, I ought to leave my computer and my camera! We had our last dinner as a family, looked at pictures, and chatted until well after midnight. I am really going to miss this family. They are so cool….
I had my last Spanish class with Margi this morning - lots of review of EVERYTHING. And we said goodbye. She was such a great teacher and I learned so much from here. I will miss her smile and all the laughing we did while practicing random Spanish sentences.
This afternoon I went to the Compassion Project at Comite Del Pueblo for the last time. Everyone was happy to see me one more time, but it was like all afternoon we were saying goodbye. They threw another party for me today and gave me a T-shirt and a little wooden replica of the Mitad Del Mundo monument. The kids all wrote on cards to give to me. Ximena, the director of the project, gave a little speech saying how happy she was and how happy all the kids were that I could spend these months encouraging them and working alongside them. I had a chance to read a letter I had written for our class and give them a bunch of the pictures I took last time, which I had printed.
Out of 185 kids in the Compassion Project at Comite, 8 were unsponsored. Now there are only 6 unsponsored kids there because two supporters wanted to sponsor one. So I got to meet these two kids and get a picture with them. They really have great needs and it will be so good to have people from UCC writing them and encouraging them and praying for them and supporting them. If anyone reading this has had a tug on their heart and wants to sponsor one of the remaining six kids at Comite, call Compassion International in Colorado Springs and tell them you want to sponsor one of the unsponsored kids in project EC-107. They might be able to work it out! How cool would that be if we could kind of adopt the project and support it as a community?!
After saying goodbye to the kids and teachers there, I grabbed a taxi to La Primavera and put on my new suit and my Pooh tie so I could be all spiffed up to preach. Carlos has been looking forward to this day for over a month. He always has been saying, “Alex, before you leave, you will preach in Spanish with your beard and your suit and encourage the brothers!” I must have heard that from him twenty times this month. Well, his dream came true tonight and he got a break from preaching. Andy and Jenell Pluim came to the service, along with Herb Clauson (Nils’ dad). I usually miss the half-hour prayer time before the service on Wednesday nights because I am at Pan De Vida. But tonight I got there in plenty of time to pray with everyone beforehand and it was so good just to reflect on my time there and on the work God is doing in La Primavera and in the lives of each person there. I have been so encouraged by each person in the congregation and I am so grateful for their friendship. The sermon went pretty well. I never imagined when I came here that I would speak in front of the congregation for 40 minutes in Spanish! I spoke on Romans 8:28-39 and the unconditional love of God in the midst of everything we go through in life. Afterwards, one of the sisters came up to me and told me how much it spoke directly to her heart. Pablo told me I only botched three words J.
The service concluded with a group photo of the entire congregation and hot coffee and reminiscing together. We looked at a lot of the pictures I had taken over the last three months and everyone joked that Pablo is always in a picture with a (different) lovely young woman. Every time his face appeared on the screen, everyone shouted, “PABLO!!!!” and whooped and hollered. I said my last goodbyes to most of the congregation tonight - especially the kids, as only a few will be able to come to the airport tomorrow. I told Kevin how proud I am of him and how awesome he is and how much I see God working in his life. He got all teary eyed and told me how much he was going to miss me. All the kids in the church gave me little cards, and Kevin’s had John 11:35 written in it: “Jesus wept.” And he said, “And me, too.” If Mexicali goodbyes are tough after a week, how much more the goodbyes after three months! It took us at least an hour more of trying to leave and hugging and saying goodbye to everyone before we finally were able to get in the car and go.
We got home and I tried to pack, but discovered that I had more stuff than when I came, so I had to give Jimmy five shirts (including two Edge T-Shirts he had been begging me for for two months), a pair of shoes, a towel, my sandals, and a bunch of other stuff. He suggested that to save more space, I ought to leave my computer and my camera! We had our last dinner as a family, looked at pictures, and chatted until well after midnight. I am really going to miss this family. They are so cool….