It is a humbling awareness when God calls you to be Jesus in the lives of people in another culture, in another country, on another continent. It is a humbling awareness to be called to be Jesus in anyone’s life, but there is so much more to be aware of when you cross cultural borders. Although there is little newness for me in traveling, even in traveling to South America, I could little have expected what ten days in Ecuador would do to me and through me. In the words of a little boy at a little school in a little town in Ecuador, “Dios es grande,” that is, God is big.
The only place to start this narrative is, well, at the beginning. The difficulty is that I don’t really know where the beginning of this story is for me. It could be the day in, I guess, January, when Danny, our team leader, approached me about the trip and the possibility of me going as a Spanish speaker. Danny was there when the Lord set aside my heart for South America and people of the Spanish language and he knows of my passion for such things. So, I guess, then maybe the story starts in Peru in 2003 when Danny and I both first saw the beauty of South American missions. Or, maybe, back farther to my days as a Bible school student when I heard stories of missionaries in Panama loosing their husbands to Columbian guerillas and my heart desperately wanted to go to the places the wives were not permitted to return to. For me, though, I think the beginning of the story is in my childhood. The first 21 years of my life were spent with two amazing, godly people who loved the Lord passionately and spent countless hours telling me stories of their travels around the world and of sharing Jesus with all they encountered. I was blessed with grandparents whose first priority was ministry and the greatest legacy I have inherited from them is a passion to see Jesus spread around the world.
The beginning of this trip in places outside of my heart lies, then, in January. Danny shared with me that he would be leading this trip and, although the trip was not yet being publicized, he would like me to be praying about going as someone who speaks Spanish and could translate and facilitate the forming of relationships. Danny knows me well. Later at a team meeting, I joked that there are two ways to get me to do something, offer me free food, or tell me I can speak Spanish. My heart’s response to that conversation with Danny was not really to pray about whether or not the Lord wanted me to go, but rather to simply agree to go and ask the Lord to close the door if anything else was His desire. It was a simple choice for me. A week later, Danny said that the Bentleys were praying about going, too. Beautiful. I hadn’t talked to Ava at all about going to Ecuador. That this family wanted to go also was simply further confirmation for me.
My story with the Bentleys goes back to that same Peru trip with Danny in 2003. The short story is that I had been praying for six months for a mentor and Ava had been praying for someone to mentor. We clicked in Peru and have been together now for two and a half years. Through every part of the last two years, all the ugliness and hurt and shame, she stood with me and fought the lies until I could see the truth…and then rejoiced with me when I found it. She has been, in so many ways, what my mom is unable to be. And, because God is ridiculous and amazing, He has not let me leave the US without her since that first trip. So, the prospect of the whole Bentley family going to Ecuador thrilled my heart.
From here, I tell my story of ten days in Ecuador, the weeks leading up to the trip and the days there. My journal was my constant companion, always in my bag, always nearby. I recorded everything. The reality of who I am is that I am not a good thinker. I don’t follow a train of thought very well if the words are confined to my head. I need them on paper. And so, I write. In the same vein, I don’t tell stories well, not verbally. And so, my desire is to share my journal. However, the deep parts of my heart are written there as well; parts of my heart that are not available to the general public. And so, I write this in a more legible and formal fashion, from my journal to words intended to share. And I hope, deeply, that these words convey accurately what are my true feelings about Ecuador and that week and those people. Somewhere in this, too, I hope to find at least a part of what the Lord did in and to me that week.
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