Ecuador 2006 - Part IV

After a layover in Miami that involved us walking what seemed like the entire airport…twice…we boarded another plane and took off, bound for Quito. This time, I had a middle seat near the back of the plane with Andy Hall to my left, by the window, and Kenny to my right. Butch and Lisa were behind me. Lisa asked a lot of questions about Spanish and how to say certain words and phrases. It was a challenge to my memory, and desired mastery, of the language.

At the end of the flight, as we were rushing to wait to get off the plane, I met the girl who had sat in front of me for the previous four or so hours. Her name was Rachel and she was on her way to Shell Mera to work at the hospital there for about forty days. Shell Mera was the base where Nate Saint and his family lived in the 1950s when he was an MAF pilot. It was from Shell Mera that Nate, Jim Elliot and three other men flew into the jungle to meet, and hopefully minister to, the Waorani Indians, who were known at that time as the Aucas. When the men landed in Waorani territory in 1957, they were brutally speared to death by the Indians they had come to serve. As a result of that incident and follow-up contact made by Nate’s sister, Rachel, and some of the men’s wives, many of the Waorani have come to know the Lord. The whole story is told in one of my favorite movies (and books), The End of the Spear. It was amazing to watch and read that story and then be so close to where it had all happened.

Rachel had a working knowledge of Spanish but was not altogether comfortable with her command of the language. For that reason and because she was traveling alone, we absorbed her as part of our group for the journey through customs. She had been told that she would be spending that night at the HCJB guesthouse in Quito. That was where we were staying that night so as we helped her find her contact at the airport, we hoped we would see her when we got the house.

Wherever she stayed that night, it wasn’t at the same HCJB guesthouse that we stayed in. I have thought of her often since then and wondered how her trip has gone. I hope all is well with her.