On Wednesday, the morning after we refinished the floor, I awoke in pain. My back was aching. And that morning I was so frustrated, not only with the pain in my back but with the difficulty I have in being confident and comfortable in the body the Lord created me to live in. I spent some time in Psalm 139 that morning reminding myself that the Lord knew precisely what He was doing when He created me and I prayed that I would remember that throughout the day.
I was able to ignore the pain while we were at the school that morning. Dan, Danny, Ava and Lisa were able to present the thirteen kids with their brand new school uniforms. Ava said the kids and teachers were so grateful and so sweet. She said she cried through the whole thing, which to me is such a portrait of where her heart is. After the presentation, Dan was able to spend some time with a couple of the teachers and a few parents, sharing the gospel and praying with them.
With Dan taking time with the adults, the rest of the team was given extra time to play with the kids. Aves and I had stepped aside to take a moment and pray for Dan’s words and the people’s hearts and then decided to see what was going on in one of the classrooms. As we approached the door, a little boy was walking out. He looked up into both of our faces and said, in Spanish, “God is big,” and kept walking. Ava and I looked at each other before I turned back to him and said, “And He is good, right?” The boy agreed and ran off to play with his friends. It was a beautiful moment, an assurance from the Lord that these kids were hearing the voice of the Almighty through us. We both cried.
We entered the classroom and it was like walking into a war zone. The craft that day had involved making things out of clay. By the time the kids were allowed to go out and play, they had figured out that they could make big bouncy balls out of the clay. The classroom was almost dangerous with all the balls of clay bouncing off the walls. Kids were throwing them at the wall and then diving out of the way of one coming toward them. We sat on the floor to play and talk with a few kids and I got nailed in the head with a ball of clay. That was when I decided to go back outside. Eventually, we got on the bus to leave the school for our afternoon activities and Dan shared the outcome of his conversation with the adults. Two of the teachers accepted the Lord that afternoon!
My prayer before I went to Ecuador was that the Lord would allow me to see lives commissioned to His service. That afternoon it happened. Beautiful.
Rogelio took us from the school to the Jesus Loves You Church where Hernan, Jenni and their friends were making a snack for us: empanadas, yum! I think I ate three. I’m pretty sure Ben ate about fifteen. They were so good! We couldn’t stay there for very long, though. Because Dan had spent the time with the people at the school, we were a little off schedule and had to get to the Quadrangular Church for lunch.
After lunch, “Team Dot,” eight members of our team led by Todd, headed out to finish the El Shaddai church while the rest of us stayed to paint the sanctuary at Quadrangular. My back was hurting so I was anxious to get started on the painting and be distracted so when Danny asked for someone to start cutting in at the back of the room, I jumped at the chance. The group of youth that arrived to help us that day consisted entirely of girls so the decision was made that the females from our team would just hang out with those girls, share testimonies and show them Jesus. Because I had already begun painting, I missed that directive and spent most of the afternoon cutting in a stairwell with Andy and Josh Rowan. As much as I love the Spanish language, it was so pleasant to just paint and work and not have to translate.
Later that evening, when it was dark, I went outside to clean some rollers and brushes so they would be available for the next day. The church, as with most buildings in the area, was surrounded by a cement wall with a big gate so I was safe outside by myself. When I first went outside, there was a group of people talking and working on stuff. As I cleaned, they wandered away until I was out there alone with one high school guy who was scraping old paint of a wall. Just as I realized it was just the two of us out there, he began to whistle at me. That made me nervous. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was less than comfortable. So, I went inside and got Ben and Chance to come outside with me. With the two strong guys outside, the painter didn’t say another word to me.
We got back to the hacienda for dinner that night and I went to lie down; my back hurt so badly. I ended up skipping our team meeting that night, preferring to be alone than with the group. I spent most of the meeting praying and studying Psalm 139. I even cried some, too, more out of frustration than anything else. At that point, my back hurt to move and it hurt to be still and I was not prepared to deal with it that week. The reality is that I have a spinal birth defect called spina bifida. It is a very minor case of a very serious defect. Something like 90% of people with spina bifida never walk and most have surgery in the first few days after birth. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 22. Really, I can do more than most people with the same defect, but when it hurts, it hurts badly and there isn’t much that helps but a couple days in bed…and I wasn’t going to do that while I was in Ecuador. I had come to Ecuador to work and hang out with some really great kids. I wasn’t prepared to loose that to back pain.
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