Mi Ultimo Dia en Pascuales

Today was my last day with all my kids in Pascuales.

At the end of the day we took some pictures, they kissed me on the cheek and then hugged me and ran off to some adventure. But there were a few who stayed around a little bit longer.

The day was pretty normal. I showed up in the morning, with my Ecuadorian friend who came along to translate my last chapel message. We played, ran around, reviewed our english material, sang songs, and had chapel. I talked about the last three colors; white, yellow and green. They listened as I explained how easy it is for us to get dirty everyday, and how God will continue to clean us, and forgive us; and about how there is such a place as heaven, and God is there. It will be a place without anger, and pain; without murders, without people hitting other people...We sang some worship songs and then I went around with Bartola and tied on all the braclets I had made for each of them with the 5 colors.

By 11:00am they were off, running down the dirt hills to there homes.

Jose and Fransisco, Jayz and her mother, and Israel and his mother stuck around. Jose and Fransisco presented me with a small gift bag full of a matching necklace and earing set, 2 braclets, and 4 jeweled barrets for my hair. Attatched to the bag was a note from Jose, including his phone number. Franscico sat hugging me for a long time before they finally left and he ran back in about 5 times to hug me more. Jose just shouted chau, and awkwardly began to leave, until Bartola told him that he could kiss me on the cheek, and not to worry because I will be coming back to see him by the end of the year.

Israel presented me with a little stuffed bear, and his mom so genuinly thanked me for eveything.

Things with Jayz were not as simple. I spent another hour and a half with them. Jayz is the girl who has become very attatched to me since I have been here. She asks her mom for me everyday. I have been able to spend time with her family at their house. The family has been through alot of hard things. Rosio, Jayz' mom, just became a christian 20 days ago. She and Bartola told me they needed to speak with me. They explained how there was somehting missing for the children at the school before I came. They said there was a sadness and something they needed. And then I came, and there has been a change with many of the kids. (Now, I personally think that this is a slightly exagerrated claim on their part) Rosio said that she has seen a huge change with Jayz, ecspecially. They family has many problems. They do not have much money, the father left to live with another woman and does not help with anything. She is trying to raise 5 children on her own. She said Jayz was so sad and would cry every night, and could not sleep. But, she said, since I have been here, it is like the sadness left her. She was so grateful to me. But then we also began to talk about what will happen when I leave next week. Jayz refuses to believe that I am really leaving. For example, today she kept saying (in spanish of course), "Okay Kathryn, I will see you tomorrow when you come over to my house, yeah, see you tomorrow." I would tell her gently that I could not come to her house, but that I would see her on Sunday when I go to her church. The mom and Bartola asked me to speak with this precious little 5 year old girl on Sunday and explain to her that they are telling the truth and I am leaving. They asked me to explain to her that it is okay her dad left, and it is okay I am leaving, that I do love her, and that she does not need to be sad. They asked me to give her hope, and to pray with her.

Sometimes I wonder if I am going to hurt some of these kids, like Jayz and Francisco, by leaving and if it may have been better to have not gotten invloved in their lives at all. But I do not think so, at least I hope not. So we all talked, and prayed. We prayed for Jayz family, and her mother, and for my conversation on Sunday.

It is amazing how much love can effect people. Especially children. I do not think I did anything very special, or particularly useful down here. I loved some kids, I was nice to them, I played with them. I hugged them everyday and told them they were my brothers and sisters. I wore the same $3 shoes as them. I tried to sing there songs, and speak there language. But nothing extraordinary. It just shows how much people really need love; a present love.

I watched a movie about Africa last night and it made my heart ache. Kind of like it does right now. I do not know if I have started going through the begining phases of some kind of seperation deppression but I am extremely sad. But the sadness does not come from the fact that I will miss Ecuador, or the families, or the kids. Whenever I am in a certain place, there is always 10 others places I wish I could be also. My heart, and the people I love seem to be spread out all over the world. But this feeling is different. It is an aching, a yearning for something. I think C.S. Lewis does the best job of explaining it when he wrote;

"Most of us find it very difficult to wwant 'Heaven' at all-except in so far as Heaven means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want for Heaven is present in us, we do not recognize it. Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, wwould know that they do want, and want acutly, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages. or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in the first moment of longing, which just fades away in reality. I think everyone knows what I am talking about. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us....The Christian says, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the mst probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same."

Two more weeks.

Three more days with my children at Pascuales,

then it will be back to Los Angeles

back to school

back to work

and figuring out how to silence my deep desire to be in this part of the world; loving people

and how to not forget

I don't think I ever could, forget that is, though sometimes it seems like it would be easier

I will see my friends again, the people I love...I will be able to sing songs and learn to play more of them on guitar, in ENGLISH finally.

I will shop in grocery stores instead of the markets

and will be reminded of how much I do not fit in because of the way I think.

but it all makes me hope for that day when this longing in my heart will be satisfied. And we will all be where we were meant to be

together

in love

in perfection

singing

and dancing

with nothing to hold us back from communicating, or relating...we will be able to love eachother as we really want. There will not be the deep pain of realizing you can not help all the people who are hurting, and you cannot hold all the kids who are crying; or the 25 year old who thinks they will never be good enough and are afraid to make the wrong choice, or the 60 year old who cannot trust in hope anymore. We will be washed, unashamed, and healed.

But right now, I just have two more weeks to think about. Three more days to give hugs, and let them climb on me, and play with my hair, and call me their sister telling me stories about how we will go play at their house and do this or that. And I have two more weeks to learn from the family I am staying with. To be reminded that I do not have to be afraid, and that we are forgiven, and we are loved. Two more weeks to listen to the little neighbor kids run and play outside my window talking in their precious little spanish voices. Two more weeks of fresh air, and laid back culture. Two more weeks of greeting every single person standing in the room with a kiss.

"We were paying even more attention than usual, trying to tether ourselves to the earth, because the world was coming to an end."

I know Anne Lamott was not refering to Ecuador when she wrote this, but I feel as though it could be applied...At least by my first instinct. I feel as though I want to memorize everything, and then dig my claws into it, or forget something crucial here so it would make it impossible for me never to return. But I have gotten past that. I know that as soon as everyone comes back from a "missions trip" or a vacation from some part of the world they talk so much about returing their and how serious they are...then 4 or 5 months goes by and they have moved on. I do not want this to happen, and I do not expect it to. We will see in 9 months from now

Si Dios quiere, volverE

El Amor de Dios es Maravilloso

Tenemos un amigo que nos ama, noa ama, nos ama...tenemos un amigo que me ama, su nombre es JesUs... Chapel again...we got to talk about Jesus. My friend David played a few songs with the kids.

Hermana Dorothy came as my translator again.

We sang, talked about Jesus, and then prayed...then I got ambushed by my children. and I love them

Sometimes A Light Suprises

Sometimes A Light Surprises

It is an amazing thing to feel love. From your friends, from your family, or from a person who you knew one week out of your entire life. It keeps me in awe to think of the effect it can have on someone. How through love, a year or two, or three, or twenty, can pass and a person can so vividly remember you, and pray for you...

I am learning alot here in Ecuador. Alot about Latin culture; what it would mean to spend my life working in a school or a poor community here; what it feels to be in a different culture, with even less people who can understand you (emotionally and lingually) *i am not sure if "lingually" is actually a word*. I am learning about the kind of person I want to be and the kind of person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I am learning about perseverence, and suffering, and meeting people who resemble the kind of life I have always pictured for myself....

I have been trying to write this blog for the past four days and I just never had time to complete my thought. I was going to go into about how much I have been learning about grace, and how the truth of the gospel applies to our life. But instead, tonight I have a story.

I left yesterday afternoon on a bus to Milagro. A town about an hour or so from Guayaquil. When I arrived I met some very nice Ecuadorians at the church where I was going to give two english classes at. My roomate back in L.A. has an older brother named Carlos, and that is who's class I came to teach. They were night classes; one at 6 the last at 9:15. There was a man in the 9:15 class named Rudolph. One of the most genuinly sweet old men I have ever met. I found out later that night that he is a very talented teacher and works with 6-8 years-olds. He is around 65 years old, and lives completely alone. He has children and an ex-wife but none of them come around. They have become enslaved into a world of drugs, amongst other things. Rudolph has been a christian for about 5 years and wants to become a missionary. That is whwy he is trying to learn english now. That is not the story I wanted to tell though. Last night I spent the night at a girl named Sarita's house. She is ecuadorian and works at the church. She has 11 brothers and sisters, and lives with her nephew and sister-in-law as well. She has two brothers living in New York. Her family lives in the house of their in-laws, and her brothers send money every month to make sure the family can buy food, and have electricty and water. It was about 11:00pm when we arrived to her house, and I was exhausted. On top of that, I could only communicate in spanish. I met the family, and as any good gringa would do, I agreed to sit with them all and watch one of their favorite Novelas on the television. The story line was similar to that of any novela (two girls with too much make up and in very short skirts fighting, crying, embracing half dressed latino men, while someone is dieing in the hospital; and the best-friend and/or mother is trying to steal the money and/or boyfriend/husband/lover...). After this I went up onto the roof with Sarita (we were trailed by her 5 year-old nephew Michael (Mee-ky-el). He kept asking me about going into this dark cement house-looking thing and would not leave the issue alone...so I began to explain how there are many animals inside (listing all the animals that i knew in Spanish) and how they are very large and have huge teeth; and that they like to eat people who want to go look at them; I went on and told him that they are only there at night and that is why he has probably never seen them before, but I know they are there and I dont want to go, but i told him he could go if he wanted....He quickly told me that he no longer wanted to go. He soon got over his fear as he announced his true identity as being "hombre araNja" or in english, "spiderman". Then he went on to explain to me how rabbits like to eat carrots, and I told him I liked to eat carrots as well. He agreed with me on this point and also added that he enjoyed eating rabbit very much as well. I then revealed to him that my true identity was Mujer araNja (spiderwoman), and that i was hungry and needed to find a rabbit to eat. He laughed and told me that there are no rabbits right now. Our conversation quickly ended when I said that if I couldnt find a rabbit soon I may have to eat him...(He just laughed and dramatically left the roof, making sure I knew he was leaving...I think secretly he was waiting for me to beckon for him to come back. But I was pretty sure his Aunt was tired of my half hour conversation with this 5 year-old in my broken spanish.) Sarita and I ended up talking for a few more hours about our lives, and families, and desires for the future. It eventually become to cold to stand and we retreated to the soft beds under the mosquito nets. I had never slept under a mosquito net before; it had a rather odd smell and I kept imaginging that it had been sprayed down with DDT that when I would wake up in the morning I might not be able to see anymore. Other than that, it was rather romantic...the DDT and all.

This morning I took a freezing cold shower, ate some baked Platain (or Maduro Asado) con queso and learned a complicated, but beautiful, Spanish worship song. Sarita and I walked through town to the church, and Carlos and I then took off to buy some medicine for Hermana Veronica. This is where the story begins.

We approached a very rural part of down (meaning the roads are not really paved, there is trash and overgrown plants everywhere, barefoot kids and scraggegly dogs running around as well) and I see a very old woman bent over and focused on the broken hinge of her gate. She introduces herself as Veronica and welcomes us into her house. A week or so ago as she was hanging her laundry out to dry, she took a step, and an old nail went straight through her foot. Carlos and I picked up some Tetanis Medicine and he handed me the syringe asking if I had ever given a shot before. I laughed and then realized he was really asking me to give Veronica a Tetanis shot for her injury. We quickly tracked down a neighbor who commonly gives people injections and she took care of it for us. Veronica had been getting some fevers and has not been feeling well so when Carlos called she asked for some medicine. I walked into her home and took a seat in one of the well used chairs. Everyone's furniture, and kitchenware (in the poorer parts) looks as either it has been used very heavily for the past 30 years, or are from the 1940s. I looked up and noticed the collapsing ceiling. I tried to take in the site. The sheets divinding the room into two seperate parts; the little wash basin; small stove; the two pots hanging on the wall; three plantain bananas and an avacado in the food basket. There was a small table with three chairs that looked to be the refuge for a very small, obviously excessivly abused little dog. I watch Hermana Veronica with her old skirt and buttoned up blouse; her cheap sandals that were too big for her feet; and the torn peice of cloth that she had wrapped around her nail-peirced wound to stop the bleeding. We sat and talked for the next few hours. Carlos told me that through the last rainy season Hermana Veronica's roof was really falling apart and he found out that she (probably in her late 60s or older) would somehow climb onto the top of her roof and try to patch up the leaky spots with scraps of metal. Once the people from their church knew they quickly came and tried to repair it for her. I listened for the next few hours about this women's life. About her two youngest daughter who are very sick from their Diabetes; about her youngest son who is addicted to sniffing glue. She wept as she spoke of her last encounter with Daniel; how she pleaded with him to turn to Christ. That he can quit what he is doing and salvage the little life he has left. That God can help his addiction and satisfy the longing that he has been seeking to fill; that he can heal those things he has been running from. She told us about how skinny he was when she saw him, and how she fears he will die soon. She continued to weep more (only this time they were tears of deep gratitude) as she talked of her oldest son who had served in the Ecuadorian army. He had jumped from a plane and his parachute failed. He was paralyzed from the neck down and was in a coma. In between her tears and gasps to thank God, she explained how she showed up to the hospital everyday for three years to pray for her son and massage his arms and legs, praying that God would heal him. He lives in Guayaquil now, and cannot work very much, but can walk. She answered questions Carlos asked her, revealing that there is often no food to eat, and no money to turn on the lights. This woman began to teach me about the faithfulness and mercy of God. About how he blesses us, and loves us. I had wished so desperatly that I knew the most beautiful song and that I could sing it in the most beautiful voice for her. And I decided my resolution to learn Spanish and learn to play the guitar well is something I am going to accomplish before I come back to Ecuador. I thought about how if I was Hermana Veronica's neighbor I would come over every morning and play her a song...and remind her to smile.

It took me about 30 minutes to get her small little dog to trust me. He slowly inched out from under the table, across the room to my chair. He literally stopped every 2 inches and would cowar, waiting to see if I would hit him. I thought of the fact that there are so many people in this state. I thought of the woman who worked with Mother Teresa as a Sister of Charity and sat with a terrified little boy who could not speak nor hardly breath regularly. He sat shaking on a small, flat, make-shift hospital bed. Shocked by death and the war in front of him, the sister slowly began to touch his hand, and then stroke his head, and then his chest, and his arms. You can see the transformation of this small terrified boy. And he looks up at this woman and realizes that she was not there to hurt him.....That is what I want to spend my life doing. Finding those people who are terrified, cowering underneath the table, and be able to live with them and show them that I am not there to hurt them, but to love them...and then give them a hug and sing them a beautiful song, and pray for them, and cook for them, and teach them to dance, and play a hand-clapping game...or the phrase "I am happy" in english. Carlos and I prayed for Hermana Veronica and then we went to leave. She told me that when I come back to Ecuador that I must come to her house and share a meal with her. She made Carlos promise that he would give her my phone number and she told me hers very quickly, with such trust that I could memorize it and and call her soon. I repeated the numbers out loud and really did try to remember them. But I will remember her, and por fe, I will come and share a meal with her. I would also like to bring her some real shoes, but they would probably just be in her way. As we walked down the street away from Veronica, and mi perrito, Carlos told me that Veronice is in his sunday school class, and is one of his best students.

I tried sugar cane for the first time today, and I was able to see mis abuelitos in the old folks home. I hope I will be able to leave all the people I have met here something to remember me by. I actually do not care if they remember me, I just want to leave them something that will remind them to smile, and remind them that we have so much to trust in and smile about.

I return to the U.S. in three weeks.

I have decided that I am going to either major, or minor in spanish, that baked plantains are one of my favorite foods, and that I am sure there is no way I will be able to take my heart away from Ecuador.

the end

Negro representa pecado

Today we are going to talk about the color black. Black represents sin. Who has heard of the word sin before? Sin is that things that seperates us from God. God is our father, who created us. A very long time ago, God created the entire world. Genesis tells us about how God created the earth, and the ocean, and the skyw, and he created day and night, and plants. God created all these things and saw that they were good. And then God created man. He blessed man and gave him power over all the plants and animals on the earth. And every day God and man walked together in peace. Soon God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so he created a mutual helper; a woman. God put man and woman in a beautiful garden, where they could walk and work and eat from all the plants. They had everything they needed, and were at peace with God. God gave man and woman freedom to eat from any tree in the garden; all but one. He told then to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they did eat of it, it would bring about death. The tempter came and questioned Gods words. Then the woman and the man agreed with the tempter, that they to could, and should have this knowledge over their lives. They disobeyed and ate the fruit. Because they disobeyed God, they were cast out of the garden and out of his presence. This was the begining of sin for mankind, man and womans desire to take God's place. As a result of sin, much pain entered into the world. People lie, cheat, and steal. People hurt eachother, some people kill. Friends lie to eachother, boyfriends and girlfriends; husbands and wives are unfaithful. They lose their trust. People rebel against their parents and their teachers. We hurt and cry, and finally, people die. Sin has caused all kinds of pain in our lives and has seperated us from God. Sin is living in darkness, far from God. That is why we use the color black to represent the darkness. All people live in a state of sin, in a world of darkness. All people live in a state of sin, in a world of darkness and pain; away from God's love and peace. God created us, and wants us to be with him. We removed ourselves from paradise, and put ourselves far from God. But he has created new paradise for us, and a way to get there. A way to be close again, a place of joy and peace with him. Their is an answer God has for us. And we are going to talk about that next week.

This is the first message I have ever taught in Spanish. I am so thankful that 30 minutes before I left to teach chapel at my school in Pascuales, a translator fell into my lap.

The children watched me with a strange curiosity as I spoke. Maybe it was my white skin, or my blue eyes...or how quickly and intensly I spoke at them in english. But they ran up to me afterwards, and climbed on me and played with me, and looked into my soul begging for love.

There are two boys that have captured my heart here in Ecuador. They are brothers and I have never seen their parents. Jose is 11 and Francisco is 5. They are in different classes, but by far are the most disobedient, the kids who are rude and talk out of turn and always are making trouble. Francisco is sick alot, and Jose does not want me to know that he wants me to hug him or be kind to him. But I know he does. I love these two boys. Who are so apparently hurt by life. They carry this sense of distrust and rebellion, but at the same time such a vulnerablity to someone who might genuinly care for them. Francisco is not old enough to not trust me...Jose seems to have learned quickly the way people are. I am sure he has seen and felt sin in his life. That is why I think hew is so interested in an answer to it. There is something more for him, there is joy and healing....there is an answer, and there is love. Unconditional, completly radical and overwhelming love. for him, for Francisco, for me.

If you can, pray for these boys. Next Friday I will be telling them about who Jesus is, and what it means that he died. Rojo representa la santidad de Cristo...y esparanza y paz, y eternidad

Crazy Days

Where to start.....

Friday after class I was invited to have lunch at one of my students homes. Her name is Jayz, she is six years-old, and her dad just left there family last week. She tells me I am her sister, and her mom told me she wakes up in the middle of the night looking for me.



Honestly, that scares me. I am afraid of hurting her; that I will damage her by loving her and then leaving.



After class we went and i met all the cousins, the brothers and sisters, the abuelita, and the stray pets. I was offered alot of food, peach juice, and all of Jayz possessions (ranging from hairpins to a cheap Disney princess movie). We talked and ate, and smiled alot. Before I left they presented me with a gift. Some hand lotion, and the only picture of Jayz that the mom had. She wrote on the back (literally translated) "to the soul-friend of my heart, so you remember to return quickly katherine". Her mom asked me to take a picture of the picture she gave me so that she might be able to have another copy.



Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon I camped out on la isla Santay. I shared my testimony with people from the community on Friday night, and then Saturday and Sunday Myself, and a friend ran all the games for the children. This weekend God used to grow so many relationships between the kids and me. Sunday I was able to talk about prayer and Jesus with a girl named Paulina, and we got to sit and tell stories about David and Goliath, and about the miracles of Jesus. I left the island on Sunday with about 200 bug bites covering my arms and legs, a bunch of braids in my hair (compliments of about 5 rough little island girls) and a few less bracelets on my wrists (from giving them away).



I have about four weeks left here in Ecuador. Now, my big frustration has been that I want to be bale to teach the kids in my classes in Pascuales more than just phrases like "my name is..." and "these are grapes". I want to teach them about eternal things, and about God. I had no idea how I was going to do that. Yesterday, the Lord answered my prayers in a beautiful way. Just as I wrote about in one of my first blogs, God is able to do far more than all that we can think or ask. Bartola (the school director) asked if I would be able to teach the chapel messages every Friday while I am still here. So I said yes and decided that we are going to talk about the gospel through colors (Black=sin, Red=blood....etc.) then the last week each kid will get a bracelet with all the colors we have talked about each week. I bought the beads last night after searching all day for them, and will be making them all for each student before I leave. I do not know very much Spanish, but with the Lords help and alot of practice I will be able to share for the next four Fridays with these kids I have been working with for the past month. But I will get to teach them about sin, about Jesus, about prayer, about our hope...and what lies ahead for those who seek to follow God with their lives; La esperanza de la eternidad. Pray for me, I need it. I am also supposed to teach them some worship songs...I have two days to learn. =)



It is all so good and challenging, but God is teaching me and showing me so much. The pain in leaving is so worth it in being here and being able to learn from these people and the amazing kids here; in Santay, in Pascuales, on the street.



Thursday A few friends and I are starting a basketball ministry with kids who hang around on the street during the day time. Some cell cheap gum and candy, others take tips to watch cars. We want to play once a week and try and develop relationships with them; be able to be a safe place for them, friends that they can talk with and trust; have a time when they can just be kids. Por fe.