Hola!
I can’t believe I’ve been gone for a week already! We have Ben in Ecuador since late Monday night, and arrived in Portoviejo late Wednesday night. Our first day was spent exploring Quito and getting lost on the busses, but we made it and did find a nice park. We arrived in Portoviejo late Wednesday night and got settled into our apartment. The church found the apartment for rent 1/2 a block away from the church and the Pastor’s home the day before we arrived, so it was a blessing from God! It’s unfurnished, but we have mattresses to sleep on, electricity, and running water. We got settled in on Wednesday and jumped right into our first ministry activity on Thursday!
Our first ministry day was serving at a hospital helping with earthquake damage, but not quite in the way I expected. We spent several hours sorting archived files that had fallen off of their shelves and gotten mixed up during the earthquake. Currently, the plan is to do this for about a week. The repetitive work of taking files off a shelf and putting them back on again hasn’t really felt like a ministry. But last night, our host drove us through the downtown area that was at the epicenter of the earthquake. There were many empty lots where entire buildings had been destroyed, and many the buildings that were left standing had huge cracks and chunks of the walls missing. The street lights weren’t working and there were no people around in what used to be one of the busiest streets in the city. That really showed me that this city is still a long way from recovering from the earthquake. The hospital has probably been too busy doing structural repairs and caring for injured people to have time to sort their archives. I am glad to do anything I can to be a help and a blessing to these people who are working so hard to get back on their feet, even if that means stacking folders.
