Day 5
Normal morning routine for us again today… Early breakfast, devotions, a trip up the mountain. Mount Cayambe showed us her full beauty for a third day in a row! We were greeted warmly by the people at the church and some of us were able to get to work right away. There were several people on our team who noticed that the welding that had been done by the men from the church was not great welding and questioned if it would even hold the steel together. Fortunately for us we had two teens on our team who have had a lot of experience in welding. Ethan and Annabelle jumped right in to help fix the welding that had been started. These two High School kids have a lot of welding experience under their belts. It wasn’t quite as easy for them as welding in the US with proper equipment (and maybe a steady electrical current) could be. There were a lot of head scratches by those two as well as Steve, Adam and Mark. It took a bit to figure things out, but the solution was to get a better ground, and the way to do that was to use the jumper cables out of Juanca’s vehicle (Juanca is one of our translators) and use them for a ground. Things worked better after that solution was found! It was so great to see Ethan and Annabelle working so well together on this project and teasing each other about the quality of their work. They even were able to give the men of Lote Tres a short lesson on proper welding so they could improve their skills for the future.
Some of the team members helped with the medical caravan and others volunteered to help in the kitchen and others worked at sanding and painting the beams. We worked all morning at various jobs. Adam, Carter and Matthew worked for a long time in the construction project at removing a very large rock one piece at a time. This rock was in the floor of old church building. It was such a huge rock that when they built the original church, they built around it and just arranged the benches around it. That rock is not gone but has been brought down to be level with the floor so concrete can be poured in the future. This old church building, when finished, will be the space for the church to host the Compassion Program after school.
One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced this week has been the sun! It has been out and shining brightly every day which has led to sunburns for a number of our team members… Despite constant re-application of sunscreen. Please pray that everyone heals and does not burn more.
After a lunch of Aroz Con Pollo we quickly set up to hold our Women’s Day and Men’s Day events. In the past we’ve been lucky if we have seen 30 women and 10 men attend these events, but today we had record numbers. There were 63 women and about 20 men (the guys didn’t actually count but could give us an estimate) who attended!
Women’s day consisted of a welcome by Sue, Donna sharing her testimony, a presentation on menstruation and menopause by Jenny, Karen and Camilla (Camilla had to fill in last minute because Jenny, Karen and Sarah were frantically trying to find more treats and cups for tea since we had more than double the women show up). The women then broke into groups by age and either started a craft of making pretty bracelets or received washable re-usable menstrual pads. They were all very appreciative of the gifts. They were also served hot tea and a chocolate by the men in the men’s day group.
The men met together and had a discussion about being Godly husbands and fathers. They shared about how they show love to their wives and children in Godly ways. They also talked about how to discipline children without abusing them (physical abuse to both wives and children is unfortunately common in the indigenous communities). The men then boiled water and came to the Women’s Day to serve the women chocolates and tea. The women loved it and I think most of the men thought it was pretty great to give their wives a treat.
These two events were a lot of work and we didn’t leave the mountain until later than usual, however that didn’t stop us from stopping for ice cream! The team members who were in the big van had a great time coming down from the mountain today and most had stomach aches from laughing so hard. We finished our ice cream and returned to the hotel to a waiting dinner of rice, Ecuadorian potato salad and pork chops as well as fresh tomatoes and cantaloupe and fresh juice.
Some from our team headed to bed shortly after dinner was over but some stayed up and played some card games. Everyone has gone to bed now and I also need to do that! Tomorrow is market day!
