Two and a Half Months In

Hello all! Being a part of this program is a HUGE blessing and I am so thankful to be in Ecuador.

To preface...I feel very unqualified to write about my experience or about Ecuador. Like a mouse in the middle of a maze, I can´t see the big picture right now, and things are always clearer in retrospect. So por favor take everything I say with a grain of salt - my thoughts today might contradict my thoughts tomorrow.

So, from day one in Ecuador everyone has said "poco a poco," and it´s really the case. Little by little I´m getting accustomed to life here and learning things. And, like Dean Brackley says in his book The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times, "We need different types of nourishment at different points of our journey." As much as I want to know and understand everything right now, it would be paralyzing and I wouldnt know what to do with it all. There have been plenty of challenges during these first 2 1/2 months, but in the midst of these have been countless blessings. We really feel the love coming in from family and friends and people who care about the program, so thank you.

So, some blessings... Yesterday I got to watch our neighbor Freddy play checkers with one of the college visitors. He won 4 games in a row, but i helps that he´s the ony one that knows the Ecuadorian variation on rules. Another blessing is praying with my housemates every morning and night in our "upper room," as Alison called it. I love attending the base Christian community meetings, and I want to share them with you (at the risk of glamorizing poverty, which I certainly don´t want to do). The first time I went to a meeting, we sat outside the woman´s house who was hosting it because her house was too small to have the meeting inside. We were told that the woman has a small home but a huge heart, and I am sure it´s true. But it was pretty amazing and surreal to be sitting in a chair on a dirt road in Duran, Ecuador underneath the moonlight, coming before God together in such a basic way, singing and praying to the God of us all. I can´t begin to fully understand poverty or the Ecuadorian political or economic system or what life is truly like for the people we gather with every Friday night, but I know I´m thankful they are willing to share it with me. I´m learning about selflessness and generosity, humility and pride, suffering and joy, and bearing one another´s burdens.

As the time ticks on, I am trying to understand the very central significance of love and to understand how to love more fully. Brackley also writes in his book, "Dorothy Day used to quote Dotoyevsky, saying, ´Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.´ Above all, love demands sacrifice, and we are slow to sign up for that."

Sacrifice requires leaps - we gotta jump in or otherwise we´ll never get around to it. I still remember when I visited Ecuador last year and Pat told us to live radically, don´t just live any old life. People will not be fed and have their basic needs met if we all live any old life. So now what? We keep searching and putting our experiences into perspective and determining what these experiences mean for us, each of us, regardless of where we are in the world.

Love to all,
Jenny