Back in Ecuador

Wow, am I really here? Again? A little over a year ago, I was at orientation at John Carroll University, preparing myself for the journey ahead surrounded by my newly introduced community mates and other Jesuit Volunteer International volunteers. I began to think to myself, ¨God bless the JVI volunteers. They are giving up two years of their life to do service. I could never do that.¨ Well, as the season of Thanksgiving invites us to do, I can not help but thank God that I am back in Ecuador, surrounded with some of the people that taught me so much about life, myself, and the world around me and will continue to challenge me in these three aspects. At the same time, this year is a bit of a different experience; altered community, new living arrangements, new job, new pace of life, new obstacles to hurdle, new excitements and new rostros de Cristo.

One of those excitements has been my time with Hogar de Cristo. Currently I am working in the microfinance department in which low interest loans are granted to groups of ten to thirty women who live near one another. The women, in turn, are to use the money and invest it in a business. My mission/ job here so far has been to help with little odd end jobs around the office, accompany other employees as they support the women and visit their respective businesses. Hogar de Cristo serves to roughly 4,800 women in the microfinance department alone from the Guayaquil branch.

One of my blessings is that I have been able to work beside a Hogar de Cristo volunteer, Felix, who is volunteering two years of his life. Felix is from Spain and already has been here for eight months. Currently Felix and I are working on ways that we can have more contact with the women, or rather, a way that we can get to know them outside of their businesses because we know there is more to them than their business. Therefore we are working on a survey with questions that should open the door into conversations about their lives and at the same time prove to be a reliable assistance to the microfinance department. The basic principle at hand is that of the mission of Rostro de Cristo, to accompany the women and ´be´ with them.

As for living it community, it remains one of those aspects I could not live without. We have picked up where we left off by continuing to support and challenge one another. The temporary housing unit we are staying in is cozy to a point where it is a bit too cozy at times. Tracy and Amy share a room and Carolyn and I have a bunk bed in the other room. While it is a challenge, it is also a friendly reminder that thousands of people all around us share one room cane houses and how truly blessed we are.

While we live about a 30 minute bus ride away from Monte Sinai we have all started to immerse ourselves. On Friday mornings I am working as a physical education teacher at an elementary school that is ran by nuns from Colombia. I only teach three grades for a half hour each, but attempt to teach the kids some positive ways to deal with their restlessness which in hand becomes a big help for the teachers. On Saturday afternoons I am working with one of the nuns and we teach first communion to roughly twenty kids. The chapel where I teach is not in Monte Sinai but part of the same parish. So far it has been a fantastic experience and I am so amazed at how much I have seen my faith grow, continue to learn things and develop a deeper understanding with the kids as my teachers.

As the Thanksgiving season now shifts to Advent, I am still left being thankful but now more attentive to the birth of Jesus. Ecuador helps me practice being intentional with my faith so that I can be present to all that is happening around me.