Cloudy Skies

June 15th

Patate, Ecuador

It was a generally gray day around camp. The skies were cloudy and gray for most of the day here in the Andes. A last minute goal by Argentina put a gray damper on what would have been a huge win for Ecuador’s national soccer team. And I still couldn’t find my camera to capture all of the grayness. Despite the rather mundane color penetrating seemingly everything today, there were some colorful moments.

Worship at First Baptist of Ambato was a great experience. One of the full-time staff members here at Camp Chacauco, Ester Constante, has an older brother who is a preacher at the church as well as the head of Samaritan’s Purse of Latin America. Although most of the worship and message was in Spanish and a bit hard to comprehend at times, it was good to see the process of God’s work in Ambato and to get reacquainted with old friends. Due to the fact that the size of the M-Fuge group is so large this week, the students were divided into smaller groups that attended different churches before we all met at First Baptist Church of Ficoa for Pizza and Ice Cream in the afternoon. With a good church service and fulfilling lunch, the only way to complete the day was with a little football. Sorry, didn’t mean to get your hopes up, but I meant futbol.

Today was a much anticipated contest between Argentina and Ecuador’s national teams in Argentina. There’s such a following of the team here that when the pastor mentioned the game at church near the end of the service, quite a few men stood up and pulled up their jackets to reveal their yellow, blue, and red Ecuador jerseys. And they call me a gringo loco. Anyways, it marked the first time I had ever watched a game from beginning to end, and a good game it was. Ecuador was by far the underdog going into the contest, but scored a goal late in the second half to take a 1-0 lead. Anticipating a huge upset, we were only disappointed when Argentina sneaked in a last second goal to end the game in a 1-1 tie. How are you supposed to feel after a tie anyways? You didn’t win or lose, but rather felt like you just spent an entire afternoon watching a game to merely produce a lukewarm emotion. No elation. No disappointment. Futbol sure is weird like that.

The night ended with Steve giving a devotion to the camp staff while the M-Fuge students attended a large group service. I know I’ve already mentioned a few of Steve’s gifts, but if I haven’t mentioned it already, he knows how to present scripture in an amazing, applicable way. His take on parts of scripture cause you to expand your line of thinking about different situations in the Bible.

My search for my camera turned up empty. It’s frustrating to say the least, but I’ll try to do my best getting pictures from others to show you in the coming weeks. Another tough lesson from God concerning possessions. You can’t take it with you when you die anyway though, right?

Today will mark our first day working in the nearby villages doing VBS and community project work. Please keep the students, villagers, and kids that we work with in your prayers and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to tell you about the events of tomorrow.