Guatemala: December 12th, 2021.
We pull up to San Lorenzo for another day of ministry. As we got closer to our hosts base, we started to see people lined up on the side of the road, leading all the way to this huge soccer field, right across from the base. I had no idea what was going on or why people had gathered here. We put our stuff inside and went out to the field to find our hosts. When we found them they said that everyone was coming to get new shoes for their kids and we were going to help hand them out to everyone. And that’s what we did, for around three hours. Going back and forth to the tables where the shoe boxes were stacked, finding the right size, and giving it to the kids so they could try them on. It was a pretty faced paced morning, but it was so incredibly awesome to be able to help bless the community of San Lorenzo with shoes for the children. This is one of my favorite types of ministry, blessing people with things they need.
South Africa: February 4th, 2022.
I loved this day because it was a change of pace and the work we did was different. Up until this point we had been doing things like painting, building a wall, and cutting down bushes. But when we showed up for work that day, our host Lucas, told us we were going to be working with someone else that day. He brought us out to this field where we met this guy named Vickers. He was a really nice guy and I loved working with him every Thursday. He taught us about regenerative agriculture and composting. I could go real deep about the science behind this but basically, regenerative agriculture is basically using old plant material as fertilizer to make new plants. This is called composting. Compost heaps are giant cubes of materials like sticks, green plants, and cow manure. Over time, these materials decompose into fertilizer that has all the necessary nutrients for plants to grow. Every week a compost heap needs to be turned inside out; we take the heap/cube apart and put it back together with the stuff on the outside on the inside and use the stuff on the inside to build up the sides. This is done six to eight times, once a week, for the heap to completely decompose into fertilizer. We turned three heaps every Thursday and I loved these days. The first day we did it was my favorite because learning about this was really cool to hear and I had so much fun on this day. But the reason behind building these compost heaps and needing fertilizer was the best part. The school we worked at had this huge field set aside for a special purpose. They wanted to turn this field into a places where people can come and meet God. They wanted to plant a bunch of exotic trees and turn this filed into a sort of Garden Of Eden type place. This is what they needed the fertilizer for, to use to plant the trees in, because it has all the necessary nutrients that plants need for the trees will grow beautifully and healthy. This field already had a decent amount of beautiful trees and bushes, but the coolest part was that some of them were estimated to be around 300 years old, which was insane to hear.
After the first day of turning the compost heaps, we had lunch and went exploring in this field. It was such a beautiful place, it was completely flat so you could see all around you. But easily the best part about this place was how strong God’s presence is there. Whenever I would walk onto this field, I would feel an overwhelming sense of peace, comfort, joy, hope, and happiness. It was amazing to have this field be at the base we were staying at so it was awesome to be able to go there all the time and sit with God.
Ecuador: May 16th 2022.
So throughout Ecuador we did manual labor at the base we were staying at. The first week was pretty fun but it got pretty dull pretty fast. This day was our second to last day of ministry in Ecuador and it going to be very different. Our team was going someplace else for ministry that day, this place called Dunamis. I think it was some kind of refuge home but I forget exactly. Me and my team started off working in this green house. We harvested golden berries for a little while and then tied up the branches of the bushes so that they don’t take up as much space around them. I had a lot of fun doing this because of the new environment we were in.
Then after we had lunch we drove into town to this soccer field to play soccer with kids. As we were pulling up I realized I had a frisbee in my backpack. This excited me immensely as I love playing frisbee so much. We walked down to the field and me and some guys started passing the frisbee back and forth. Then some kids came over and wanted to try it out. We showed them how to throw a frisbee properly and they seemed to really like it. Then everyone gathered over on one side of the field to organize teams for a game of soccer. But me and this one kid continued passing the frisbee back and forth. He was so into it that he wasn’t interested in playing soccer so we kept passing the frisbee back and forth. After about thirty minutes of playing with this kid one of the other kids who was playing soccer left that game and came over to play with us. We continued to pass it back and forth for like another hour. Two more kids showed up and one of them started playing with us. Overall I played frisbee with these little boys for about and hour and a half. I had such an incredibly fun time playing with them, the most fun in Ecuador.
