Year: 2011

Well. I have returned from the Amazon jungle, mis amigos. And am simultaneously relieved and yet strangely disappointed to report I did not see a single monkey or a snake. However, I do think I heard a band of monkeys off in the distance while I was trying to sleep last night.

When Shaun Groves and Patricia Jones first began to share the details of this trip, I was a little intimidated by the part about the Amazon and the canoe and pretty much Ecuador in general. But the detail that struck the most fear in my heart was the part about a “six hour drive down to the Amazon.”

Because I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I sometimes struggle with the carsickness. (Anyone who has ever ridden in a car with me is nodding their head right now. I am a little – how you say? – high maintenance when it comes to automobile travel.) I felt fairly certain that the six hour drive wouldn’t be like driving on I-35 to Dallas or something. And I don’t even do that well on good old American interstate.

But then we arrived in Quito and spent two days traveling around in our very nice Ecuadorian Good Times Family Bus and I began to relax and feel like I was going to be just fine. The windows opened and allowed me to feel a cool breeze, I was able to have a seat to myself and the roads were much better than I expected. So I quit worrying about the six hour drive and allowed myself to worry about other things, like monkeys and snakes.

That was a big mistake.

Because I am sad to report I experienced a day of NO GOOD TIMES on the Ecuadorian Good Times Family Bus. Let’s just say that I have left more than a piece of my heart in Ecuador.

Fortunately, Keely looked back at me just in time to see me go green as I put my hand over my mouth and I have never seen someone produce a plastic bag so fast. She ripped open a bag holding a bunch of chips, dumped them out and handed me the empty bag not a moment too soon. Keely is my hero. And also the hero of my fellow travelers. And the hero of the people who own the bus company.

Oh the Lord does keep me humble. Like it says in Micah, we are called to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God and our carsickness.

The really unfortunate thing is this turn of events happened when we were only about thirty minutes into our six hour journey and so I spent the next five and a half hours popping Dramamine like candy and praying that God would either make me feel better or just go ahead and take me on home. The journey was very twisty and turny combined with a bus driver who doesn’t like to miss an opportunity to use the brakes. At one point Sophie said it kind of reminded her of being on a roller coaster and asked aloud what we would compare it to. I raised my head for just a moment to whisper, “HELL”.

So you can imagine my delight when we arrived at our first Child Development Center and were greeted with an authentic jungle meal for lunch. This is what sat on a plate right in front of me.

Is it just me or is he staring at me?

And the fish with the head and the eyeball was served with some kind of smoked grub worm on a bed of rice in a small Tupperware container.

Oh.

No, gracias.

Sometimes there just isn’t enough anti-nausea medication.

Especially after I’d spent a good portion of Wednesday afternoon serving hot chicken parts with the skin still on to the children. I think we all know I have long-standing poultry issues. And I’m pretty sure chicken is now officially dead to me unless it comes in a Chick-Fil-A bag.

What I’m saying is God has tested me in the culinary arena this week.

But enough about that because, y’all, THE AMAZON.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. It is truly amazing. A level of beauty that I still can’t comprehend even after seeing it with my own eyes. How anyone could see it and doubt that there is a God in heaven is beyond me. It takes your breath away.

We were greeted by some precious girls dressed in beaded outfits and they hung necklaces made of banana leaves around our necks. We visited their classrooms and served them lunch then spent some time playing with them and painting the girls’ fingernails because everyone likes a manicure.

After we left that Child Development Center we drove another forty-five minutes (OH THE HUMANITY) until we arrived at the canoe-on-the-Amazon portion of our trip. And all I could think was I AM IN A CANOE IN THE AMAZON. I also said a prayer that the sea wouldn’t be angry that day because I wasn’t sure about the integrity of our watercraft.

About fifteen minutes later we docked on the banks outside the place we were staying for the night. It was incredible. I’ve never felt more like a member of the Swiss Family Robinson. I’ve also never been more hot. You know how people sometimes say something is “Africa hot”? Well, I’m here to tell you that the Amazon would give it a run for its money. AND OH THE HUMIDITY.

Which is why Sophie and I went into a slight state of depression when we realized there was no air-conditioner in our jungle lodge room. Just a fan. And windows with nothing but screens on them. It frightened me a little because I’ve always heard monkeys are a very industrious animal and I felt certain it wouldn’t take much time for them to get a screen off a window.

The irony is it ended up being the best night of sleep I’ve had on the entire trip. Maybe it was the Dramamine. Or the heat exhaustion. Or the jungle sounds that didn’t come from a sound machine plugged into the wall. Or the fact that I spent the last few minutes before bed sitting in a chair watching lightning ripple across the sky over the Amazon. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

We woke up this morning and traveled to an area down the river to visit the homes of two Compassion children and then went a little further to see the Child Development Center. As the canoe made its way around a bend in the river we could see the children up ahead holding palm branches in an arch for us to walk through after we docked the canoe. And I began to cry. Because that’s one of the things that has moved me the most this week, the way the people at the various Compassion Centers we’ve visited are so incredibly gracious and generous with the little they have to give. We’ve been given handmade necklaces, beautifully crafted nativities, handknit scarves, and more hugs than I can recall. They thank us over and over again for visiting and I want to tell them that they are the gift.

I see them hold their very minimal worldly possessions with an open-hand and it’s a reminder of how tightly I sometimes hold onto mine. They trust fully in God’s provision because He is all they have while I sometimes fall into the trap of believing it’s up to me to make sure I have enough of all sorts of things that quite honestly fall a lot more into the WANT category than the NEED category.

I’ve been humbled by the love and service of the Compassion staff. The teachers, the pastors and the kitchen staff at each Child Development Center work tirelessly for the kids. They don’t do it for the money because there isn’t much money. They don’t do it for the glory because there isn’t any glory. No one is going to offer them a book deal to tell their story of incredible service. Their stories will mostly go untold. The sacrifices they make, the lives they touch, the tears they dry. They do it because they understand what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ on Earth in a way that often eludes me.

They do it out of love. And mercy. And grace.

They do it even when they get nothing in return.

They love because He first loved us.

It makes me think of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, “The Purest Place” by Watermark.

Paint me with Your purity
That I’d attract Your majesty
When others boast in fame and gold
The purest place is where I’ll go

The purest place I will draw near
Do what it takes to keep me here
In the center of Your heart
The purest place is where You are

It’s not with masses, not with kings
Not in these songs, or offerings
Not in this life, or what it brings
The purest place is You my King

As we were leaving the last Center today we had to walk on a vast expanse of rocks to get back to our canoes. We were all given rubber rainboots to wear for the day and had to walk very carefully from rock to rock so that we wouldn’t lose our footing. Not to mention that rubber boots don’t offer a lot of comfort against the rocks. Some of them were slippery from being in the water and I’d feel myself start to stumble and have to walk even slower.

But as we pulled away in our canoe, I noticed the children RUNNING across that same treacherous rocky terrain effortlessly. They didn’t seem to notice that the rocks hurt their feet or that the path was sometimes unsteady or that they might trip and fall. They just ran. They ran with joy.

I turned to Sophie and remarked, “Look at them running on those rocks when we were barely able to walk.”

And that’s when it dawned on me.

How incredible it is that I’m barely able to walk on those rocks, but they are able to run on them. With joy and freedom. They run.

It hit me that they have a faith in The Rock and a trust in Him that allows them to run. They run with abandon. They run with joy. They follow Him because He is all they have and they get that He is all they need.

Yet sometimes we can barely walk.

Sometimes I hold onto my life and my dreams and my possessions with such ferocity that I can barely walk with Him. I worry about the journey and I worry that it looks scary and I worry that I might stumble and fall.

But He’s called me to run with Him.

He’s called you to run with Him.

I don’t want to spend my life just trying to walk. I want to love Him more, serve Him better, and know Him more. I want to follow Christ with abandon.

I want to run.

This week Compassion in Ecuador has shown me what that means.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3

If you’d like to be a part of what Compassion is doing all over the world, you can visit the sponsorship page and release a child from poverty for only $38 a month.

(All photos by Keely Scott. I’m forever indebted.)

To read the rest of the blog posts from Ann, Amanda, Kelly and Sophie you can visit the Compassion Bloggers page.

Well.

So here’s a sentence I never imagined I’d say, I’m currently in the Amazon Rainforest. But I’m not writing this from there because apparently the jungle isn’t known for its internet.

Which really makes sense because I never once saw Diego pull a laptop out of his rescue pack.

But in the meantime, I thought y’all might enjoy these videos that Brian made of our first two days in Ecuador.

And I’ll be back with a post late Friday evening that may include all sorts of encounters with wildlife. Seriously. Who am I? How did I end up in the Amazon with people I met on the internet?

Life is crazy.

And don’t forget to click over to Compassion’s sponsorship page if you’d like to change a life for only $38 a month.

Oh! And I also wanted to let those of you who already have sponsored children that you can now log into your account and write your child letters online and even upload pictures. How cool is that?

I will have y’all know that after a day of dust and climbing up a very steep hill in a dusty corner of Equador that I’m currently sitting in a hotel lobby listening to a piano player belt out the classic You Can Do Magic by America.

Somewhere in there might be some symbolism but I am too tired to look for it right now.

Sadly at some point in the last twenty-four hours I have developed a bit of a cough. Not a bronchitis cough, just more of an annoying cough that comes with allergies. Apparently there is something in the air here that doesn’t agree with me. And I have no doubt that Sophie is overjoyed to be sharing a room with me at this point.

I’ll also have you know that at one point last night I was so desperate to quit coughing that I sucked on a piece of Eclipse gum in the hopes it would serve as a makeshift cough drop. And it did work fairly well but let me say that it’s an odd sensation to wake up in the morning with a piece of soggy gum in your mouth.

But none of that is important. I’m just filling you in so you will know that I am the same person in Ecuador as I am in the United States. A person with a hacking cough in need of a cough drop.

I bet P has never been so glad that I am out of town.

On Tuesday when we were at Child Development Center 478, the pastor of the local church greeted us when we arrived. He talked about how thankful he is for the work Compassion is doing and how it helps the community and the children. But then he said something else that has stuck with me over twenty-four hours later, “We support these children to dream”.

We support these children to dream.

And on Wednesday I was able to see the reality of that statement.

We began the day at breakfast with two college students who are part of Compassion’s Leadership Development Program (LDP), Ruben and Evelyn. The Leadership Development Program looks for children in Child Development Centers with leadership potential and academic promise and assists them with tuition, textbooks, and other school-related expenses through LDP sponsorship.

Both Evelyn and Ruben became a part of Compassion’s Child Development Center when they were four years old and talked about the difference their sponsors made in their lives. How they were encouraged to work hard in school, to seek God and to stay the course. It was the spark they needed to begin to see that it was okay to dream. And now Ruben is studying to be an architect and Evelyn plans to become a lawyer. These are kids that came from nothing. From one-room cinder block homes with no indoor plumbing and a neighborhood that could have crushed them, but Compassion supported those children to dream. For $38 a month Ruben and Evelyn were able to grow up believing it was okay to think of a brighter future.

And isn’t that what God promises us in Jeremiah 29:11? For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Compassion has helped make that a reality in their lives.

Then later in the day we all got in what I like to refer to as our Ecuadorian Family Good Times Bus and drove to Child Development Center 431 known as the Viva Abundante Center (That’s Life Abundant for those of y’all who don’t know Spanish. See what two days in Ecuador has done for me? I’m almost fluent unless you need to know anything besides a person’s name and how old they are.) We arrived at Viva Abundante and separated into groups to visit various homes of children that are sponsored through Compassion.

I was with the Farmer, Ann, Keely and Brian as we climbed down a very large, dusty hill until we arrived at a two-room house made of cinder blocks. There was nothing in the main room except for a shelf with a few random things on it and then the mother led us into the bedroom that she and her husband share with their four children. There is no indoor plumbing and only a very rudimentary outdoor kitchen.

The remarkable thing is this couple has been married for fifteen years and are raising their four children together as a family. This seems to be a rarity from all that I’ve seen in the time I’ve spent traveling with Compassion. The father does his best to support his family through working in agriculture and the mother washes clothes to help out.

The mother and father sat on their bed with their children gathered around them and talked about how much Compassion has helped them. They attend church as a family and their boys literally run to the Center every day after school.

We asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up and they answered with “a lawyer”, “a fireman”, “a police officer”, and “a doctor”. Then we asked the mother and father what dreams they had for their lives and the father looked at us solemnly as he answered that all they wanted was to see their children become professionals. They wanted to see their children have the opportunity to become the generation that gets out of poverty.

Wow. Isn’t that what we all want as parents? To see our children become a better version of ourselves? To see them have a chance to realize their dreams?

And since it was fresh on our mind, we asked if they knew about Compassion’s Leadership Development Program. We explained through the translator that if the boys work really hard in school and continue on a good path there is a chance Compassion might be able to help them achieve some of their dreams. The dreams to be a lawyer, a police officer, a doctor, and a fireman.

Compassion supports these children to dream.

You can support these children to dream. I mean is there a better way to spend $38 a month than on these sweet faces? Little lives just full of potential that’s waiting for a chance to get out.

(All photos are once again by Keely Scott. She is amazing.)

So tomorrow morning we are leaving bright and early for the Amazon Rainforest. This is the part of the trip that apparently involves canoe trips and the possibility of monkeys that have been described as “assertive” and maybe an anaconda or three. Oh my word.

Send help.

Or just remember us in your prayers. For safe travel, for great visits and for words that come easily because how am I ever going to tell that story?

Love y’all. Thanks for reading and following this journey. And don’t forget that you can check out posts by Ann, Sophie, Kelly, and Amanda on the Compassion Bloggers page.

I’ll just be honest. I have no idea where or how to begin this. So I’m going to do something completely novel and start at the beginning.

I was born in Houston, Texas in 1971.

What? Too much?

Okay, so P dropped me off at the airport on Monday morning. I caught a flight to Dallas. And then Miami. Once I arrived in Miami I met up with all my fellow Compassion travelers and ate a salad at the Fridays in the Miami Airport that left me full of regret. That’s what I get for trying to be healthy.

We finally boarded our plane bound for Quito and I had the joy of sitting across the aisle from Sophie while the man in front of her decided to lean his chair so far back that I feel quite certain she could have performed a root canal on him had the need arisen. (Arisen? Arose? I have struggled with it for the last three minutes. Moving on.) And after almost four hours, the pilot announced we were making our descent into Quito. Unless it was too foggy. In which case we would be routed to Guayaquil. Well. Sure. No cause for panic. Except for all the panic.

But we were able to land in Quito, discovered all our bags made it, and took a shuttle to the hotel. By this time it was 2:00 a.m. so the last thing I remember is passing out face first into my bed.

And when the sun came up this morning I looked out the window and had this moment of I AM IN ECUADOR. Because there are mountains on the horizon and we don’t have those in San Antonio.

The group left the hotel around 9:00 and made the hour and a half journey to Cayambe. On a very windy road. Up a mountain. In a bus. I had to practice some deep-breathing to ward off the car sickness but I managed. Tomorrow I plan to take a Dramamine.

But on the way there we made a quick stop at the Equator and I can now say that I have stood smack dab in the middle of the Earth. We also stopped to go to the bathroom at a Pollo Loco gas station but it really lacked in the cool factor compared to the Equator.

We finally arrived at the Child Development Center and, after a brief welcome from the pastor, divided into three groups to go make home visits. Amanda, Chris, Carmen and I loaded up into the back of a truck and were driven to our visit over cobblestone roads that didn’t do my bladder any favors, but I mind over mattered that whole thing because we were about to experience what Andrea, our Compassion leader from Ecuador, termed A Day In the Life of A Compassion Child. Or as I now call it The Day I Discovered I Am A Soft, Spoiled American.

Because, y’all, we went to visit two precious kids, Alex and Amie, who are being raised by their grandmother since their mother passed away from cancer two years ago and their father left. Alex is a sponsored Compassion child and immediately pulled out his letters from the family in Colorado who sponsors him. They showed us their tiny little rooms situated right next to where they keep the guinea pigs and broke our hearts as they talked about how they missed their mom.

And then the grandmother showed us the large garden in the back of their house where she grows food for them to eat and also to sell in an effort to provide for the family. That’s when she handed us all various garden tools and showed us how to till the dirt so she could plant beet seeds. First of all, I had no idea that beets grew from seed. Mainly because I’ve never thought about it. Secondly, I have no future as a farmer. Or a gardener. Or basically anyone who does a lot of manual labor involving a garden hoe.

But that sweet grandmother hoed about four rows in the time it took me to finish one half. Amie and Alex followed behind her carefully planting beet seeds and taking turns climbing up the nearby tomato tree. Because, yes, tomatoes grow on trees here.

The thing that struck me was that we visited this family with two of their Compassion teachers, Maria and Myra, and it was clear how much these women love these children. They have worked hard to step in to help fill the gap that has been left by the loss of their mother and father. And you could see that the children love and trust Maria and Myra and their faces lit up when they talked about the time they spend singing and drawing pictures at the Child Development Center. It’s a bright spot in a world that could have gone totally dark after they lost their parents.

Speaking of a bright spot (How about that transition? And I’ve only had four hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours!) I met the sweet little girl that we just started to sponsor before I left for this trip.

Her name is Heydi and she’s six years old and I could have put her in my pocket and carried her around. I’m not kidding. She was that cute with a shy smile that totally melted my heart as I gave her a little tiara I bought at Target. Because what girl doesn’t love a tiara? It’s a universal love language.

And it was the smile that really got me. Three years ago on my trip to the Dominican Republic I had a chance to meet my sponsored child and she never smiled. Not one time. And I understood. I was a total stranger to her and she’d already seen enough of life to know that it may not be a good idea to hand out your heart. But it made me sad to see a little girl without some joy.

(Just so you know the most recent photos I’ve received of my child in the DR show a little girl with a faint hint of a smile. I’d like to believe Compassion is responsible for that.)

Anyway, when I received my sponsorship packet of this little girl in Ecuador named Heydi, I was immediately hit with how somber she appeared. No smile. Just a grim little face looking into the camera. Even Caroline noticed and before I left on Monday, as she helped me pack a little backpack full of things to give to Heydi, she said, “Mama? Do you think Heydi is going to smile when she meets you? I really want her to smile.”

And I said, “Well, let’s just pray that she does.”

She did.

At first it was just an unsure smile.

But before I left it was a full-blown grin. Maybe even with a little laugh.

And it turned my heart inside out. I hugged her goodbye and promised my family would pray for her every day. I told her God has plans for her life and I’m going to write her letters to encourage her to follow Him. And then I waved at her through the window of the bus and she waved back and I fought back tears as I left more than a little piece of my heart at Child Development Center 478 in Cayambe, Ecuador.

But I get to go home and tell Caroline that I saw Heydi smile and show her photographs to prove it. And as much as I love the experience of actually getting to meet one of my sponsored kids in real life, the real gift is what it has taught my family. The photos of the kids we sponsor through Compassion are on a bulletin board in our kitchen, I have bookmarks with their pictures on them tucked into my Bible, and we pray for them every night.

Sponsoring children through Compassion has allowed me to give Caroline a larger picture of the world around her and to know that there are kids who wonder where their next meal will come from or where they will sleep that night. We get to have discussions about the things God has entrusted to our family and how we can use those gifts to help the world around us.

Compassion has helped me teach compassion.

And I will be forever grateful for that gift.

There are lots of kids waiting to be sponsored at Child Development Center 478 in Ecuador.
You can click on this page to see all their sweet faces.

Or there are plenty of children all over Ecuador who need to be sponsored. You can see them all by visiting this Ecuador page on the Compassion site.

At the very least it will change your life. At the very best it gives you a tangible way to change the life of one of these precious kids.

(All the photos on this post are courtesy of the brilliant, amazing Keely Scott.)