Day 3
7/8/2023
HOLA AMIGOS
Day 3 in Guayaquil! We heard screaming cats (like imagine horror movie screaming but instead of screaming it's meowing) in the middle of the night, fun! Also the iguana is still there in the exact same spot. We are starting to get a little concerned about that.
We started today morning with our daily devotion of John 4:1-9, led by Auntie Louise.
"Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John--although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Discussion questions:
Why don't Jews associate with Samaritans? Who are the people that you don't associate with?
When did Jesus come to Jacob's well?
How did Jesus come to the well?
How was Jesus' condition at the time? Is it an ideal time for him to preach the gospel? What lesson can we learn from Jesus' example?
We had lots of discussion about our own biases and preconceived notions about other people and what kind of attitude we should have when it comes to preaching the gospel. Even though Jesus was tired and thirsty, that didn't stop him from sharing the good news with the Samaritan woman. In this way, there is no perfect time to preach the gospel--we should be ready at any time, even when we're tired or busy. We should also not limit ourselves to whom we reach out to. Especially during our short term mission trip, our job is to scatter the seeds and trust God to fertilize (? I don't know if that's the right word) them.
Shortly after devotion, we went on the ropeway (a whopping 70 cents per person!) to Duran, getting an overhead sight of the different sites in Guayaquil and passing above the nearby lake. At the Duran station, we saw and chased some plump pigeons. Lots of them were balled up on the ground; one was meditating. Elaine took a video of one of them--it walked, stopped, pooped, and then proceeded onwards. Fascinating stuff. We then went to a market and got some random Ecuadorian things! Due to the *sweltering* heat we got some ice cream along the way. The missionaries had originally planned on taking us to a plaza to pass out pamphlets but due to some last minute safety concerns, that has been postponed to Monday.
After lunch (see food review to learn more about that), we headed straight to the church to go over some plans and practice for various worship sessions that will occur throughout next week. I spent a solid 2 hours struggling with the keyboard on Chinese hymns, not fun. As we have church tomorrow morning, Elaine is on guitar, I'm on keyboard, and Auntie Connie is leading vocals for some songs we have prepared (As the Deer, [insert Chinese], [insert Chinese]).
On our way to the supermarket, we stopped by a nearby Chinese restaurant to talk to the owner, inviting her to church and talking to her about the English camp we are hosting next week. She said she might be too busy to make it to church on Sundays, but that she would tell others about the camp. For a little background on a lot of the people we are reaching out to, many Chinese people come to Ecuador to make money, opening a restaurant or store. We found that they tend to be fairly busy with work and it's hard for us to imagine the extent of what they go through in coming to a completely different area--having to learn a new language and be surrounded by a relatively sparse Chinese community. We hope that they can respond well to our outreach efforts and open their hearts to the gospel in the days ahead.
So anyways, we went to the supermarket to get some ingredients for dinner and other stuff and then went home to find that there was no Internet (hence the late blog for Day 3)! That's ok though, we just spent time making dinner and talking for the rest of the night.
FOOD REVIEW
Breakfast - Elaine: 5/10, April: 5/10
Kudos to Auntie Connie for cooking toast with egg for breakfast this morning.
We also had a weird fruit that none of us have seen before--granadilla? It's basically a lot of very crunchy (and according to Elaine) tadpole looking seeds with a sweet jelly-type substance around them. It's some version of passion fruit I think.
Lunch - Elaine: 7/10, April: 8/10
We went to a local Ecuadorian restaurant and had encebollado (basically fish/seafood soup, very nice) and guatitas (tripe stew with rice and fried banana peel on the side). muy delicioso :p
Fun thing, I got Mexican coke and when I opened it there were ants! I got a new one though so we are good.
Dinner - Elaine: 11/10 (biased), April: 20/10 (also biased)
Elaine and I made spaghetti for dinner, very epic!
Auntie Louise cooked chicken, twas muy juicy and scrumptious.
That's all for this day, thanks for tuning in!
Thank you for anyone keeping up with our prayer requests too, we will keep the page updated.
Have a burritoful day,
April