Catching Up: New Experiences and Old Traditions

I hope you all are doing well. I’m over half way through my year in Ecuador…and I’m loving it! I’d like to briefly share a few of the new experiences I’ve had this year.

Galapagos Islands: I never went as a student because the trip was too expensive. This year our director decided to send me along as a member of the staff…talk about some job benefits. It was amazing! I went snorkeling for the first time (I almost drowned because I didn't know how to swim with flippers, haha--ironic considering I was technically on the Swimming and Diving Team in high school) Luckily I got the hang of it and now its one of my new favorite things and the best part was I got to swam with seals, sea turtles and sharks! 

Incan Ruins: Although the center of the Incan Empire was located in Peru (which borders us on the south), the Incan’s also controlled parts of Ecuador and I got to visit some of the ruins! (I'm a history nerd, so it was pretty awesome)

Easter Eggs: Another really fun thing about my time here has been the opportunities I’ve had to share about my own culture.  One Easter tradition we shared with our Ecuadorian and Colombian friends was dying eggs. Everyone found it really amusing.  Some of them were a little skeptical about whether it was really okay to eat a purple egg.    

4^th of July:We had fireworks, patriotic music, and typical campfire food.  For many of the seminary students it was the first time they had ever eaten a s’more... I had to explain how to do it. 

Mom’s Visit: This was definitely one of the highlights of my summer. It was so much fun to show her all the cool things about where I live and introduce her to my friends here.  She got to try a bunch of new foods, travel all over the country and we even went zip lining! (Yay, Mom!)

While I’ve told you about some of the fun stuff…don’t worry, I’ve being working too. Actually, the first few months here where quite a challenge as I learned my position while I continued to improve my Spanish.  However, I feel like I’ve grown more in these past six months as a leader, spiritual mentor, and administrator than maybe all my years in college.  Although NILI is a Spanish immersion program, two of our core purposes are to promote the on-going spiritual development of our students and to equip our students to serve God in intercultural contexts.  A number of our former students are now serving in ministry inside and outside of the States.  While they're here our students are involved in childcare for underprivileged children, nursing home ministries, Compassion International as well as involvement in various Nazarene churches all around Ecuador.  

We start off every semester by telling our students that they are here to serve, but what many of them don’t anticipate is the extent to which God uses this experience to change their own lives.  The majority of our students are in college one of the prime times in a person’s life when they are seeking direction for the future.  All of our students have to leave many things behind in order to come to Ecuador: their culture, their family, their friends, basically everything that is familiar to them. Every student also faces challenges during the semester whether that is culture shock, the language barrier or homesickness.  However, they are no longer able to deal with these challenges in the same way they did in the States.  Their closest friends/family are not here to comfort them.  Many times they can’t even depend on their own intelligence to get them out of a jam because they lack the ability to communicate.  This is the time that we really encourage the NILI students to reach out to God.  I have seen time and time again how much easier it is for our students to hear God’s voice among unfamiliar circumstances than while in their comfort-zone.  That’s why I think it’s so important to expose college students to experiences like NILI. The encounters they have with God can radically re-shape their futures, and we’ve seen this to be true on many occasions. 

Another exciting thing that God has been doing in NILI, is opening doors so that we can get further involved in training missionaries.  I’m so excited about what God is doing in Ecuador and how he is incorporating NILI into His plans. I would appreciate it if you would join me in praying that God will continue to send university students and missionaries to NILI and that He will use this program to impact the lives of our students and the people of Ecuador.