The final jungle trip

Brothers and sisters in the Lord,

To start I would like to thank each of you for your faithful prayers. I certainly feel them each day.  I can’t believe I’m down to only two and a half weeks left in Ecuador.  We have come to the conclusion of our jungle trips, which is bittersweet for sure.  I have greatly enjoyed each one and will never forget the things I’ve learned, and the people I’ve met there. 

We spent our last jungle trip this past week in the community of Wayusentsa, the same community as our first jungle trip.  It was nice to reconnect with some of the people there and come back to a familiar place.  I would love to report that we had a perfect time, and everything went as planned, however that would be far from the truth. From the start we had upsets and problems such as bags being lost and people getting sick all in the midst of very hot weather.  God was faithful though, and we were able to accomplish almost everything we had set out to do.  I think it was appropriate to have such a crazy trip to end things.  It serves as a reminder that nothing ever follows our plan.  As it says in Proverbs 16:9 “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”  I’ve seen the hard evidence of this fact during my time here in Ecuador.

In light of planning our ways, I’ve found that it is so incredibly important to build relationship as a foundation for preaching the gospel.  Each time we would venture into the jungle, we would go with the desire and intention of directly preaching the gospel in the community.  As it turned out, we rarely found a culturally fitting and opportune moment.  This leads me to two conclusions.  Firstly, preaching the gospel is not all about how well we can elaborate and expand upon the word of God.  As Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel: if necessary, use words.”  By spending time with the Ecuadorian natives we brought light into their lives through the love of Christ.  Conversely, my second conclusion is that there will never be a PERFECT moment.  We will never find ourselves in a position where everything is perfectly laid for a conversation that is totally culturally relative and inoffensive.  The fact of the matter is that the gospel is offensive.  It totally goes against human nature a.k.a. sin nature, and calls people to step out of the muck that they have built their lives upon and into totally new and uncharted territory.  It’s scary, but oh so worth it.  I want to live a life that is deeply rooted in the culture of Christ.  I want to live in a kingdom bound, God ordained, sin rejecting culture that pleases our Lord. 

Up to this point in Ecuador, I have not had any moments where I’ve shared the gospel and seen someone drop to their knees in repentance (I’ve still got time though!)  However, if not anything else, I’ve learned and grown so that I can better represent our Lord and someday see just that; men and women realizing their desperation and turning to the Lord.  I am now back in the city of Chillanes for the rest of this week, and will be working on the beginning stages of a project here.  Please pray for health as we are all feeling the toll of the travel and the chicha. Also be in prayer for this weekend, as we will be running an outreach at a startup church a few hours from Shell.  Pray that the hearts of the children and youth we speak to would be open and receptive to the gospel.  Thanks to each one of you for your love and support.  I pray that each of you would continue your service as the Lord’s missionary wherever He has you.

In Him,

Sam

Yet another beautiful rainbow

The kiddos helping Emily in the tank

My little buddies Darwin (left) and Christian (right)

The stereotypical plane shot #cannotresist

The crew all hot and sweaty

The piedra de llevar (or wash stone) that we poured for the women of the community

Mi, el presidente de la comunidad (derecha), y el presidentes hermano (izquierda)

Wayusentsa again!

Ladies and gents,

As the Lord would have it, I'm headed back to the jungle!  I will be leaving tomorrow and returning Friday.  We will be continuing the projects we started last time.  I'm especially excited to go this time around, because I now have some jungle experience and can hopefully focus more on the spiritual side of things.  Our main (physical) purpose is to continue with the work on the water system, however this creates an entire week of interaction with the community.  Therefore I would like to request your prayer.  Pray that God would open the eyes and hearts of those in Wayusentsa.  Pray that God will open opportunities for us to be able to share the gospel and minister to those who need the Lord.  I'm very excited to see what the Lord will do in and through our team.  Please rally behind us and we can make a difference in the kingdom.  I look forward to being able to report about our trip.  God can do this, and more than that, He wants to!  Thanks for your support.

In Him,

Sam

Washintsa Jungle Trip

The trip to Washintsa was full of exciting moments and rewarding results.  It would be hard to pick out one point and say that it was the best, but the whole trip was great and I didn’t want to come back.  

After two trips, I have realized that the jungle tests every area of a person.   Physically, it is challenging living in less than ideal circumstances.  Bathing in the river, sleeping on the ground, eating the native food, etc.  In addition to this you are also working physically, so it can be less than comfortable. 

Emotionally, I found many moments where I had to take a step back and discern what was the reality in a situation.  It is very challenging stepping away from everything that you’ve known, comforts and all, and living in an entirely different culture.  It is super challenging to not be able to communicate well with the locals and the culture shock is more than real. 

Spiritually, I found many challenges as well as I sought to represent Christ to the best of my ability without being able to communicate with words.  The whole experience can weigh on you, but it is so powerful and has and will change me for life.

We showed up in Washintsa on Monday around 10:30 with our task well laid out before us.  The first thing that had to be accomplished was to convince the people to dig a trench for a widow in the community.  Many of them were reluctant to do this task.  This reluctance comes from their culture.  In their minds, the widow had no man to help with the project and therefore she had no right to the water.  This goes along with the fact that widows are seen as half a person in the community and generally must fend for themselves.  In this case we felt it important to oppose this specific part of Ecuadorian culture.  It clearly goes against scripture where it says in James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

We told the people that no other work would be done until a trench for the widow was dug.  They were reluctant at first and only a few men showed up on Monday to dig.  Nevertheless, we held our ground, and on Tuesday almost every man in the community showed up to help.  With such a large crew, we had the trench sufficiently dug by the end of the day!  What a victory in the development of this community.  Everyone came together to accomplish the task, and because of the community, this widow will have water just like the rest. 

Personally this meant a lot to me, to be able to fulfill the Bible’s command to care for widows and orphans in their need.  The question previously asked was, “ where is the church in all of the work we are doing?”  I have been pondering this for some time and I believe I had the privilege of seeing the church come alive in Washintsa. 

After the whole process of getting the widows trench dug was accomplished, we started work on the house connections.  The whole community was very excited to get started and so we decided to have a community meeting Tuesday night to explain the house connections to everyone hoping it would get them even more excited to start early in the morning.  Since we had everyone gathered we took the opportunity to share a short message from the Bible and to sing a few songs.  This seemed to be received fairly well and the community blessed us in return when they sang for us in their native tongue.  We also intended to do a hygiene lesson during this time however we didn’t seem to find a good opportunity to fit it in.  We believed the spiritual lesson to be of more importance, and when it was over there was not an opportunity to fit the hygiene lesson in. 

Wednesday morning, we started with the connections.  We took an unknowingly bold move, and chose to install the widow’s connection first.  Despite the deviance from cultural boundaries, the community received this perfectly fine, and we moved from house to house afterwards. 

Again, we had intentions of doing a hygiene lesson in the afternoon, but the work was going well, and we didn’t want to interrupt the progress.  By the time work had stopped, and we were all “clean”, it was too dark to do the lesson. 

Wednesday night of each week there is church.  This is their Sunday, and so they requested that we share from the word and lead some songs.  We prepared some fun songs with motions.  Everyone loved the music and they promptly requested we do more.  Without anything prepared, we offered to repeat the first song again and they joined us in the motions.  It was super cool to worship with the international body of Christ, separated by language and culture, but brought together in Christ.

After we did what we had prepared the people sang for us and then Domingo (the church leader) shared with us.  He expressed a great excitement in the number of people in the church and shared that there were Wednesday nights when he and his brother were the only two there.  Despite this they were faithful to come.  He also shared his heart, expressing a desire to see the rest of the community saved and brought to the knowledge of Christ.  It was powerful to see his faith and heart for the lost. 

Thursday, half of the team and myself packed up our things and waited on our flight to arrive.  It came a bit late because of weather, but arrived and took us back to Shell.  I am now back sitting at my computer and writing this post, however I can’t help but feel that a certain part of me is back in Washintsa.  What I learned and observed there will stick with me for life. 

In Him,

Sam

Chris got a claw!

Some of the kids from Washintsa

Beautiful rainbow

Frisbee time

In honor of the fourth and fancy pants Friday Ecuadorian style!

Trenching away

My massive cockroach friend

Wayusentsa Jungle Trip

What a trip!  I don't think I could ever summarize everything I just experienced in the past week.  It's not every day you spend your time in the jungle!  I'll give my best attempt though. Here goes nothing.

Monday
We left Monday around 2PM on a Cessna 206 and flew about 45 min to a jungle strip in the Achuar village of Wayusentsa.  When we landed the whole village swarmed to the edge of the runway, and they all helped us unload our luggage and supplies.  After unloading and after the planes left, the people decided where we would be staying.  They ended up putting us up in a house that was constructed in a much more modern fashion.  It had 5 rooms so we split up and claimed our territory. After we set up our bug huts, we were called to the community concha to introduce ourselves.  It turns out the women also wanted to introduce us to their Chicha.  I won't say much about it, but let's just say I prefer Gatorade.  After introductions they brought us dinner.  We ate and then retired to our house as did the rest of the community.  We spent a good amount of the remaining night (it gets dark around 6:30) sharing testimonies and discussing the Lord's work in our lives.

Tuesday
I woke up at 6 the next morning to a beautiful morning.  After getting ready for the day, we were called for breakfast.  We walked to the first family's house that was assigned to prepare us breakfast.  It turns out that almost all of the meals contain Yucca, Plantains, and some sort of fish.  If you have not had experience with these foods, there is nothing terribly bad about them, but they are very bland.  Regardless of my opinion, the people were more than generous with the meals they provided and I definitely didn't starve.  After breakfast, we waited for the community until about 8:30 at which point we all made our way down to the spring to begin work.

We split into two crews, one working on the spring and one working on the site for the tank.  We had to dig back into the hill to find the actual source of the spring so we could protect it well, and the tank was to be placed in a small old fishing/mud pond area that had to be dug out.  I got my first experience working around a spring, and so began my knowledge of how these incredible inventions of God work.  Except for an hour break for Almuerzo, we worked steadily till about 3 at which point we stopped for the day.

After the long day we got in our swimming trunks and ventured into the river to get clean.  It felt so nice to cool down after the day and we entertained ourselves pretty well for the rest of the night.  Again we found ourselves chatting late into the night (about 10 or so) and we ended in a special time of prayer, asking God to give us discernment about our interactions with the community.

Wednesday
Wednesday began about the same as the day previous, but we found ourselves at a different hosts house for Desayuna.  We again worked our way down to the spring and began working.  The spring crew continued digging in to find a solid source point for our water, while the we started the forms for our tank.  I quickly learned that construction with boards that are literally cut entirely with a chainsaw  is a bit less detailed which can be a challenge.  We pretty nearly finished the inner box by the end of the day, and the other team poured a concrete box around the spring, capturing the majority of the water.  We all learned a lot about working together and had a good discussion of personalities and teamwork in the evening.  I must say, I really appreciate the fact that we don't just deal with each other, we learn to love and work with one another.

Thursday
We again began the day the same way and started up work again.  We had the goal of finishing the spring protection and the tank pour and so the spring team finished their protection before lunch time and we finished preparing to form for the tank as well.  After lunch we began pouring the tank.  As you may guess, things function a bit different in the jungle.  Concrete mixing is no different.  We built two boxes in which we put our cement, gravel, sand, and water and shovel full by shovel full we mixed our concrete.  We formed a chain and filled the forms, creating our walls and roof for the pump tank.  We were quite satisfied with our progress by the end of the day and we finished the day by getting quite drenched by a rain shower.

Friday
This was our final day in the jungle.  We woke up, packed up all of our stuff, and carried the tools and other items back from the spring to the Bodega where they wouldn't be damaged.  After taking inventory of everything we had there, the first plane arrived and took 5 of us back, leaving only Wim and myself to wait for the next plane.  This turned out to be about a 2 hour wait so I got some great hammock time in and Wim tried to make a comfortable bed out of PVC.  The plane arrived and we unloaded the materials it brought and then loaded up our remaining luggage and hopped aboard.  It seemed like almost any other flight, but when it got to be past an hour of flying, and we started going in circles, I knew something was up.  We flew for about an hour and fifteen minutes and then landed, but not in Shell.  We touched down on a jungle strip about 40 miles outside of Shell.  It turns out that the weather was too bad to land in Shell and we also were running low on fuel.  So as soon as the weather was clear enough, another plane flew out to us in the jungle.  This took about 30 min and we were quite pleased that we could stop shooing the cows off the runway.  We filled up with gas and then took off yet again headed for Shell.  We landed and unloaded and then got back home.  I got a good shower and started a load of laundry (definitely the smelliest clothes I've washed) and then relaxed till 6:30 when we all met up to go out for Pizza.  I can say I have never enjoyed a pizza quite so much!

I am so blessed to have such an experience.  Each of you has played a small part in my arrival here, and I want to express my deepest gratitude.  God is most certainly using this trip and I can't wait to take what I learn on this missions field back home to yet another field.

Thanks for reading and praying!

In Him,

Sam Hodges

Me and some of the ladies in the village (they sold me some pretty neat pottery)

The finished pump tank

Wim enjoying his PVC bed

Hammock time!

The kids helped unload the pipe and then found them to be good trumpets =)

Here comes our gas!

Jungle refueling!

Our home for the week

The crew!

Working away

Wayusentsa Jungle Trip Coming Up!

Hello Friends!

Sorry it's been a while since I've written.  Life has been going steady here with nothing too exciting as of yet.  This past week we spent doing a lot of prep work.  Monday and Tuesday I spent most of my time banging my head against AutoCad.  As you may have guessed that didn't do a whole lot =P.  On Wednesday morning the two guy interns and the two lead engineers went out for a trip out to Washintza.  They went to help with the building and set up of a water tower there.  While they were gone enjoying the adventures of the jungle, me the two girls and Martin, an engineer from Germany spent our time gathering supplies and sending them on flights out to Wayusensa.  We kept busy but there were no major tragedies or excitements on our end.  Everyone got back on Friday afternoon and we spent some time gathering and talking about tomorrow's trip.  After all this we went to the Concha  for a party of soup and fellowship.  After this I went over to Wim's house for coffee and we talked for  a while about the mission and "real" missions versus missions trips.  I then spent most of the weekend resting and enjoying some down time, with a highlight of watching the Ecuador game (even though they lost).  Tomorrow we leave for a five day jungle trip.  We will be working on a spring protection and will get the full jungle experience.  Please be praying for good health for all of us and safety in general.  Also pray that our lives would reflect Christ and show these people what's missing.  I can't wait to tell all about the adventures of the jungle, and as always I appreciate the diligent prayers.

In Him,

Sam Hodges

Chillanes

The past few days have been so neat.  I went on my first trip out to a community to see the progress another engineer by the name of Steve had made.  Myself, Danielle, Emily, and Wim all drove down early Wednesday morning.  Our trip brought us up over the Andes, and we got an amazing view of Mt. Chimborazo.  It was a very windy ride, but after about 5 hours of travel, we found ourselves in Chillanes.

In the town, we first went to Martha and Linda's house.  Martha and Linda are two missionaries who have been working in Chillanes for the past 25 or so years.  These two ladies are some of the most friendly, hospitable, and loving women I have met.  They fed us like royalty and were just very welcoming.  After eating lunch with these ladies, we went out to the community called Mariana de Jesus.  Here Steve, an Engineer from the UK, was working with the community building a spring protection.  If you are wondering what that is, I'd suggest either looking it up or calling me on Skype.

It was awesome to work with the community on their project, and downright inspiring to see them all work together.  I got to mix concrete and haul rocks right alongside them and I'll tell you what, these people work hard!  I spent most of Wednesday afternoon helping them mix and pour concrete and then, after a lovely meal at Martha and Linda's we went to our $8/night hotel and slept.  The next morning we yet again met up at Martha and Linda's and had breakfast.  From there we went back out to Mariana de Jesus.  We didn't have a lot of work to keep busy with so we mostly just shadowed Steve and asked questions about his reasoning and technique for the project.  I learned a lot from this time observing a water project first hand, and I can't wait for the next trip!  We traveled back thursday afternoon and ate some amazing food in Baños at a Swiss restaurant.  After getting back around 9:30 I crashed and slept till 7 or so this morning.

Today was a bit of a scattered day, but I spent most of my time importing files into auto cad and unsuccessfully trying to glean some data from them.  I learned a lot, but still not enough to get the information I needed.  Regardless, it was a much slower day which was nice after a lot of busyness and traveling.  We then had a nice dinner in Puyo tonight along with two other ladies who teach at the Nate Saint school.  Tomorrow we will be biking into the mountains about 25 miles!  It should be quite the adventure!  Until next time!

In Him,

Sam Hodges

A cute puppy on the site

Left to right: Martha, Linda, me, Emily, Danielle

A beautiful view at about 11,000 feet

Llamas!!

Chimboraso

A silver dude.

Mixing concrete jungle style!

The CRAYZEE LADIES

Spigots and more

Another day another water spigot. No but for realsies.  We spent most of today designing a water spigot that would be useful for installing in one of the villages we will be visiting soon.  It was a fun little project and we'll finish the rest of it on friday.  Tomorrow and Thursday me, Danielle, and Emily will be in Tillanes to go and observe/help out other engineers working there.  I'm not really sure what to expect, but what we do know is that it is a jungle community and there is a water project happening there =).

It's been fun getting to know the other interns, and believe it or not their all pretty intelligent.  I enjoy it when I can get my hands on some tools and make something so it's nice to have others who like drawing it all on paper!  Not a whole lot else happened today so I guess I won't write anymore.  I won't be writing again till Thursday or Friday.  Please pray that our time in the community over the next two days is productive and that we would be received with a whole lot of grace (trust me, we interns need it).  Thanks so much for the support!

God bless,

Sam