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

First Sunday and First work day

I'm now going on overload with all that's being pumped into me.  Yesterday was very relaxing. We went to a Spanish speaking church in the morning of which I understood very little, but it was neat seeing others worship the Lord in their own language.  After this we went out and got lunch, and I got quite a delicious steak with a fabulous view to match.

After our meal we had free time for most of the rest of the day.  While the others relaxed in our house, I went and sought out company from some of the missionaries.  I ended up playing ping-pong with some of the kids and then walking around with Eric for a while.  It was nice to just relax.  In the evening we went out to an english church service and enjoyed fellowship with the local missionaries.

Finally to end our Sunday, we went to the McFarland's for dinner and fellowship.  It was very nice and I may come back a few pounds heavier with the food I'm getting here (as long as I avoid the jungle diet...).

Today was our first work day.  We started with devos from Ian McFarland and then went over to the office to start orientation with Wim and Eric.  You may be thinking "didn't they already have orientation?" but I would respond with this.  There is orientation, and then there is becoming oriented.  We became oriented with the reality of what is to come in the jungle, along with the way our actual bosses work and respond to the things we do and say.

I appreciated this time because we are no longer beating around the bush.  We are "getting down to the nitty gritty."  After a short time with the Engineers we went back for breakfast and a talk on Catholicism.  The purpose for this talk was to familiarize us with the catholic faith because that is about 95% of what people claim here in Ecuador.  It was very interesting and informative, and I am grateful to know at least a small amount more of context.

After this we spent the remainder of the work day working on a project/problem presented to us by Wim and Eric.  We brainstormed a lot and came up with some decent plans. It was nice to be back in the game of engineering.

Finally we went out with Pat and Denise, as they are leaving tomorrow.  We ate at a local Chinese restaurant (which are apparently very common here).  I have yet to be disappointed with any of the food I have been given.

To end the day we had a Bible study, going over the book of Ruth.  It was really encouraging and nice to just discuss God's word together.

We start bright and early tomorrow morning with coming up with a few more designs on our previous project.

To end this post I'd like to say, I've been presented with several things that could really use specific prayers.  If you would like to know how you can pray in a more specific manner, please email me or Facebook message me and I'd be happy to elaborate.  As usual I am so thankful for your support in prayer each day.  I need those prayers.  May God bless each of you.

In Him,

Sam Hodges

Our beautiful view for Sunday lunch

My delicious Sunday lunch

Some engineering at it's finest

A rather comical interpretation

Beautiful clear sky today (this very very rarely occurs)

The dinner party