Ecuador 2012 (FSU Chi Alpha Mission Trip)

Last May, a team of nine students and three staff traveled to Ecuador for our summer mission trip. I had the privilege of planning for the trip and leading the team. What a great team!

We left the Miami airport on May 6 and arrived in Quito, Ecuador that night. We spent the night in Quito and Monday morning, we met Ron and toured the school affiliated with the ministry, Montebello. We began our journey to Misahualli. We stopped briefly in Banos and were able to walk around the town before resuming our drive through the countryside. The scenery was beautiful!

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent ministering in Misahualli. After eating breakfast at the hostel, we spent the morning working at the school. Half the team painted, sanded, and treated the missionary, Roberto's, house and the other half built a small building to protect their water pump. We also shoveled dirt around the foundation of the pump house; talk about a workout! In the afternoon, we had a Vacation Bible School with the children in the community. Roberto and his team have been working with this community to become familiar to them and gain their trust. The students had a brief skit for the kids (Noah’s Ark) and sang songs in Spanish with them. The kids were then divided into three age groups and rotated through the Bible story, craft, and game station. We ended the VBS with snacks and spent some time playing with the kids.

Thursday, we took a motorized canoe down the river. We stopped at a community to have a VBS with the kids, visited a zoo with animals native to the area, and ate a river-side lunch. That afternoon, we enjoyed an intense hike to see the local waterfalls and swim.

Friday, we traveled back to Quito by a different route. We stopped at Papallacta, springs that are heated by a nearby volcano and combined with cold river water in pools. After working hard in Misahualli, this was a welcomed treat for the team. That night we had a BBQ and campfire with Ron and his family.

Saturday we spent the day in Quito doing out sovunier shopping. We visited the city park where many of us purchased paintings by local artists. We also went to the market and purchased a variety of items for ourselves, family, supporters, and friends. We ate dinner at Pizza Hut (which I think has a better crust in other countries) before returning to our house to pack and prepare for the journey back to the States.

Sunday morning, our team woke up early to eat breakfast and finish preparations to return to Miami, and from there, to their respective homes. The team departed Quito that morning and arrived in Miami that afternoon.

About a month after our trip, some of us got together to exchange pictures and laugh about the great experiences we had while in Ecuador. It was such a blessing to watch how God drew this team close together and even after the summer break, how these students have a special bond.

Here are some links to pictures from Ecuador and a video made by one of our very talented team members:
Facebook album
Video

Ecuador 2012 in Pictures

I'll be posting a wrap-up blog about our trip to Ecuador soon. It's going to be a long one, there's so much to tell! But first, I wanted to post links to the pictures I took and a video compiled by a student. The video is 30 minutes and does a great job capturing each aspect of our trip, from the beginning in the Miami airport, during the trip, and what God taught the team.

Here are the links:
Ashley's pictures
Team Video

(Please let me know if there are any problems with the links :))

Coming Soon!

Coming soon to this blog are the following posts:

*FSU Chi Alpha's mission trip to Ecuador.

*My summer plans, happenings, etc

*My plans for the next academic year

*Some musings that have been brewing in my head for a while

I promise I will try my best to make these posts to my blog before August :) This also entails figuring out all the changes Blogspot/Google has decided to make to their website and updating the look of my blog! Stay tuned!!

Ecuador Update

In my last blog, I wrote about a new opportunity I had this  semester, to plan and carry out a mission trip. I can't believe that two weeks from tomorrow, we will be on a plane to Ecuador. God has been so good to the team throughout the process. Last weekend, we held our two biggest fundraisers, a yard sale and parking for FSU's spring football game. The yard sale was a lot of work: organizing, gathering items, transporting and setting them up at the location, and being there most of Fri and Sat. Parking was a little easier, but God really blessed both our events and we raised a total of almost $900 to be divided among the team members.

The yard sale also was a great time of bonding for our team. A lot of team jokes and laughs came out of that event and in addition to raising money, it served to bring our team closer together as a team unit and family. I was so impressed by every member who helped out with the yard sale, whether it was by separating clothes and making signs beforehand, or helping set up and sell the items the day of. Everyone on the team pitched in and did a great job to make sure this event happened.

We are now working on making sure we are prepared for the Vacation Bible School we will be teaching while in Misahualli. We are learning songs in Spanish and preparing lessons, crafts, and games for the kids. The students have been divided up into teams and have been working on their area of ministry for a few weeks. I'm very excited to see what they have prepared and how God is going to use them to reach the kids and community of Misahualli.

As we are nearing our time of departure, please continue to pray for our team. Here are some ways you can pray specifically for us:

*Pray that the final finances will be provided for all team members (and I know they will; God has been so faithful in providing for us).

*VBS prep, that everything will come together and that we will be able to learn the songs in Spanish

* Safe travels to the airport, smooth check-in process, and smooth flight.

*Health of team- the road from Quito (the capital, where we will be landing) to Misahualli is a very windy mountain road and causes motion sickness for a lot of people. Also, that our transition to the food there will be a smooth one; their food is a lot less processed and sometimes causes slight digestive issues.

* For the community, especially the children we will be working with. Pray that their hearts will be softened to the gospel. From the information the missionary sent us, the area is "over-evangelized," meaning they all have heard about the gospel, but don't have a lot of knowledge about the history of our faith.

Thank you all for your prayers. I'll be sure to post pictures when we return! :)

A New Opportunity

Last semester, I was approached with a new opportunity to grow: leading a mission trip to Ecuador. Since then, I have been working with my boss to plan a trip for a group of students and staff from FSU to travel to Ecuador to work with a missionary who ministers to children in the jungle. We began with interest meetings to tell the students what the trip was about and what we would be doing while there.

Since then, we have had 11 students and three staff commit to the trip. We have been busy meeting every week and discussing in further detail what we'll be doing to help the missionaries in Ecuador. We also have some fundraisers scheduled, the first one being this Sunday at a local restaurant, Red Elephant. Our next big fundraiser will be a yard sale in April. The students are busy sending out support letters to family and friends asking for financial support and are very excited for the trip.

While there, we will run a three-day Vacation Bible Schools in two locations. The students were broken up into groups to help with crafts, games, snacks, and teaching the lessons. I'm excited to see how God leads these students to come up with teach these kids and minister to them.

I am excited for this new learning opportunity for me, but at times I also worry that I am doing something wrong or overlooking some aspect of the trip that will come back to haunt me later. This is a whole new learning to lean on the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom as I make decisions that will affect not only me, but the team as well. It's also a learning opportunity to not let little glitches stress me out, but know and trust that God will work it all out, even when I can't see the end result. I can't wait to see how God uses our team in Ecuador and what He teaches us through this trip and opportunity to serve.

Update

I realized this morning that it's been a while since I updated my blog. We've had a number of events, so I'll give you a quick run through:

* November 18th was our annual Ladies' Fashion Xchange. We asked our girls to bring clothes, shoes, accessories, etc. they no longer wanted and gave them the opportunity to exchange them for "new to them" items. The girls loved going through the clothes and finding new outfits. We enjoyed yummy fondue and other snacks and had a great time ministering to our ladies.

* I enjoyed a few days in VA with my family for Thanksgiving. It was great to see my family again, both close and extended members. I also got some great deals on Black Friday and went to see the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert in Roanoke.

* Our Christmas banquet was Dec. 11. We had the event catered by Red Elephant, a local restaurant. The food was super yummy and we had a great time hanging out before final exams began.

*Mosaic Finals Cafe was held the following week for our students to study for their final exams. We set up tables and provided free wireless internet and coffee. We had around 20+ students come study and hang out.

*Christmas break I traveled back to VA to spend time with family. It took around 12 1/2 hours to get home without any problems. While home, I finished Christmas shopping, went to the dentist, saw a good friend, and celebrated Christmas with my family. I also celebrated my birthday with my parents and younger brother the day after Christmas since I wouldn't be home for the actual day. I left early on the morning of the 27th for the drive back to Tallahassee...it took 15 hours because of traffic.

*On the 28th, the Chi Alpha staff met in the office to finish preparing for the SALT conference. On the morning of the 29th, we got on the road to Jacksonville for the SALT conference. We spent 3 days soaking up knowledge of Jesus, worshiping, and fellowshiping with fellow believers from the Southeast area. I'll have a separate blog posted for that soon.

Fall Newsletter

My fall newsletter was recently sent out. If you do not receive it and would like to, please send me your email address and I will add you to my list. Here is a preview: