Saturday, March 31, 2018

Reflections on God’s Hand in Ecuador


Mary Farrar - 3/30

LIFT is back at El Refugio, our home base, for another day of work projects. The weather this morning is cloudy and cool as we paint walls, dig trenches, and whack at brush with machetes to clear trails for the upcoming adventure mud race called "Todo Lodo". 

Everyone’s spirits are high today as we feel filled from our time in Oyacachi. The past days spent in El Chaco and Oyacachi were very different experiences, but they were similar because we saw God working in our hearts and in the lives of the people we had the opportunity to work with. It is truly amazing to feel the presence of the Spirit in the churches here in Ecuador. How awesome is it that we can have a different skin color from one another and speak different languages, yet belong to the same God who created us in His image? I have spoken with LIFTers who admitted they are already grieving the thought of leaving this beautiful country in less than a week. I feel the same way. It is still hard to believe that our entire semester of LIFT has been building up to this mission trip and now we are here experiencing Jesus’ love and allowing Him to use us to grant His love upon others.

As it has been mentioned in previous blog posts, some of us have experienced sickness and injury. We are overwhelmed by the amount of people who committed to pray for us during this mission trip. Continue to pray that our bodies would be healed from any unsettling sickness in our stomachs and that those who are injured or weak would have relief from their pain. Despite several LIFTers experiencing physical deficiency in some way, the Lord is using this time to strengthen us spiritually and commanding us to lean fully on Him.

Tomorrow is the day that LIFTers must complete their timed Perimeter hike in order to participate in the summit attempt of the 16,000' peak, Sincholagua. We will also be practicing climbing and rapelling on El Refugio’s outdoor climbing wall and packing our backpacks. On Sunday morning, we will have a sunrise Easter service at El Refugio before embarking for our mountain climb. There will be a short hike to our base camp where will spend 2 nights. The LIFTers who are not able to summit Sincholagua will be able to stay and rest in the beautiful camp while the rest of the group makes the attempt.

Thank you again to everyone who is supporting us in prayer and gave financially. It is a blessing to be used as servants of the Almighty God.

3/31 - Tim's addition:  The hike to qualify for the mountaineering experience went very well this morning almost everyone completed it in the 48 minutes necessary.  Everyone improved their times significantly showing how much their bodies have acclimatized to the altitude already in the 2 weeks they have been here.  There will be about 6 people "holding down the fort" at base camp while about 32 start the climb to the summit early Monday morning.  

The LIFTers had a wonderful time of singing and sharing around the camp fire last night in addition to celebrating Lauren Thompson's birthday.  Today we all prayed for Jared Blizzard and Elizabeth Flannery (LIFT 36 & 37) on their wedding day.  Woot Woot!

LIFT will be having a special Easter service at El Refugio up at a place where a very large cross stands in a mountain meadow.  We will be joining with about 30 others (missionary families from the Youth World ministries in Quito). Tomorrow after our time of worshiping our Lord and Savior together we will drive then hike to our base camp.  We will return Tuesday evening and finish our time here on Wednesday with a day of debriefing and the students giving a test run of the new race course for Todo Lodo.

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