Learning, Being, Serving in Quito, Ecuador: April 2013

Since I've last posted to my blog, too much has happened to put into words...this is probably because I've let 9 months slip by and 9 months of anyone's life is too much to put on paper in one blog entry.

To catch you up to speed, here's the most brief of summaries of some of what's happened during the last 9 months:

July 2012 to November 28, 2012 was spent working in Ecuador. There was much to be done. Many experiences with refugee families, meetings, emails, phone calls, writing reports, doing finances, home visits, workshops, discernment, stress, heavy situations. We also planned and did a weekend retreat with the church youth group. I also started taking Anabaptist theology classes at the Mennonite church with our pastors and I participated in a workshop with the United Nations about refugees.

November 28, 2012 to January 4th, 2013 was spent in the U.S. giving presentations about my work in Ecuador in VA, IN, KS and spending precious, priceless time with many friends and family in VA, OH, IN, PA, NJ, D.C., KS.

January 4th, 2013 to January 19th, 2013 was spent traveling through Colombia with my good friend and excellent travel companion Benito Miller, where we were able to meet up with our good friend Jes Buller and many other great people.

January 19th-February 21st 2013 was spent getting caught up on refugee work that had piled up after being gone from Quito. We also hosted a learning tour group from the US.

February 21st-March 4th 2013 I hosted for the third year in a row a work team from the US and Colombia. We worked on the construction of an indigenous church in the south of Quito and visited the now completed church in Arajuno.

March 18th to 26th 2013 I traveled to Colombia with other folks from the Mennonite church in Quito and Riobamba to have Ecuador Partnership meetings and to be present at the Colombian Mennonite Churches National Assembly. I spent a good portion of the time doing simultaneous translation which was a fun and challenging activity.

Recently, a couple topics have been churning in my head because of recent experiences. One is self-care and learning how to stay healthy and sane in the face of so many heavy and difficult experiences. Why is this an issue that's been difficult for me? In counting up the numbers in the registries that I keep track of with the refugee project, I realized that during the past year I've held more than 400 interviews with refugee families and done 100 home visits. I've heard too many terrible stories to count and seen way too many precarious living situations. Last year as a project, we gave out between 40-50 food rations a month to 140 different families, arranged 55 appointments with a hired professional psychologist, helped 25 families start a small business, held 7 workshops with an average attendance of 50-60 refugees, maintained a refugee house where two families live along with an agricultural project, and helped more than 150 families with either rent costs, mattresses, blankets, medicine, stoves, gas tanks, shoes, clothes, school supplies and personal hygiene items. We've also helped various refugees pay for major surgeries and health issues. And there are many other things that can't be quantified. It truly has been a busy and exhausting year.

At first I think I tried to suppress feelings of exhaustion and being overwhelmed, living by the common sports motto of "playing through the pain". But similar to my experience on the soccer field where a muscle injury would continue to get worse and worse as I continued to play, I also continued to wear down and become more exhausted and overwhelmed in my work. I've realized how important it is for me to understand my own needs and take time for myself. This continues to be difficult but I'm working at it. To give you a better idea of the kinds of situations that make it very easy to get absorbed in work with refugees, here's an anecdote:

A few months ago I was relaxing at home on my day off on Monday when my cell phone rang. I answered the call and it was Carlos on the other line. Carlos had been to our church various times and I had visited him and his family group of 11 people who lived packed into one small room. Carlos had fled Buenaventura, Colombia a few months earlier after his work partner was killed and he was threatened by paramilitaries. Leaving in such a hurry from Colombia and with only enough money for his bus fare, Carlos had left his wife behind with some family members. In talking with him at church, he had expressed to me his worries about his wife still being in Colombia and possibly becoming a target of paramilitaries that continued to try to track him down. When I answered the phone on that Monday, his fear had become a reality. He told me that paramilitaries had found his wife, entered her house and threatened to kill her face to face if she didn't tell them where Carlos was. Luckily, they eventually left her alone without harming her but told her that they would be coming back to get information about Carlos' whereabouts and that if she didn't give them the information, they would kill her. Over the phone, Carlos desperately explained this situation to me and asked if I could help by sending $60 dollars to the family in Buenaventura, Colombia in order to pay for his wife's bus fare since the family had no money to send her to Ecuador. Despite the fact that as a project, we are many times weary about these kinds of transactions because in the past money has been used for something other than it's intended purpose, the urgency of this situation merited attention. And despite the fact that "I'm supposed to respect my day off", that thought was put on the back burner as I thought about what could happen if I didn't take action. Believe me, it was a difficult position to be in. I asked Carlos for his wife's cell phone number in Colombia in order to call her and verify the situation and what exactly was happening. I called her right away using skype and spoke with her about the situation. As Carlos had already told me, it was in fact a very urgent situation. I decided that if I was going to help, it shouldn't wait another day and I left my house to go to the nearest Money Gram office after telling Carlos that I would send the money to Colombia as long as his wife held onto the bus ticket receipt and took it personally to the church when she arrived to Ecuador as a method for accountability. I sent the $60 to Carlos' wife in Colombia and a few days later she arrived to our church with the bus ticket receipt.....

This situation left me reflecting about whether it's more important for me to respect my day off and not answer my phone or give priority to the need of the person on the other line. It's a difficult balance--especially since these urgent needs don't present themselves everyday and I want to avoid the "savior" type mentality and image that can be detrimental for myself and those that I work with. Many times I ask myself, how could the economic situation of Carlos' family have been transformed so that Carlos wouldn't have needed to depend on an outside organization to solve this urgent problem? Many refugees, including Carlos and his wife, have been victims to circumstances beyond their control. But given refugees current situations, how can they be empowered to rebuild their lives in order to live without the debilitating dependency on outside aid?

The other topic that's been stirring in my brain is the challenge that I've had to face in working with some refugees who are very needy, but also dishonest, manipulative, and demanding. It's difficult to express this and by no means do I want to generalize or criticize the refugee population as a whole as often happens in Ecuadorian society, but with a select few cases, I've really been challenged with situations that have not been enjoyable. I won't go into a lot of detail right now, but I continue to struggle to know how to respond to need despite a lack of transparency, honesty and respect. How can we continue to walk alongside these people and work together for transformation despite these difficult circumstances?

I continue to be thankful for the opportunity that I have to explore the complexities of these issues not just in theory but in practice as well. Without a doubt, I'm being stretched and expanded by many new experiences. I continue to enjoy life in Quito and the adventures that unfold both in my work and play.

I'll leave it there....if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!