Hacienda El Refugio


Friday, May 4, 2007

Weekly Wrap Up from Calacali, Ecuador

Weekly Wrap Up from Calacali, Ecuador
May 4, 2007

Last Saturday, a small work team of eleven men arrived at El Refugio from Woodbury Lutheran Church in Minnesota and also a couple from North Dakota. The team had two primary work projects. To relocate the Quy (guinea pig) shed and to put in a septic tank for the new bathrooms located at the center of camp. Howard had a great time of working with these men and spending time getting to know them. As always the people who come on a team are varied in their experience and walk. Truly, that is what makes the time spent here interesting. For instance one of the men performs magic tricks; so he took time to teach Danielle and Jonathan various tricks. However, he wouldn’t teach them how he turned a one dollar bill into a five. (Wouldn’t we all love to know that secret?)

Ultimately, the goal is that God would bless their time here and the experience would impact them forever. On Wednesday, the team toured the various ministry sites and the visit to the dump really impacted them. To the point of physically making one of them ill, while this may seem a harsh reaction, it is real. Our North American sensibilities can not quite grasp that people, particularly children live in the dump in Quito. Yet, God in His infinite mercy has provided for these very people through the ministry of Extreme Response. If you would like to look further into this ministry their website is www.extremeresponse.org. Work trips, like this team experienced this last week are a great way to expose people to live larger than themselves. We all need to live larger than ourselves.

While the team was off visiting the various ministries, a group of about thirty people arrived to El Refugio who work for HCJB (World Radio) for a day of teambuilding. As I was out walking you could see grown men jumping rope and plenty of laughter echoing up the mountain. The point as always is, to impact these people by their time here, and that our staff would facilitate a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

Howard turned 49 yesterday and really had a great day, where I think, they sang Happy Birthday to him at least three times throughout the day. Of course, he enjoys the honor of being the oldest member of the Youth World Team. There are two traditions that are usually carried out on a person’s birthday, to be thrown in the pond and to yes, I know this is hard to believe, a spanking with a belt. Well, Howard avoided both by keeping busy with pouring cement for the septic tank. I guess wisdom does come with age!

As God is our Refuge, Mary for the Scholl Family

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