July 7: Blogging through Ecuador - More Superheroes

More superheroes. In Monday's blog, I said that Victor Vaca is a superhero.

Let me introduce you to two more: Glenn Hebert and Marilyn Cooper.

Glenn and Marilyn, married for 25 years or so, retired to Austin and joined our church.

After a couple of trips to Ecuador, they decided to move their temporarily as long-term volunteers with FEDICE, working in cooperation with the Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Marilyn's main work is teaching English in the indigenous villages of the Imbabura province. Glenn, with a healthy sense of humour, terms himself a "missionary assistant."

What's remarkable about Glenn and Marilyn is that Glenn is confined to a wheelchair. He has severe mobility issues and needs help moving, eating, almost everything. Marilyn lifts, totes and loves.

Ecuador is not a handicap-accessible place. Living there must take tremendous effort. And they are doing remarkable work. Glenn, with his keen mind and wit, is their Spanish-English dictionary. Marilyn, with animation and smiles, is teaching and making friends.

Global Ministries' written mission statement is "to a shared life in Christ and to an ecumenical sharing of resources." That's what Glenn and Marilyn are doing: sharing life with others and sharing resources -- money, for sure, but also the resources of time and laughter and love.

That's what superheroes do: share love.

July 6: Blogging through Ecuador - Patience

Today, we waited a lot, and probably miscommunicated a lot as well.

This morning, we finished our work project and sat around waiting for lunch. For some in our group, the anxiety of having nothing to do seemed a bit nerve-wracking.

Then, this afternoon we missed our cues on where to stop at the equator. That meant stopping beside the road for some long phone calls about who was where and where we were going. The result was that we missed the traditional tourist stops at the equator altogether. No doubt, some in our group were disappointed.

Patience was the needed word for this day.

The late TV personality, Clifton Fadiman said, "When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."

An article on PhysOrg.com says that some South American traditional cultures have a concept of time that is opposite to the North American/European concept. This study said that hand motions and idioms put the future behind these people, and the past in front of them.

Patience. The word for the day.

July 6: Blogging through Ecuador - Generosity

By our American standards, the people here in Cachimuel are fairly poor. Their homes are small, simple and often unfinished. They have outhouses but no cars. Their clothes are dirty, then washed in a tub and hung on a line to dry.

But they are exceedingly, exceedingly generous.

We've been invited twice to people's homes for coffee, tea and snacks. The pastor of the village invited us to his home, where his daughters gave each of us jewelry. They've made remarkable traditional outfits for three of us. The parents of the girl we dedicated gave us scarves. They presented hats and shawls to each of us.

Balzac's quote come to mind: "As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not giving money to a relative."

July 5: Blogging through Ecuador - Dancing

"Dancing"

I've always been a self-conscious dancer. Maybe I absorbed those old Baptist prohibitions against it. Somehow, I smiled and faked my way through high school and college (dance-dependent years) and even managed to marry a good dancer.

But this has been a week of dancing...

Thursday Night: Dancing to a flute and guitar band in the hotel in Otavalo. (Wine helps one dance, by the way).

Sunday Morning: Six girls dancing in church, skirts flowing, faces filled with dignity and grace.

Today (Monday): Children at the daycare center in Caluqui, dancing for us a welcome, their traditional folks music playing, weaving in and out of scarves. How old were they, these little dancers -- three, maybe four or five? And how gentle and rhythmic, how enticing.

July 5: Blogging through Ecuador - Superheroes

Super heroes wear capes and fly, right? They're tall and muscular and chiseled, right?

Expect this one. That's not his picture. His name is Victor Vaca. He's short, dark-skinned and weathered. Soft-spoken, but passionate. Funny and single-minded. His purpose in life is to help the indigenous people of Ecuador help themselves to better lives.

Victor and his first wife (the late Violet) founded FEDICE to work for human rights, community development, and religious education among the Kichwa Indians of Ecuador.

Victor has a new wife (Marlene) and a thousand stories to tell. Stories of defying racism, of a prison term with a quick-car getaway, of work in Switzerland and Paraguay and more.

One story...

In 1996, an outbreak of cholera swept through the Imbabura Province of Ecuador (including the community of Cachimuel) where we are working. Health officials were loathe to deal with this surprise epidemic since cholera had been almost unknown in Ecuador for a hundred years.

Those who were sick were not welcomed in hospitals. When a man died in Cachimuel, no one would come pick up his body because they were afraid of contracting the disease.

Enter our superhero. Victor drove to the village, put the dead man's body in his truck, and took the body to the cemetery.

Once the outbreak slowed, Victor and his organization, FEDICE, went to work, first building latrines in the village for better hygiene, then helping the community develop a water system.

That's what superheroes do. They touch the untouchables, and they dig ditches for water pipes.

July 4: Blogging through Ecuador - Preaching

The blue sky of Otavalo.

Today was the hardest day of our trip for me, which is strange because today was Sunday; we went to church, and I was scheduled to preach. Should have been easy, right? After all, I'm a preacher; that's what I do. Not that I'm especially good at it, or better than anybody else. But that's what I do. Most Sundays (at home), preaching and leading worship is no big deal. Sure, lots of preparation and worries over the details, but I do it. Three times, most Sundays.

But for some reason today, I was very nervous. (I was probably a jerk to everyone in our group as a result). I'm not sure why I was so nervous.

Two years ago when we were in Ecuador, I preached at a church service and all was well. Interestingly, two years ago, I came expecting our church to be a poor, indigenous community; and the church we attended was urban and yuppie-like, with a praise-band and words projected onto wall screens.

So, this time we specifically asked to attend worship at an indigenous church. I knew what to expect. Except I couldn't get it fixed in my mind.

Before we left I wrote a perfectly fine sermon -- using the story of Naaman and the servant girl, exploring the ideas that the powerful need humility and the "unimportant" are often God's preferred. Nice ideas. Good edge of liberation theology, the importance of women, etc. But, the sermon just seemed "canned."

So, Friday night I borrowed a computer and tapped out a new sermon, really just a reflection on some of things we've seen here -- happy children, the woman washing our hands, another woman inviting us to her home, the hard work of our group, and the heavenly blue color of the church we were painting. I tied those living sermons that I had seen to biblical texts of the same ideas.

Then, this morning rolled around. We got to the church. Welcome, music, dancing (that was lovely), prayers (with ululation), scripture-reading. Then time for me to preach.

I couldn't feel it, couldn't get in the groove. I was nervous. The rhythm of translation was off (too choppy, I felt). My sermon was too long, so I weaved and dodged my way along, leaving my poor translator adrift on his own wits. (He did fine.)

Basically, I hit on three points: 1) They don't need me (a North American) to come tell them about Jesus; their Christianity (while different than mine) is vibrant and active. 2) They are blessing their children as Jesus did; don't let them fall prey to poverty or materialism. 3) The new sky-blue paint in their church is a reminder to live out the vision of heaven that Isaiah has -- a vision of peace, equality, and plenty.

Mercifully, I was brief, and the sermon was over.

I hope the point of them not needing me to preach to them was received. Maybe my poor attempt at preaching proved my own point.

July 3: Blogging through Ecuador - Prison and Preschool

At the entrance to Peguche Falls there is a village (not sure of the name).

A rock wall crosses the road with an archway over the path that leads to the falls. The rock wall (which maybe six or eight feet thick) is the remains of a prison.

The prison was built in 1613 at the direction of Spanish troops. The sign near the wall says that Spanish forced the indigenous people to build the prison. Then men, women and children were captured inside and forced to work.

This wall is one of the scars of colonialism, racism and xenophobia.

On the backside of the wall, shockingly, is a preschool. A bright and beautiful school of yellow and blue. Ironically, the new school shares a common wall with the old prison. The same wall once used to enslave children now supports a place where they are nurtured.

Martin Luther King once said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. The backside of this rock wall is one place where the curve of time is visible.

July 3: Blogging through Ecuador - Thin Places

Saturday, July 3. Peguche Falls (pictured at right).

Today we went to see the marvelous cascade of water at Peguche Falls. The Lonely Planet travel guide describes these falls as sacred to the Otavalan Indians, and I would agree. The clarity of the water, the tumbling roar, the crispness, and the soaring hills make this one of those "thin places" of which the Celts speak -- a place where the line between secular and sacred is blurred.

The same travel guide said that for the Festival of San Juan, local men take ritual baths in the springs. The last time I was here (2008), I saw a newly-wedded couple plunging 'neath the water. A local had told them the waters were auspicious for new beginnings.

Several of our group climbed the steep path above the falls, only to find their another set of falls -- this one tumbling down through what appeared to be a hole in the earth. (Words don't do it justice.)

So, above the lower falls and beneath the upper falls, there is a tunnel in the rocky earth that leads to a wading pool. (It would be out of sight, above the water in this picture.) With a couple of my traveling companions, I crawled through the tunnel, took off my shoes, rolled my pants above my knees, and splashed into the water.

The smooth rocks, the cool water, the wash of the current. Holy, all, in the grandest sense.

I had a similar feeling last year, wading in the headwaters of the Jordan River at Banias. And a similar feeling years ago when -- contemplating my faith, my calling, and my baptism -- I waded into the simple stream of Little Falls Creek in Bethesda.

I can't say that I felt wholly transformed or profoundly changed while wading in the water at Peguche Falls. But I felt younger, lighter, giddier, more innocent and happy. Maybe that's what thin places do. Maybe that's what sacred is.

July 2: Blogging through Ecuador - Running Water

Photo: This picture is a 1951 photo of Otavalan women bathing and washing clothes in San Pablo Lake. The photo is from Archivo Blomberg.

"Running Water"

The village of Cachimuel, where we are working, is perched on a mountainside overlooking San Pablo Lake. The village (or "community") stretches maybe two miles or more up the steep hillside. The road is cobblestone, turning to dirt. I've seen one tractor in the community and maybe two cars. The vast majority of the people here (indigenous Otavalan Indians) have no cars. They walk.

Until 12 years ago, the people of Cachimuel had no running water. Instead, every day, people from the community walked the two miles or so to the lake. They filled barrels and jars of water and carried them on their backs up the mountain to their homes. Sometimes twice a day or more.

No toilets. No sinks. No running water. Until 1998.

FEDICE (the NGO we're working with) helped organize the community to create a water system. Now, fresh water is piped from springs in the mountains above down into the village.

At some of the houses, the trenches for the water pipes are freshly dug. At some houses, the water valves outside are still sparkling new.

July 1: Blogging through Ecuador - Handwashing

Photo: A Quechua (or Kichua) Indian woman at the market

in Otavalo, Ecuador.

Today, we began our work in the village of Cachimuel.

The community there has rebuilt the roof of their church and added a new room for children above their "foyer." Our job, over the next few days, will be to sand the walls, paint, scrape and clean the windows, and do a few other odds and ends.

So, for a couple of hours today, we scraped and sanded. Nothing too hard, but dusty, dirty, thirsty kind of work for our merry, weary band of travelers.

As we left for the day, a Quechua woman from the community was squatted outside the doors of the church. She had a big, banged-up aluminum pot of warm water.

As each of us walked out of the church, she motioned for us to bend down beside her. And -- gently, kindly, smilingly, graciously -- she dipped warm water out and poured it over our hands.

"...Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet..."

- The Gospel of John, Chapter 13, Verses 4 & 5 -