Life in the Jungle

A lot continues to happen everyday out here in Qutio, the thought of having to summarize so many experiences is kind of crazy, so alas this blog post will not even begin to do my trip or time in Quito justice, but I will attempt. These past two weeks have been jammed packed and overwhelmed with activities and trips so henceforth my last blog post response. I will start with a de-brief on our trip to the Jungle last week. I only attended two days of my internship last week (2/17-2/21) Monday and Tuesday because we left for the Mishaualli Jungle Wednesday. AHHH. My first two days of my internship consisted of helping with career day which is a half-day students for everyone, and specifically high school students sit through hearing testimonies of 30 different people with different careers (they get to pick their top 3) this is an attempt to help students begin to make a decision about what they want to do and what they want to pursue after high school. I helped with facilitating this and making sure everything was running smoothly and then on Tuesday we de-briefed the event and dug into a few big projects I will be taking on such as creating weekly blurbs on child safety for the parent and staff newsletters and working on an admissions questioner that helps families and students process through what their home life looks like so that the counselers at AAI can have an idea of the clients they are dealing with. The jungle was a crazy culture shock in comparrsion to Quito. In the jungle we experienced much more extreme poverty and a much different culture and demographic. I think one thing though that God really has been teaching me while in Ecuador, is that even though people may appear financially poor, does not mean AT ALL, that they are spiritually, relationally, or emotionally poor. And these things are worth far, far more than money is anyway. One of the most impactful days in the Jungle was working with the children from picha chickta. These kids at first appeared like they were living in poverty and my heart was breaking for them and what they were living in on a daily basis, but after spending time running with them in the dirt and kissing their muddy cheeks I realized that my idea of poverty and their idea of poverty look so incredibly different. These kids were so filled with joy and love and the way they looked at and loved their siblings proved to me that they have so much more than I even understand. Leaving those kids was one of the hardest parts of leaving the Jungle, because spending that time with those kiddos gave me a taste of the Kingdom and the Father’s love. This past week at my internship was a lot of meetings and logistical type stuff. One thing I am learning being at an internship in a school is it is a lot less of direct practice (one-on-one) with kids than it might be at a hospital, addiction home, adoption agency, and more. A lot of my work is sitting in on meetings and getting to observe some of the work that happens in the macro setting. I do some direct practice with children in a macro setting, my supervisor talked to me about potentially running a group for children with divorced parents that would occur during their lunch time. This week otherwise was working on some of my projects and getting to do a lot of research on resources and information I can use for my future practice. I also am continuing to help plan for the big high school girls women’s retreat coming up. I also have been helping volunteer at Pan De Vida which is kind of like a homeless shelter/food shelter, and I have been helping serve people and getting to know them and their hearts. These are some of the opportunities I am seeking out more of to plug into. To all my social work lovely colleagues, I miss you and pray for you all often. <3