Monday, October 31, 2011

Nike We Run Quito 2011


Carissa, Emma and I, in front of Pizza Hut, after finishing the 10k race in Quito
 On Saturday, October 29th, I had the privilege to run a 10k (6+mile race), with my friends Emma and Carissa.  This picture was taken by Paco, our cheerleader and companion for the race.   He did not run the race, but he did meet us afterwards to see us finish down the homestretch and to join us for a celebration meal at Pizza Hut! Emma and I finished in one hour and thirteen minutes, and I was just happy to finish without ever walking at all! Carissa finished in a fast 58 minutes. 

It was so fun to see the crowd of over 7,000 runners, snaking through Quito, running a race!  It felt like such a great, happy environment..yes we were in Quito, but I was doing something that reminded me so much of being home! I loved the nostalgia of races at home, and realizing that I was doing the same thing but very far from home.  It just made me comforted, knowing that these races are becoming a global phenomenon and are such a uniting factor amongst strangers.

A big thanks to Paco for helping us navigate and traverse the lengths of the city in the PacoMovil, it helped immensely in our success of getting to the race and getting home safely afterwards! Thank you Paquito mi osito!!!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Grace

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPFU4TMlwI&feature=feedrec_grec_index

Somedays I just feel like I've had it with the things I have to deal with in this country.  Mostly, the looks, the stares, the catcalls from men, that are constant and so disrespectful to me and my humanity.  Its not like I am walking around in a short skirt and low shirt and high heels;  I typically am in jeans and tennis shoes, my fleece jacket and a scarf!  For crying out loud people, just leave me alone!  I feel like my apartment is sometimes my only sanctuary, my only escape from the daily hassle.  Riding the bus is like a nightmare, it is packed full to the brim you can't even breathe.  And the air you do breathe is full of fumes from the buses and broke down cars.  There are days that are just simply more than I can bear.  I don't think ever in my life I have had to bear so much harrassment and disrespect, it's outrageous.

The job, the people I work with, all that is fine. I have no complaints there.  But it's the harrassment from strangers, all the live long day, that make me want to go insane.  It just makes me wonder how can people be so sheltered from other races?  If you think rural Indiana is low on cultural diversity, you should try being the only white person in South Quito for awhile and you might change your mind.  The thing is, this is a capital city!  Think about how diverse New York City, or Chicago, or LA, or any other big city is.  For what it's worth, even Indianapolis is pretty diverse, although it might be sadly and disappointingly polarized in its diversity (as in rich vs poor, white vs black, not alot of mixing between suburbia and inner city).  But in Quito, you will find the only diversity in La Mariscal or Centro Histórico, typically in the form of tourists.  The city itself, the makeup of the city, has loads of Ecuadorian diversity - Spanish heritage, Mestizo, and pure Indigenous people - but unlike back home, you don't have a mix of Europeans, Afroamericans, Asians, and Indians who mix up the just standard North American culture. 

I also miss the seasons...every day passes here, much like the day before it.  There is very little difference between "summer" and "winter", and there are no real seasons.  The climate just IS in Quito, it just is.  Always cool, with some hot direct sunlight, and daily showers 3-4 times a week.  No changes.  I was describing to someone how you don't really have any picture in your mind for the month of October, that is any different in your mind from the month of April...it just is another day on the calendar.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Angel by Your Side

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDPOgwaPAQg

This song, by Francesca Battistelli, reminds us that we are never alone, that angels, Jesus, Mary, past loved ones, current loved ones, they are all by our side.  They pray for us, they are there for us, even though we seem relatively alone. If we seek refuge and strength in them, the courage we will receive will be overwhelming.

Today's first reading comes from Romans 8...

"What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?...What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecutino, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?...No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 8: 31, 35, 37-38

I love the encouragement, enthusiasm, and fearless trust that Paul places in the love Jesus Christ has for us!  Paul believes confidently that NOTHING can separate us from the love that Jesus has for us, that we will always conquer over our struggles so long as we do so in Jesus' name. Jesus' purpose was to life and die and life again for us and our sins, and if He can forgive us for our sins, then His love truly is beyond our comprehension.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Fear Nothing


If there is anyone who teaches us to trust
and not to fear, it is this woman,
Mother Teresa, who drew her strength
daily from the Lord.


Our faith in Jesus fully relies in our belief that He lived and died for our sins; that He died in atonement for our sins.  If we do not believe that He died for us, to save us, to give us eternal life, to come for us the sinners, than what do we even believe?  We believe in vain, if we do not believe that.  When we believe that, we have to believe in His limitless mercy, and His immense love for us.  He loves us, but only we can accept Him into our hearts.  We are not slaves to Him, He is not our master, but our friend (John 15).  Once we accept this relationship with Him, it makes it much harder to sin, because we think of His love for us, we think of how much our sin hurts and offends Him, and how it pulls us away from Him.  

If we truly commit ourselves to our beliefs, to our Love of Jesus, to our faith in His mercy and compassion for us, we begin to fear less.  Our anxieties will fall away, because we know He is always there.  We can't hide from Him if we fall to sin, instead we must run back to Him more rapidly than ever!  It is humiliating, it is, to show Him openly all our sins, but if we hide them away inside of ourselves they will get the best of us, they will tell us we aren't worth such love, that we aren't worth such joy, that we do not deserve to be children of God.  But God doesn't think that, He just wants us to remain in Him, as He remains in us. Once we let Jesus into our heart, once we let Him transform us, we can't fear the daily earthly troubles.  We die to Him, we recognize that we are not in control of the reigns, that He will calm the stormy waters while we await in the rocky boat, that He will keep us safe. Fear nothing, love Christ, live without fear...Christ will be our strength.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Never Alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yRsT_fPic

This is a song by Lady Antebellum, that I think will help me get through some tough times in Ecuador.  I think it is just such a true song, the Lord is always with us, He never leaves us alone.  We always must have the hope and faith that He is here with us, that He will direct us and guide us and calm us if we let Him into our hearts.  That is the hardest part, just letting Him into our hearts.  The world wants us to constantly be broken down, it will always find ways to do that.  But God always is compassionate, merciful and loving to those who love Him. We just need to love Him.

"Now hope that sees for itself is not HOPE.  For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance." Romans 8:24-25

Monday, October 24, 2011

Notre Dame and Internet

Plaza de los Ponchos, Otavalo Ecuador

Group learning about how the Equator and the earth's tilt/spin works

Celebrating my "handstand" on the equator with help from Morgan
The Notre Dame group was awesome!  Truly, this trip was such a blessing to me.  It was so great to have such a hardworking, punctual, fun group!  They were so friendly and inclusive, and it was really nice to know several of the tripgoers.  Thank you Notre Dame!

Exciting news for the day is that I am currently sitting in my kitchen in my apartment, ON THE INTERNET!  I finally had Internet installed for my apartment, which is going to help me keep in touch much better.  It has been tough since I moved into this apartment to be able to call my family, since that would mean staying at the hospital until around 7 or 8 pm...now I will be able to communicate from the comfort of my very own home. 

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Notre Dame Brigade

This Saturday, October 15th, a group of thirty people will be flying into Quito to form the Notre Dame Brigade.  This will be a special brigade for me, as it will be a "full-circle" type experience.  I was a part of the Notre Dame brigade last year, acting as a nurse, taking vitals and heights and weights, fumbling around with my Spanish, sitting in the back of the bus with the students, struggling with the fact that I was no longer a college student and I was in fact a "medical professional", a real Registered Nurse! It was maybe a little strange to the students that I wanted to sit in the back of the bus with them, but that was all I had ever known on the Timmy trips I had gone on before - as a Purdue student!

Now I will be leading their brigade, I will see many faces I remember from last year, but will be in a completely different role.  It will be comforting to know people, that not the entire group will be strangers to me.  It will be my second brigade to lead, and I am excited about seeing how it goes.  I feel more organized, but that could be just a trick of my mind!  I will have an update in another week!

Monday, October 10, 2011

One Year in Quito

Today marks my first full year in Quito, and it has been a tumultuous up and down experience, to say the least.  I offer this song as an explanation of what I want my next 9 months in country to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=NPoxM0D_0n8

I truly want to use the rest of my time here to remove from my heart all the bitterness and past hurts I have carried around with me now for years.  It has gone too long, I have made too many mistakes, and I have carried around pain for far too long;  I really want to be remade, recreated by the grace, love and mercy of Jesus's Sacred Heart, in order to become the person I want to be and have always wanted to be.  That person is not one of bitterness, but of forgiveness, not of frustration but of patience, not one of despair but of faithful obedience.  It is my hope that this time rejuvenates me from the heart, mind and soul to become an outward display of the love and mercy of Christ. It is a daunting task, but one that I do not do on my own; one that Christ does within me.  The Lord gives love to our hearts, and continually fills it; while the earth has no love to give us, and only takes away what love we have. 

I cry thinking of all the opportunities I have had, all the calls I have tried to follow from God, all the times where I felt I was doing well only to fall again, or to half follow what God really wanted me to do.  I have time after time tried to do it on my own! What a fool, everything we do and all that we are are given to us by God himself, the first thing we must do is surrender to Him, to His infinite wisdom and mercy, to allow Him into our lives...if we do not allow Him into our lives, we are trying to do things on our own, and we of course will fail.  We have to allow Him to penetrate the barriers of our hearts, our pride, our own thoughts, to just listen to Him, to listen to what He says to us, not to what we say to Him.  He knows what we say and think and what our heart truly desires, and He wants to grant us those things, but only if we allow Him to do so.  We work so hard trying on our own, and to what end? As Paul told the Romans in his greeting in Chapter 1, we are ALL called to belong to Christ, and we are ALL called to be holy

Friday, October 7, 2011

Back in Ecuador

Now being back in Quito, after my second short trip home for the annual Timmy college conference, life has changed quite a bit.  I am now officially settled into my apartment, and have started making changes to it to make it a more liveable, homey space.  It will be my little project for the next nine months that I have left in country, trying to make it seem like it is a more modern, more apartment-like space, versus just a converted empty space of a pretty old hospital building. I have already painted the previously peach-colored bathroom a nice gray with white trim.  That in itself was a struggle, due to the strong fumes and lack of ventilation system (aka, a fan).  But it looks MUCH better.  The next project is trying to get the shower that is in the apartment to work!

Other changes include me, being more alone.  I live alone, and have broken up with my Ecuadorian boyfriend José.  Now I do not really have any friends in south Quito; I have two girl friends who live up in northern Quito, and I try and see one of them once a week.  Beyond those two girls, I have Paco and Pablo from Quito Eterno and will probably try and hang out more with them and their friends.  In the south, I socialize with my co-workers, but what I was explaining to some people from a surgical group that was in Quito this week, it that the people who I do know from work do not need to be friends with me.  Everyone has their own families, their own friend groups;  I am just a little gringa who is living here for a short time, nobody needs or really has ever invited me to be real friends with them.  That makes me feel lonely, but what I said a year ago before I came was that I wasn´t going to look at loneliness, but a time to share my peace with Christ and really try to still and calm my often restless soul during these months.  So, that is what I am working on, becoming more comfortable with a quiet apartment, with down time, with self-reflection.

Every day, I have a routine.  I wake up between 5:30-6am, and read the daily readings.  I go and jog 2-3 miles, then go to daily mass at 7a.m.  I have made friends with the three nuns who live at the church next door, Sister Juanita, Sister Rosita and Sister Blanquita.  Father Graziano is the priest who most often celebrates mass; he is this funny, always joyful, always energetic Italian priest, now well into his 60s I would say, who knew and was good friends with Father Carollo, who started the organization Tierra Nueva.  Father Graziano has a unique way of giving sermon, of insisting participation from those in the congregation when offering prayer requests and also in what we give thanks to God for.  He is a very special priest, and it has been such a blessing to have the church right next door.  Plus, I feel so much healthier, having a routine and jogging nearly every day!

I jog on what I call the "excercise highway" and or the "Chicago's Lakeshore Drive" of Quito Sur.   It is a little path in El Parque Río Grande that stretches a little over a mile along a ravine that has some tall, pretty grasses planted.  At 6 in the morning, it is packed with local Ecuadorians in their "calentadoras" or warm-up jogging suits, all jogging, walking, or doing jazzercise classes which are offered along the length of the park.  Yes, full on jazzercise...blasting music, lead by an enthusiastic jazzercist (?) encouraging the 99% women in the class to give their all, to flail their arms this way and that way, and to really work it out!  It is quite entertaining : ) and I have often had the urge to go and join, although I am not sure if it costs money per session...

Happy thoughts about new changes to life include that I no longer am attacked by the several dogs that lived in the parking lot (a fence gate has been put up, which dramatically increased my standard of living), I will likely have Internet in my apartment by this time next week, and I have been learning so much about the love and relationship that Jesus our Savior would like to have for me.  His Mercy is limitless, and the treasury of His Compassion is inexhuastible.  He came not to condemn us, but to save us; to draw us closer, rebuild us, to envelop us with love.  What I have realized is that to become that woman who I have always wanted to become, a loving mother and wife, a patient and kind nurse, a woman with shinings eyes and a radiating smile, always willing to empathize with others, to share in their suffering and joys, to put others first, a woman who is mature and confident in her own experiences and knowledge, but also humble and generous, a woman who inspires others to do good, to give of their time, to believe in realistic optimism...if I ever want to have a chance to become that woman, I must repent, allow Jesus to truly enter my life, and to recognize that regardless of the many past mistakes I have made in my life, Jesus wants to offer me his love and mercy; the more I believe that I am not worth His Mercy or Love, the more I will reject the flood of Divine Mercy and Love in my life, and the more I will fall away from ever becoming the vision of that woman that has led me to come to Ecuador...If I want to radiate love and compassion to others, I first have to allow such love and compassion into my life.  By constantly degrating myself, I allow the Devil and sin to win, I allow darkness to fill me, I lose respect for my own self, for the Holy Spirit that was sent to me through baptism, I reject the light by believing I am not worth it.  And living in despair is letting sin win.  More than anything, I must allow Jesus to fill me, to flood me, to remove the bitterness from my heart and replace it with love. Believing that He wants to do that, believing that He was sent to live and die and rise again in atonement for our sins, that is a truly joyful thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef9jKHwHueQ&feature=related