Travels...

Recently I went on an adventure to Quito, Ecuador with Operation Christmas Child
While traveling I didn't get a chance to get on a computer and blog, so I wrote on whatever I could find from my boarding pass to the in flight magazine...thanks Continental Airlines. So here are a few of my stories:

Monday:

After 3 hours of sleep I arrived at the Sacramento International Airport exhausted, yet excited. This was my first trip to South America and I planned on it being an adventure and a trip I knew I wouldn't forget.

The airport was busy and I boarded my Continental Airlines flight to Houston, TX. The time in the air I spent doing nothing too eventful. Well I should mention the man who carried on a large hand crafted wooden stick. It was at least 6ft tall and he was frustrated it didn't fit in the over head compartment. It was like a Moses stick and I was waiting for him to part the sea.

As soon as we landed our group grabbed some lunch at the airport. We had a 4 hour layover in Houston. I walked around a lot since I knew I would be sitting for 4 hours. As I strolled through the Hudson News, walked on the moving sidewalks and wandered through the food court, I made my way back to the table where our group had settled. Soon enough 4 hours actually passed.

I boarded the last flight of my day at 4pm central time, bound for Quito, Ecuador. As I made my way back to the 15th row, I found my middle seat...lovely and threw my apple duffel bag in the overhead bin. As I got situated I made acquaintances with my seat mate. As we talked she told me how she was traveling alone, but meeting up with friends in Ecuador for a 2 month back packing excursion. Traveling through Ecuador, Peru and Chile. After her adventure she would return to her hometown of Vancouver, BC.

My trip is no where as long as my seat mate, but I believe the experience will be just as rich.
Here's to 3 days in Quito!

First Memory:

The first day of distributions we were told to keep any sort of preconceived notions out of our head. When you watch the promo videos for Operation Christmas Child you get this image in your head of how and what delivering a shoebox is.

As our team of 10 people climbed onto a small bus, we did our mini introductions and then headed out to our first sight La Virginia school in Pifo. The ride was bumpy and we slid open the side windows to get a breeze, it was only 9:30am but it was warming up fast!

Our bus traveled up and up the hills and soon we were off the pavement and onto a dirt road. Looking out the window I could see small run down houses with clothes hanging outside and lightly moving in the wind. The small pink shirt, dancing around in the air gave me an image of a little girl living in a small shack with her family.

As we got off the buss about 130 kids were sitting outside lining a cement slab, watching a performance from 3 clowns. The older wore their backpacks and the torn tights of the girls reflected hardship. They all wore uniforms, yet some looked ragged and worn.

The kids were all laughing and smiling as the clowns quickly spoke Spanish and danced around.

As our team approached our group was called up front of the kids our translators introduced us. As the microphone was passed to me I looked around and saw all these little faces starring back at me. Some waved, some smiled and some just starred.

The shoe boxes were already there, so our translators gathered the kids according to their groups. Boys and girls and then broke down to the age groups. I sat with the 2-4 year old girls, but there were many younger than that. Mothers were holding these small babies with handmade bonnets on their small heads. The mothers would look at me as I handed out shoe boxes to their little girls. My Spanish is very rusty so there was a lot of, "Hola" "Como estas?" and lots and lots of smiling on my end.

After the majority of the kids had gone through their boxes, I had small children running up to me smiling and saying, "Gracias!!" Then they would squeeze my legs. Mothers were hugging me. At this point I am so overwhelmed with emotions.

Right before our team left we prayed for the church and the school. By this point tears are running down my cheeks, with my head bowed I hear our team leader pray a beautiful prayer. And when we all said Amen, the pastor said he could cry but didn't want to because he was so happy. I looked up in time to see the kids of the school all pile in the bed of a truck sitting and standing.