I wasn't really sure what to expect with living in host family in Shiroles.
It's not as "remote" and "poor" as I thought it was going to be in Shiroles. They live simply, but are not poor. They know how to live with what they have. The contrast between here and home is huge, though. While they live simply, largely in North America we live excessively. I have been enjoying living more simply.
We are staying with one of the pastor's sons and his family. (Dad, mom, 8 year old son, and 14 year old sister of the mom). It has been so good living with them. Any expectations that I had have been completely blown out of the water. Their house is nice and clean and simple. I'm sharing a room with a girl from my team named Kelsey. Much to our surprise, our host family set up bug nets around the beds for us! Which was a relief because I wasn't sure how I was going to set up my big net since it didn't come with anything useful for hanging it.
They are so welcoming to us and have told us that if we need anything we can just ask and they have really emphasized that we are a part of their family.
We have been living with them for 5 days now and it's been interesting and a little challenging finding our place in the family. Slowly it's been becoming better, I think as we all become more accustomed to each other. Since we haven't started our volunteer work yet, we've been home all day just hanging out. Throughout the day I ask our mom if she needs help with anything and I've been able to help with cleaning the house and preparing meals with her. I also just ask her questions about she's making it about other things. Sometimes it can be a little awkward with the language barrier, but it keeps things interesting!
We've gone on little adventures with our family, like visiting the school, going swimming in the river, and picking mamóns which are a type of fruit.
On Saturday they brought us to a house where there were a lot of different families and kids. We were there for close to four hours. We ate lots of food and talked and laughed. Kelsey and I thought they were just hanging out, having some good community time. It wasn't until about a half hour before we left, they started singing "happy birthday". Then we realized we had been at a birthday party the whole time. Me and Kelsey had a good laugh about that, because it took us almost 4 hours to figure out why we were there!
The other day our family told us that they were going to the church and we could come if we wanted to. So we went expecting a Bible study or something of the sort. We arrived at the church to find out that they had come to do yard work at the pastor's house. It turns out they are missionary pastors and we had the privilege of speaking English with white people who weren't on our team. I was very excited about this! While our host family helped them with their yard work, Kelsey helped the missionary daughter with her geometry and I helped Kathy (her mom) with frosting cupcakes. I was very happy with this arrangement since I am absolutely terrible with math! It was really good to spend the afternoon with them and to hear how God had called Kathy to be a missionary.
These last 5 days with our host family have been really nice and relaxing, but I'm looking forward to starting our volunteer work! We will be helping at the public school, working in the kitchen and doing some gardening as well as helping at the local chocolate factory called "La Casa de Mujeres".
Since we have had a lot of free time, I've also been able to do quite a bit of Bible ready and praying. God has been teaching me a lot! One of the big things that he has been teaching me is about being intentional. I've found that this is really important when you live with a family who doesn't speak the same language. It is true that my actions speak louder than my words and I am learning more about the importance of loving others with my actions.
James 2:18 says, "But someone may well say 'You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.'"
If I believe that we need to love our neighbour as ourselves, then that should be seen through my actions. I want to reflect God's love through my actions and right now that means being ready and willing to help with anything, whether it's pulling chicken meat off the bones, cutting up vegetables or sweeping and mopping the floors. It's not always easy for me to have a ready and willing heart to serve others. I've had to ask God to help me with that, because often times I want to be selfish and don't want to help. But I know that this is important and it's something that I want to grow in. So it's a good thing that our Father is the ultimate teacher and he is just waiting for us to ask him to teach us.
In short, the jungle is great and in learning lots!
As always, thank you for reading and thank you for your prayers!
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