Safe and Sound

For those of you who are praying for our protection and safety, the Lord is answering your prayers. From our travels here, to all of our coming and going, we have been thus far without incident, thanks to the grace of God. (Well, that excludes a few water balloons being hurled our way…)

I would like to tell you a couple of the ways that God is answering our prayers for protection. Their names are Wilson and Efraín. Wilson is the driver of our buseta that comes to get each of us in the morning for classes at the Universidad de Azuay. Efraín works at the university – he’s the one who unlocks all the doors for us, turns on the projectors, and fixes the internet when it’s not working. Well, these two, among the many others here such as our host families and people at the church, have really been looking out for us.

Wilson is a funny guy. He’s probably in his mid- to late-twenties, and this bus/van that he drives is awesome. He has a built in DVD player and TV on which he has been playing his Michael Jackson DVD. I sit in the front so he and I can converse, so I can only listen to the songs while everyone else is watching the videos (but I’ve seen those videos so many times that I know what the song is before everyone else does!). The other day, Wilson asked if I knew what Michael Jackson was singing (because Wilson doesn’t speak or understand English). The song happened to be “Billie Jean,” so I explained that Michael was singing about a girl who was claiming to be his lover, but that she in fact was not. (I thought that was hilarious!) Anyway, Wilson was making sure that we had a way to where we needed to go after class. When I told him that we’d be taking a public bus, he made sure I knew which one to take. Also, since there is a lot of construction going on around the medical school (they are building a new hospital), he has been working to figure out the safest way to get us to the medical school entrance. For instance, since the exit is blocked for turning around, he stopped on the other side of the median to let us cross. He told me to tell the group to wait until all the cars went by us to get out. Well, we still had to cross a couple of lanes of basically highway, so the next day he said he wasn’t going to do that because he was too worried about us. We pass by the Verbo church each day on our way, so I asked if he had ever been. He hasn’t, so hopefully one of these days he will join us for a service.

And then there’s Efraín. He’s a raspy-voiced, rapid-talking, fast-walking Ecuadorian with a big heart. Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand him, but it’s not hard to understand the smile that he always has on his face. After the first day we met with our professor (last Friday), he asked how we were getting to the next place we needed to be. I told him that we’d be taking the bus, so he wanted to know where we going and which bus we were planning to take. We told him we were going to head to the mall, so he told us that we needed the #16. He proceeded to walk with us all the way to the bus stop and made sure the bus driver dropped us off where we needed to go. This week, we went to the Foundation each day after class, so we took the #13 bus. One of the days, Efraín walked out with us where we were waiting for the bus, and he told us that it wasn’t safe where we were standing so he walked us over to where he said was more safe (past where cars were exiting). He proceeded with his usual reminders of not going anywhere alone and staying in groups and hiding our valuables. He is so kind to take time out of his day to make sure that we safely get from point A to point B, as well as to make sure that we are staying together wherever we go.

I have really been astounded by the kindness of the people we have encountered. Certainly much of the courtesy we experience is cultural – people are very welcoming in general. But it goes beyond that. I am amazed that someone who doesn’t even know this group of gringos would go out of his way to walk with us for 10 minutes just to make sure we catch the right bus. My hope is that we can find some way to show the same sort of kindness—even love—to these people, in the way that they need it most.