Expect the Unexpected: My tale of a very unusual Sunday

Sunday October 28th started out like any other. The plan for the day was to go to Yungilla* with my boss, get back in the afternoon, and go to church. This all happened, but not according to plan. What I expected was to meet his family, enjoy a nice meal and small talk, and come back to Cuenca safe and sound. What happened was.....

(*Yungilla is a nice warm town in the mountains 90 minutes away where many people have vacation homes)

***Quick disclaimer: this is not intended to be negative towards anybody or anything (my boss is great and I really like him), I just found humor in how everything I expected happened another way***

The plan was to get to my boss’s apartment at 9:30 am and get to Yungilla at 11 or so. I arrived late to my boss’s, and he informed me that he had a flat tire. So as we went to fix the tire, we hit a road block because the jack we had didn’t go high enough (we later found out there was an extra part to it that was hidden). So we searched his parking garage for something to put under the jack to get it higher, all the while moving to keep the motion sensor lights activated.

Forty-five minutes later, the tire was on and ready to go. Or so I thought.

We drove to the other side of town and picked up Luis’s mom who definitely gave Luis his looks. After we washed our dirty-change-a-tire hands at her house, we left for Yungilla---or in actuality the tire store.

As Luis’s mom and I waited in the car while Luis got the tire patched, we exchanged stories about pets and travel experiences, as well as talked about the kids riding their big chopper-style bikes by and how dangerous they were.

Twenty-five minutes later, we departed for a fun-filled afternoon in Yungilla.

The ride to Luis’s mom’s property in Yungilla was uneventful and filled with Sunny brand mango juice, ham sandwiches, and my boss’s favorite 80’s music (and I learned that in fact Video did kill the Radio star).

When we pulled into the side street where the property was, we got another flat tire. This time we were fashioned professionals and began the same routine that we finished two hours prior. We quickly realized that the jack would not go high enough and we did not have the rocks that we used in his parking garage to prop it up.

So we flagged down a man in a pick-up truck for assistance.

He quickly helped us and showed us how our jack actually worked. Nice guy.

Then we made off for their house.

When we arrived at their house, I quickly realized that this “house” was a “shack” and it was only sort of “theirs”. My boss’s mom rents her property and the purpose of our excursion was to collect the rent and discuss the rental contract.

Don’t think that at any time during this story that I had a bad attitude, because I was enjoying just chillin’, talking with my boss, and having time to think and process my experience her so far in Ecuador.

After the time here that involved: learning about mango fruit, seeing the head of a pig hanging from a tree by a rope, and feeling grateful for all God has given me, we left, assumably for a nice restaurant.

But before the restaurant, we went to get the tire fixed another time. While my boss was inside talking with the tire people, I had a chance to discuss religion with his mother.

His mom, a Catholic, has some very typical Catholic beliefs. She says that she “respects” the Virgin Mary and that is why she has pictures of her places and little statues, not to worship but to “respect”. I asked why she thought it mattered, and she repeatedly stressed the fact that “She’s God’s mom, she’s important”.

I then asked her if she was 100% sure that when she dies she will go to heaven. She never flat out answered me, but she said that she does good things and God will like that. I shared Ephesians 2:8-9 (For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.) in my own words and she agreed and talked about asking for forgiveness and repentance, but never said that she was 100% sure that she would go to heaven. An excerpt from Ray Comfort’s blog sums grace/repentance/salvation up perfectly,

“The way to partake of the grace of God is through repentance, but repentance doesn't save us. If it did, we wouldn't need a Savior. Think of it like this. A man is in a rowboat that’s about to go over Niagara Falls. Someone throws him a rope. He turns towards the rope, and then grabs it in faith. Will that save him? No. He turned. He took hold of the rope in faith. But if the person on the other end isn’t pulling on the rope, he’s still going over the falls.”

She also shared that she thinks the Bible’s writers “exaggerated a little” and that she doesn’t read it much because she reads works by Catholic writers instead.

Anyways, be praying for her to read the Bible and believe in Jesus, and also the people around us who I think over heard the conversation (at one point one of the people was looking at me like they were listening).

I feel like that conversation was another answer to the Prayer of Jabez that I try to pray every day from 1 Chronicles 4:10, “Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!" And God granted him what he requested.”

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After the tire store we went to go “get some food”. What I expected to be a restaurant turned out to be a convenience store. But hey yogurt and Oreos are delicious.

The uneventful drive home provided a nice time to think and be thankful for everything God has done for me here so far in Ecuador and in life in general.

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When we arrived back in Cuenca, I went to my Cuencan grandmother’s apartment to help her move. Walking up and down 3 flights of stairs is a great time. I reminisced about the end of the school year last year, when the other Wengatz PA’s and I moved out all of the furniture from the dorm in the dark since the power was out, able to see only by the light of headlights.

Then I tried to catch a bus from my grandmother’s house to the church. After I saw 2 bus #27s, 28s, 3 # 7s, and 5 #11s, I decided the 15 wasn’t worth waiting for, so I took a cab.

Being the bulletin-passer-outer-guy was all I hoped for and more.

Church went well, and after that my family picked me up and we went to go pick up our dog from the vet, who had a cyst in on of her nipples. Pretty sweet huh.

The vet had dungeon like dimensions in the basement where we found our sweet Daisy, who happened to be sharing a room with a bald monkey using an IV.

Arriving home was exciting because now I could be with my family, take a shower, and go to bed.

As I entered my room, flipped on the light, and got ready for a shower nothing seemed strange. I thought about my strange day and thought the day of surprises was over.

But when I left my room to go turn the hot water on, I noticed a giant spider right by my light switch.

It took me a moment or two to realize it was real and not one of those plastic Halloween ones and managed to take a picture of it before we splattered its brains all over the floor.

THE END

In other news, this week myself and the other Taylor students are going to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands, which I am told is the home of the coolest beach in the world because the animals (iguanas, penguins, tortoises, sharks, sea lions) are so friendly that humans can go up to them and interact. I’m pumped.