Annual Team Conference
It has been a crazy month, March 3rd marked my first full month in Ecuador! That same weekend, I also went to my first ATC (Annual Team Conference). I got to meet everyone who works for Youth World that weekend which was both exciting and overwhelming. The weekend consisted of four main sessions (all Spanish!) and two break out sessions (options in English thankfully). I was really nervous going into this weekend because I had only been in language school for less than a month, but I ended up being able to understand and didn’t need a translator for the main sessions! While Spanish is still one of the toughest things about being here, being able to get through that weekend was a huge encouragement and blessing from God.
Feliz Cumpleaños
I celebrated my first birthday here in Ecuador on the 13th. Honestly, it was really hard. I still hadn’t made many friends, and I really didn’t feel like celebrating. All of my past birthdays had been spent with people who loved and knew me deeply. I’d only been here for a month, and it kind of felt like I was celebrating with strangers (the language barrier makes it so much harder to get to know someone). It is also the first birthday where I had no idea what to expect. Every past birthday, I feel like I had an idea of what the coming year held, but this year is a complete mystery. This is really exciting, but also terrifying. I feel a lot better about it now, but it took a while to get here.
Now, I can’t wait to see what this year brings. The Lord has a completely blank canvas for this year and I hope he does something exceptional!
Language School Updates
The end of this month marks my being halfway through with my intensive language learning portion of language school. I have finished half of my 240 hours, and should finish the remaining hours sometime mid-May. I can tell that my Spanish is improving, but it feels like such slow progress. Please continue to pray for my language acquisition and confidence to use it. I am finally able to order food and go shopping, and I’ve started to have deeper conversations with my host family! I’m really looking forward to being able to do life in Spanish and to have deep, relational conversations completely in Spanish!
Prayer Requests
• Language Learning and all God wants to do through it
• One of my friends is pregnant and is at risk of having to have an emergency C-section, please pray that God blesses her and that baby continues to grow!
• Please pray for my host family, I can’t be super specific, but we could really use the Lord’s peace, presence, and love right now!
• Please pray for my health – I’ve been sick 3 times in 8 weeks and it’s really hard to have the energy to be present and learn when I am feeling so sick
Answered Prayers
• I’ve been feeling energized lately and don’t need to nap everyday!
• My host mom and I have started connecting and growing a deeper relationship
• I have started to make friendships with my coworkers and people at church