The Best Year of My Life

Just over a year ago, I said goodbye to my friends, family, and culture. I stepped onto that plane and there was no going back. I had no idea what changes that year would bring to me. It changed the way I look at things, the way I think about them. That year was the best and worst year of my life.

Flying to a country bzillions of miles away –a country I’d never been to.

The tiny clusters of villages and towns that became my entire world.

Learning the water we couldn’t drink versus the water we could—sometimes the hard way.

The hundreds of thousands of itchy bug bites that drove me insane.

The shower that either froze you into an ice cube or scalded you into a pressure cooked tomato.

 Helping build the cabin we stayed in—the dust, the blisters, and smelling like lacquer for days.

The trips we took to Quito, Banos, Ambato, Otovalo, Archidona, Puyo, Tena, Misahualli, Puca-Chicta, Pusuno, Pununo, Campa-Cocha, and Shirri- Puno.

The bugs—beetles, caterpillars, butterflies, cockroaches, spiders— everywhere, the stings, the stinks.

Going to the Sunday Night Bible Study, Girls’ Bible Study, and listening to Guys’ Bible Study from my loft.

My going from being home-schooled to public, from public to private, from private to home-schooled.

The people we made friends with: Ecuadorians, Italians, Peruvians, Argentinians, Americans, Australians, French, Columbians, the Chileans.  

Getting over the “cute” monkeys that stole our ice creams, lunches, sodas, and groceries.

Climbing up ladders into the tiny bedrooms of villagers with new babies and giving them diapers and clothes.

Hiking through the jungle to scout out another missionaries new land.

Having different families over to the cabin every other Wednesday for dinner.

Trying new foods—slimy and gooey, all of them: Cacao, Mangoes, Guanabaya, Guaba.

Putting together the Bible verse slides and being a shepherd with three boys, and three “sheep” in the living nativity.

The hours of canoe rides though the Napo and Misahualli rivers, and the tributaries that run into them.

The bottles of soda and boxes of pills we went through with the medical teams I went with.

The days spent inside during the Halloween, Christmas, New Years, and Carnival festivals and the drinking and gun shots outside of the cabin.

The one trip to McDonald’s while we were in Quito- the Big Mac, fries, and large Coca-Cola.

Drinking hot sauce, eating glue, skipping classes, having mud fights, and doing each other’s homework.

The visits to the Big Tree, hundreds of years old, hundreds of feet high, and hundreds of feet wide.

Going to the markets, making sure we got a fair price, and translating for my parents.

Talking to the waitress at our favorite restaurant—the only safe one in town—and eating Green Banana Soup.   

Helping in skits for the elementary school age kids, manning the technical problems, and running the slides on the big screen for the lessons.

Acting in the dramas in Misahualli and Tena, the practices, the costumes, the props.

Making chocolate—harvesting, drying, roasting, shelling, grinding, mixing, and eating.

Packing an average of sixteen people into another missionary’s SUV to go to Tena, and more than once.

Eating dinner at the chief of Shirri-Puno’s house—a huge honor—without plumbing or electricity.

Seeing all together about five or six boas and anacondas, and getting to hold two of them!

I made friends, and when one of us was going through a rough time, all of us were.

All the challenges, the struggles, the disappointments, the heartbreaks—it was worth it. I learned more this past year than I learned in all the years before combined. That year was the best year of my life.