Here’s another response from someone who took our last trip to Ecuador.  As you can tell what they were asked to do (summarize their experience) isn’t an easy task, but you certainly get a taste for their heart, their soul, and their desire to honor God above all else.  This was one written by Karl Gnadt.  I hope you enjoy!

Here’s Karl:

JP has asked me to put into a few words our experience in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He might as well have asked me to explain Quantum Chromo-Dynamics, which is the theory of quarks and fluons, in one sentence. That would be easier. I’m still in the process of trying to wrap my brain around the whole experience – it was truly life-changing for me. I feel like I’ve seen behind the curtain, and now that I know the truth, I can no longer go on living in ignorance. But bear with me…I truly haven’t landed from this experience yet, so my thoughts and ideas about it are still fluid.

Before I get into it though, I’d like to publicly thank Dan Ray. Dan had been scheduled to go on this trip, but because of some last minute conflicts, he couldn’t make it. Instead of taking the refund, he graciously asked JP to find a fill-in, at his cost. Dan, I will never be able to thank you enough for this opportunity. You changed my life…

Here’s where I am: in some respects, I’m thinking that living in the United States is a curse. Oh, I don’t mean that I’ve become some Anti-Patriot. I love my country, I love my friends, and I most certainly love my family. I’m grateful for the opportunities that are available to me and every other citizen here. But here’s the thing. If you look around our country that, on the surface, seems to be so full of blessings, what do you see? Depression. Despair. Amorality. Immorality. Debt. Greed. Jealousy. Abuse. Dishonesty. And that’s only a partial list. We seem to be living under the curse of success.

We have so much compared to the people we were with in Guayaquil. The difference is startling. How many cars do we have? How big is our home? What incredible variety of food do we have to eat? How many different pairs of pants do each of us have? Are you covered by a health plan? Because they don’t even have running water in their homes. They don’t have bathrooms – they use outdoor latrines (at the home visit I went to, their latrine was overflowing with rivulets of effluent running back toward their home). Some places don’t have electricity. No glass on their windows, and no doors. Certainly nothing resembling air conditioning.

But these people, wow, what they can teach us about true joy. What they can teach us about true community. What they can teach us about a true servant’s heart. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The children we spent time with at the project site and at the home visits were just incredible! What love they have to share!

This experience pierced my heart and I’ll never be the same. I don’t mean that I’m going to give everything away and go live in squalor. And I’m certainly not trying to make others feel guilty about what they have. To me, the real lesson that I took away is that I am, in fact, ungrateful. And I aim to change that attitude.