The Wesley Foundation campus ministry at C.U.- Boulder’s Alternative Spring Break Work Trip for 2009 had us going to a tiny village outside of the town of Santa Ana which is near Portoveijo, Ecuador!  Due to the weak economy (people’s tight finances), we had a smaller number of students participate this year.  However, this year’s work-trip was amazing.  Much personal growth was experienced by all who participated.  Our crew consisted of four C.U. students, a high school senior (a cousin of one of the students), a parent of one of the students, as well as the pastor of Wesley Foundation campus ministry at C.U. Boulder on the trip.  We worked to revitalized the Escuela Simon Bolivar - an elementary school which has 75 students that didn’t have running water or sanitary bathrooms.

We worked with a crew of local laborers to dig a 60 foot well using a hand auger (no kidding).  This was grueling work and required erecting a 75 foot bamboo pole with a pulley mounted to it to help us raise the heavy steel auger out of the ground as we added extensions to it.  It took 5 people to work the auger (one sitting on top to serve as weight) and we removed about 1 1/2 feet of dirt at a time.

We installed a 60 foot length of plastic piping into the well.  After we left, the locals installed a pump in the well and another at the top of a holding basin on a platform which will serve as a mini water tower.  The water from the well will be used in the bathrooms at the school to provide running water for toilets, sinks and showers.  We also painted the inside and outside walls of the school with fresh coats of oil and latex based paints.

We also removed the badly deteriorated and hole-riddled roofing of the school.  The mayor of Santa Ana arranged for a local crew to install new roofing and to rebuild and extend the existing bathrooms for both boys and girls.  The new bathrooms will feature 2 toilets for boys and 2 for girls; sinks; and showers (previously, it was merely an outhouse).   The group voted to donate even more of our own money to help purchase supplies and materials for the project and many of us left much of our clothing behind as donations.  The students worked well with the local laborers and several of them had the chance to utilize their Spanish speaking skills to serve effectively as interpreters for the rest of us and for the locals.

Our lodging was provided by the hospitality of the Vega family who live in that village.  We stayed in a guest home in their compound which was effectively a bamboo and wooden hut on stilts - sort of a glorified tree-house with a toilet that worked by pouring water into the back of the tank after each flush.  We enjoyed numerous delicious and nourishing meals provided by the family - including homemade coffee, fruits, rice, eggs, chicken, and chocolate which they grew and raised on their farm. We enjoyed interacting with their extended family who all live near that home - especially with the children.

We also took in several field trip excursions including: shopping at a market and visiting monuments in Montecristi; swimming in the ocean on a beach in Manta; a trip to a beautiful national park; and a challenging hike/climb in the jungle to explore some waterfalls.    We were the talk of the town and became mini-celebrities.  A story was written about us in the local paper and we were featured on a regional TV newscast.  We met with the mayor of Santa Ana and were treated as VIPs at a political rally and block party event and we came very close to meeting the president of Ecuador who is a close friend of the Mayor's (the president arrived to that political rally weekend the day after we visited it).  The mayor and several other prominent persons also attended a special send-off party that was thrown in our honor the night before we departed.  The students all grew in many ways of the trip.  They learned new skills, discovered that they were capable of hard physical work, and teamed-up effectively with people from a different culture and who speak a different language. We returned with new friends, great memories (including lots of jokes and laughs), a sense of accomplishment, a deepened sense of humility, and a new perspective about what really matters in life.   Many thanks to the Vega family for their generous hospitality; to the folks at ELI for coordinating the program www.eliabroad.org ; to God and Jesus for inspiring and motivating this work-trip; and to the many generous donors who help support the work of the Wesley Foundation at C.U.-Boulder.

             We at Wesley would like to say thank you the people of the Rocky Mountain Conference and all of you who support our campus ministry to help make these transformative Spring Break Work Trips possible!