Missionaries to Ecuador

The Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I leaned my hands against what was left of the creation story wall. I kept shutting my eyes in disbelief. Now it looked as though there was no hope to redo it at all. I could hear Jose behind me saying in Spanish, "Why God!? Why!?" All of us; the team of men helping us (who had just spent days, equipment, and who knows what else), people in the street, even cars passing by had stopped, all of us in total shock. The entire wall, we'd just spent uncountable amounts of time and energy on repairing for the third time, just came crashing down within minutes. Now what?

I went back in my mind to March, and remembered the original team who had come to paint the creation story on the Galapagos Islands. It was blistering hot, yet we all pressed on, through all that heat, sunburn, sweat, personality conflicts, camping with a multitude of huge spiders and bugs, destroyed clothes, and so much more... And I thought about the countless prayers, supporters, money... How could I let them down? I had really believed that God wanted those murals pronouncing His glory right in the birthplace of Darwinism. Rod, I and the girls had come back in June. I was ready to do a couple of new murals. I'd heard that there was just a bit of damage to two of the murals. So, imagine the dismay when I went to see for myself and found a great deal more than that. Only two murals remained untouched. Day Six, and Day Seven were in shreds. At first, when we met our hosting church in June, we talked of saving some of the murals. The men would strip the rest. We'd repaint the three murals, and that would be it. The first team of helpers did just that. But then, when we took a closer look, it revealed more problems. We decided to strip everything off and just start over. So several men from the church worked for several days with power tools, and by that Sunday it was ready, drying, and we had new primed walls! So, Monday we came with a team of men from the church and the Bond family. We began. Everyone was so dedicated that by the end of the day, all the borders, frames, and background colors were done. We were all exhausted, but happy. While scrubbing brushes in a water bucket, hunched over on the curb, I remember glancing at the corner of one of the walls and noticed a weird lump in the paint. Reaching over and picking curiously at it with my finger, my heart sank and I cried as the paint stuck to my finger and just started peeling. Did you ever get a facial mask and remember peeling it off? That's what it reminded me of. The more I peeled, the more came off. No one knew what to say. I guess Rod had had enough of the speculating. He and several men decided to have an emergency meeting. So I was sent home in a taxi in total discouragement.

That night, several hours later, Rod came back with another solution. This time, they'd conferred with some experts, even got an engineer to come and investigate. They all concluded that the wall was never prepared correctly in the first place. So, believe it or not, the next day, the men were back at it. Power sanders and all. This time, they took it off all the way down to the raw cement wall. Can you imagine people in the streets? They were now fascinated by what we were doing. I remember in particular two American tourists. They walked up to me and asked, "Ok honey. I just gotta ask. First, when we got here, there was this wall with pictures. Then there was white walls, then it looked like pictures, and now... Well, what exactly are you doing?" I was beginning to wonder that myself! Was I crazy and it was time to just give up? But then I remember our friend, Jose, coming to me and saying, "You know, we sure are learning a lot. I really believe we are in the middle of a spiritual war. Satan doesn't want the creation story here. Don't you agree?" Though a part of me just wanted to quit and go paint somewhere else, I really truly believe that is what was happening. And that reignited the flame within me.

So, the next day, I went back, ready to help and start rebuilding. When Rod and I arrived, all looked great, except for a very big hole at the end of the walls. Right through the cement, and so big you could see what looked like a painting in an ancient looking wall behind it. Now what was that!? I started running my hand over the wall, while Rod started tapping. We found another tiny hole and lots of cracks and as Rod tapped, he'd hear hollow sounds. We ran and grabbed Vicente, the construction expert. He came and looked and tapped. After several awkward moments he smiled uncomfortably and explained the wall was a thin wall of cement, built over an old one. It was weak, but if he cut the weaker sections out and then recemented them, it would work. What else could we do? Before we knew it, he'd gotten the power cement cutter and was literally cutting pieces of cement wall out. The more the painting underneath got exposed the more haunting the whole thing seemed to be. One man curiously went up and started tapping a crack as he'd been helping find the weak spots. To our utter horror, suddenly the entire wall started to crumble. So now you've caught up with where I started this story. It was then that I leaned my hands against the wall... Rod had gone to take a break while they cut. When I came to my senses, I left Jose expressing his disbelief, and frozen men just staring, and ran off to get Rod. He saw the despair in my face and so left me with his friend, while he went to see about what to do. I'll never forget his friend's words while I just sat there blank, and staring at my feet. He said, "Look, you just can't give up now. You've come too far. This story is too bizarre. You gotta keep fighting cause you will win. Besides, I want to see these pictures back up, I never got to see them before!" God used those words to once again give me energy I no longer had. I even laughed when Rod came back and said, "Get yourself something to drink, and sit back down. Then I'll give you the bad news." "Let me guess. The wall is coming down?" I heard myself asking. "Why yes!" He answered with a sarcastic chuckle. What was really ironic was the wall underneath, the original one. It was as solid as a rock, and had a Charles Darwin type of painting underneath. I could almost hear the enemy laughing and chanting, "HA HA! In your face! You creation story nut!" But that just fueled my strength. And so, once again, though this time totally exhausted, we started all over. This time as well, there was an unexplainable, and quickly growing joy in me, and everyone else as well. As the men sanded, and sanded, and sanded off that old painting, the wall just kept feeling more solid than ever. We somehow knew the tide had changed and we smelled victory in the air. They sanded all the way down to the original raw wall. The next day, Vicente, now equipped with the right materials, started to rebuild that wall to perfection. It was a beautiful thing to see, to feel with your hands, and to watch. I knew for sure now this was it.

Finally, after several days of priming, drying, and waiting to make sure all was right, we found ourselves painting "una vez mas" (one more time). A couple of men came and helped paint the border. Then we, the Bond gang, and a few come and go friends, did the rest. Rod was amazing with the frames, the letters, and second coats where needed. He and Rachel (who got really good at lettering herself), worked forever on the Bible verses, with the help of a few friends. Andrea took on the Day One, and Day Four murals, recreating them totally on her own. She and Rebecca Leon took on Day Three together. I did the rest. Not one of us could have done without the other. The attacks, however, just kept coming right until the very end. One day, while painting, I watched, and smelled, a very drunk man walking towards me. I remembered him. He'd been there several days earlier harassing Andrea in his drunken stuper. Now he was walking in my direction. I got the bright idea of telling him I couldn't speak Spanish. That way, I figured, he'd move on and I could keep working as we were running a bit close to the time when we were leaving. That sure did backfire on me big time. It made him enraged. He started screaming at me, and cussing me, calling me horrid names, and who knows what else. When I continued to keep my back to him, he started hitting me. That's when I turned to anyone watching, especially the guy who was helping us. "Huh, could someone help me? Please!?" It figures that Rod was off doing ministry work that paticular day too. They were all frozen in shock at what they were seeing. I seemed to be getting into the habit of shocking people lately. When I started pleading, he walked away. I thought he was gone, but OH NO! Within minutes, he wondered back, this time violently enraged. He started screaming for me to get out, and started pushing my shoulder aggressively. I was one of those cursed Americans, he screamed, I had to get out! That's when a very sweet, tiny, very tiny mind you, lady came running to my rescue and put herself between me and the man. She was my heroine. She started telling him to move on. Then turned to the man helping us paint and started yelling at him, why wasn't he helping me, a tourist lady trying to do something good for the island. Then she grabbed a cell phone and called the police, which sent the crazy man running. Of course, by the time they got there he was gone. But then again, everybody knows everybody on the island, so the police knew right away who he was. Whatever they said when they went to visit him worked, because after that when he'd pass, he'd walk fast, and never look. That is just one example of a long list of "strange" events that just seemed to float around us, right up until the time we left.

We found ourselves working on those walls right up until it was time to leave. Two days before we left we were putting on the final varnish. With two coats it felt like a wall of glass, and just glistened. It was finished! I went by the walls one more time on our last day. People were looking, reading every verse, some were taking pictures. And now the walls will be there for a long time. This is God's story. There is no way I could have done anything like this without Him. His guiding Hand was in every step, every tear, every lesson, every bit of the war. And He alone deserves all the Glory and Honor! He did create everything just the way He wrote it. Praise Him.


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