St. Ignatius's The Eye: Volume LXXIX Number II

This past summer, I had the privilege of traveling to Ecuador on the school’s mission trip with Trevor Clark, Jordan Fishbach, Matt Niehaus, Drew Paskert, Pat Hyland, Ken Koncilja, Matt Fanous, Mr. Kelley, Fr. Guiao, SJ, and two students and a teacher from St. Francis Xavier High School in Manhattan. We braved seven-hours on a plane and a tenhour layover before arriving in Duran, Ecuador, a mid-sized city located just a mile or two from Ecuador’s commerce center, Guayaquil. We stayed in the Rostro de Cristo Foundation’s house located in a neighborhood near downtown Duran.
As Mr. Kelley and Fr. Guiao explained, the emphasis was not on doing something (like building a house or digging a well), but instead on forming relationships with the people, conversing with them, and understanding how they live. Much time was spent playing checkers at a neighbor’s house, getting dominated by eight year-olds at soccer, and having interesting conversations with the men of the town. However, we did paint the walls of a soup kitchen and tutor Ecuadorian children in several after-school programs.
The trip wasn’t meant to scare us, or to make us feel guilty, but the poverty was definitely appalling. Of course, there is no running water, so Ecuadorians get their water daily from a truck. Most people pirate their electricity, and the few people who do pay even show their electricity bills to prove their honesty. Without going into every detail of the trip, it suffices that this was by far my most memorable experience at Ignatius. Every time I sit down to a meal, each time I see aisles of pet food at the grocery store, I remember Ecuador. I really encourage all juniors to apply for a mission trip. Trust me, you won’t regret it.