Up until today, Ecuador has seemed so very far away--both physically and mentally. I am in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I have been here for the last four months. I have spent time on the border, talking to undocumented migrants and maquila workers. I have climbed through Aztec ruins at Xochicalco and Teotihuacan. I have been a participant in a Nahua ceremony, where we prayed to all four directions, the earth and sky and our hearts. I have met with the only lesbian woman to serve in the Mexican government. I have walked in El Mazote, El Salvador, where 1000 people, mostly women and children, were massacred by U.S. trained death squads. Mexico and El Salvador gifted me with so much knowledge, so much newness--the least I could do was be present to them.

Even now it seems absurd that I have more in store for me. How did I get picked for such opportunities? Ecuador is almost here now, because tomorrow I leave for the states for Christmas, and then in 10 days, hop on another plane back south. You know that phrase ´going south´? That does not make any sense to me anymore. Going south, apparently, means something bad--but the south has only ever been something through which I see such goodness, such beauty, such awareness, as I understand God to be.

That is my question now--how does God reveal God´s self through the land and people of Ecuador? How can I, a person of privilege, accompany and be witness to the current struggles in the Oriente, not in authority or charity or but in solidarity? How can I reach out to a people without tokenizing or conquering them? How is their struggle my own?

And curiously, I would not have been able to ask these questions before being soaked in Mexico for a while. Each new episode resolves questions, but always brings new ones. I am curious and very excited to see what Ecuador asks me, and asks of me. And, saying goodbye to Mexico, I am ready now.