Tim's work trip to Lago Agrio

Even though I tell people I'm a radio trainer, sometimes that isn't the best description.  Basically, my job is to work with Christian radio stations in the Americas and help them do their jobs better.  Last week I had the opportunity to fly with my co-worker Manuel to Lago Agrio, a small city in the heart of northeastern Ecuador's oil country only an hour from Columbia.  We gave training workshops on topics from how to talk on the radio to how to pick subject matter that your audience wants to hear.  It's hard for me to do this in Spanish!  But this is why I'm here, that and to put together more materials for the radio training dept. at HCJB Global.  The people in our sessions were super-nice and lots of fun -- many were brand new to radio but had plenty of enthusiasm.

Lago Agrio is on the edge of the Amazon jungle and when we landed it was 30 degrees (Celsius!) and really humid.  Sometimes it rained super hard, sometimes not, but it was always humid.  Manuel kept laughing at me as the sweat poured down my face ("dripping" with sympathy), but thank God for A/C at our hotel!  (I know, I'm weak)  It was a great time, very challenging, and we also had some great cultural experiences...which included a boa constrictor and eating potatoes with sheep intestines (mmm).  Somehow we also ended up in the car of the hotel owner for a visit to her villa property to chill out with her four pit bulls.  We were also in town for the start of Carnaval, as people throw water balloons at innocent passers-by and spray them with party foam/silly string. 

I try not to take for granted how blessed I am to see another part of the world that most haven't and probably never will.  As we took off to head home, I just looked out at the miles of jungle without any clearings or roads; just tree after tree all crammed together, and I wondered why God made it that way.  Not only that, but people also live there, and they maybe couldn't imagine God being in a "city" place with cars and concrete and fake lights and all that noise.  Ps. 89:11 -- "The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it."

Tim