Personal June 2021
Updated: Sep 13, 2021
All of you, dear people, who receive this newsletter, already know a lot about us. This time, we want to tell you what many may not know yet.
We became aunties and uncles and cousins in Ecuador! How it works?
Shortly before we traveled here, my sister Judith and her boyfriend Dominic told us the good news - a baby is on the way. And then she was born at the beginning of this year, the little lady named Rosalie ! That was the weekend Olivia and I were about to catch a flight home. We were just crying, half with joy and half because we clearly believe that families should be together at such happy events. There are a whole bunch of people that we miss in Austria and, as Hubert von Goisern puts it so nicely, “heast as ned, how time flies”.
Yes, with children we are probably most aware that time flies. We have a lovely bunch of nieces, nephews, and gota / godchildren who grow and thrive without us around. How lucky that the children's parents represent us well on site.
When Olivia asked why we were staying longer, the answer came clearly to me: because we are not finished with Ecuador, with Pan de Vida and with our work here. Since then, a list has been hanging in the kitchen with everything we still have open. The children diligently helped to fill the list. "When we've checked everything, we'll fly home, at the latest!" Olivia agreed.
We have become more active ...
The corona regulations have challenged us again and again in the past few months! Ecuador, a country where people always greeted each other with a hug, became a country full of rules to keep your distance. For us as foreigners, as strangers, it was not easy to come into contact and to build friendships.
I am convinced that social closeness is healthy and absolutely necessary for a good development of the children!
Since it was always impossible to gather in the church, we started to invite people to our house on Sundays to celebrate worship.
Since the school was only online for so many weeks, we always invited the children's friends to our house for school. I've started to hug everyone who needs it, with or without a mask!
We are not afraid of contacts because we have noticed how lonely and poor it makes us when we have no contacts.
So I can tell you that we have made dear friends here, with whom we spend time together, talk about God and the world, cook for each other, read the Bible together, sing, the children play together. We are very grateful for all these encounters.
We experience moments that overwhelm us and do not let go
It's nice to write this newsletter, flip through the photos and see what has happened, how God is leading, how rich the time is for us.
In our memory, however, there are also moments of which we cannot show you a photo, of stories that we do not know how they were continued to be written.
One such moment, which I cannot remember, happened a few weeks ago. There was an absolute curfew for the weekend. And I went shopping with the boys on Friday evening to stock up for the weekend. There was a lot of traffic on the way there, because others had the same idea. In the middle of the swarm of cars we saw a whole family standing on a traffic island asking for alms. They had been there on the narrow strip for many hours, two small children slept on the dirty grass with their heads on plastic bags. These destitute families live in extreme poverty. And they were cornered by the current curfew regulation, because if two days are lost with an income of $ 1.50 per person per day, that's devastating. But we drove past them on the other side. On the way back we wanted to bring them groceries.
When we left the shop packed with groceries, it was already dawn. We packed bread and fruit in a separate bag ready to give to the family. And then we drove back. In the meantime it had become quiet on the street. We were pretty late. And when we got closer to the spot, the family had gone too. “Where do they sleep?” Asked Jakob. "I have no idea" ... I just didn't know. I drove slowly, but there was no one to be seen nearby either. In the meantime it was really dark and high time to go home. Somehow I was also happy not to have to stop on the road bike anymore. The rumors of robberies, especially on cars, have been increasing recently. So I drove on. And there I saw in the rearview mirror, very close to the place in the middle of the roundabout, that someone had probably collected several posters from the presidential election. It looked like a small enclosure with a poster for a lid. And at that very moment the poster that formed the cover rose. And I saw a little face looking out A child younger than Hannes, with twisted hair. And then it ducked back under the crate. I drove on. "They sleep with their young children on the roundabout under the election posters." I shot it. I was scared, had to watch out for the traffic, the exit and I drove on. I didn't do anything ... and I think about that often. And I saw a little face looking out A child younger than Hannes, with twisted hair. And then it ducked back under the crate. I drove on. "They sleep with their young children on the roundabout under the election posters." I shot it. I was scared, had to watch out for the traffic, the exit and I drove on. I didn't do anything ... and I think about that often. And I saw a little face looking out A child younger than Hannes, with twisted hair. And then it ducked back under the crate. I drove on. "They sleep with their young children on the roundabout under the election posters." I shot it. I was scared, had to watch out for the traffic, the exit and I drove on. I didn't do anything ... and I think about that often.
I didn't see her on other days either ... I couldn't recognize her among all the people asking for help on Quito's streets.
Again and again we experience ourselves in such moments of overwhelm and I pray that every single situation will touch us in the future. That we do not become numb and that we learn to make good decisions and to act!
We are Daniel Metzler, Sylvia Metzler, Jakob Metzler, Olivia Metzler, Hannes Metzler.
Learn more about mustard seed | The Metzler family at Pan de Vida in Ecuador
https://www.feg-dornbirn.at/willkommen/unser-team/in-ecuador/
https://www.hilfedieankom.at/de/projekte/entwicklungshilfe/pan-de-vida