We Visit Guayaquil English Congregation

 

This past weekend we travelled down to Guayaquil English congregation for Brendan to give the public talk there. It’s a new arrangement to try to get brothers from different places to give talks elsewhere. And a good excuse for us to go visit another English congregation.

Normally, Guayaquil is a place Brendan and I try to avoid unless we have good reason to go there – it’s a large, crazy, hot and humid city, (need I go on?) but 3 million people choose to live there. It’s a 3 - 3 1/2 hour trip to the bus depot (plus finding our way to the Kingdom Hall from there) so we decided to go down on the Saturday, as the meeting time of 10 am Sunday would mean a very early morning if we travelled down on Sunday.

We decided to travel down this time by van or shuttle or bussetta (little bus). The advantages over a “normal” bus are that the van companies are close to our place, about 20 minutes’ walk; they are clean and quick and leave around every hour. The “normal” buses take a while longer as they stop all along the way to pick up anyone who waves down the bus. And the main bus terminal in Guayaquil is HUGE and is three levels high. A van trip costs $12, while the normal buses are around $8.00.

Brendan outside the van company we travelled with

So, Brendan and I and 3 other passengers (the vans would hold a maximum of 7-8 passengers) travelled in our little van down to Guayaquil. At first, when we were zipping through Cuenca I was a bit concerned about whether or not I was going to feel travel sick, as most van and bus drivers like to drive at crazy speeds and most of the trip between Cuenca and Guayaquil is up and down and round and round through the Andes mountains. But, he turned out to be a fast but good driver, and we got there in around 3 hours.

Just outside of Cuenca – lovely countryside

A random piece of scenery on the way

We actually saw about 8-10 llamas in a “pack” on the way

 

The tail end of the llama episode

Where we stopped on the way down to Guayaquil – there are various food and bathroom places along the way

Coming into Guayaquil – it always seems to be overcast when we’ve gone there

I km from Guayaquil, 3 kms from Terminal Terrestre, or the main bus terminal

The congregation had arranged for us to stay overnight with a family who have a little Bed and Breakfast – one of their daughters is in the English congregation – so the Mum of the family came and picked us up from the van terminal and took us back to their place.

Brendan wandering in the little back yard – behind him is the little 2-bedroom unit where we and another couple stayed for the night

While we were there, another Witness couple (he is Danish, she is Norwegian) arrived, who live an hour or so from Cuenca. We hadn’t met them before, but they are friends of a Danish brother in our congregation (he has a block of land next to where they live), and they are in the same congregation as friends of ours who we are going to visit (and go country witnessing with) at the end of this month. They are in a country congregation an hour and a half from Cuenca. (It promises to be fun and blog-worthy, so stay tuned!)

The next morning we travelled by car with the daughter of the family to the Kingdom Hall. Their Kingdom Hall is in a nice spot – it actually has trees outside and along the street!! (I get excited by trees and grass and flowers – they are very few and far between in the part of Cuenca where we live – and most of Guayaquil also has lots of concrete and not much greenery). There is car parking underneath the hall, and it’s too bad if you are late to the meeting, as the gates downstairs are locked for security reasons once the meeting begins. The hall seems to be a lot newer than ours and is in a quiet street, which is nice, as our hall in Cuenca is on a busy road and generally the noise outside makes its way inside.

The front of the Guayaquil English congregation Kingdom hall

Looking out onto the street from the Kingdom Hall

Another street view from up top

The make-up of the Guayaquil English congregation is rather different from the Cuenca English congregation. Our congregation is mostly made up of “foreigners” to Ecuador, with only a handful of Ecuadorians who speak English. The Guayaquil congregation is the exact opposite. They have 38 publishers, 10 of whom work at Bethel - 3 are members of the Branch Committee, and 2 are members of the Service Committee - 8 elders, no ministerial servants and most of those in the congregation are regular pioneers. There were maybe 5 foreigners and the rest were Ecuadorians. Something I found interesting is that they use the simplified study edition of the Watchtower, whereas in Cuenca we use the “original” edition.

Inside of the Kingdom Hall and various brothers and sisters – a bit blurry – oops.

Once the meeting was over, one of the Bethel sisters gave us a packed lunch, and drove us to the van terminal for our trip back to Cuenca.

We had a different driver this time, which started off okay, but once we got to the mountains, then the feelings of foreboding and travel sickness started to settle in (Brendan was fine, grrrr). It wasn’t so much the twists and turns, but the fact that the driver’s foot was on and off the brake the whole time. It was pretty much touch and go whether I was going to make it or not, but fortunately we got to the terminal without anything revolting happening.

Straight road – the sort we like!

Winding roads – not the sort we like!

So, it was an interesting trip, and nice to meet the brothers and sisters in the Guayaquil English congregation, but I don’t mind if it’s a while before they ask us to go back again!