Big Daddy Weave – Ecuador Trip
World Vision for CCM Magazine
By Wendy Lee Nentwig
This big-hearted band ventures to South America so they can help others see how a few dollars have the power to change a life.
Ecuador happened like so many other things that have come Big Daddy Weave's way: An opportunity presented itself and the band was willing.
In this case, World Vision issued an invitation to see their work firsthand, and Mike Weaver, his brother Jay and their bandmates knew it was time to leave the comfort of America and have their worldview expanded in ways they couldn't imagine. That's how these Alabama boys found themselves flying south this past winter with willing hearts, open minds and an emergency stash of Doritos.
"I don't know that you're ever fully ready for where God wants to take you," Mike Weaver says, "but I think the Lord had started preparing me even before I went, giving me a sense of Thanksgiving." It was an attitude he and his fellow travelers would need to rely on frequently as they spent hours in a van driving up bumpy mountain roads to remote locations.
Once they arrived, though, the ride was all but forgotten in the excitement of meeting the kids. "Because of the altitude, we saw these little faces coming out of the clouds toward us," Mike recalls. Their skin was chapped from the wind and the cold, and most of them had walked two-and-a-half hours to get to school, but the children had nothing but smiles for their visitors. Big Daddy Weave's group was also met by the school's principal, who was excited to show them what God had done there through World Vision.
"They showed us this school," Mike remembers, "and to our American eyes it looked like nothing, but they were celebrating." Some of the parents had even come, making that same long trip up the mountain just to say 'thank you.' It was an experience that had Mike fighting back tears, not wanting to offend anyone by crying over how little they had.
It was just one of many times the Americans would be humbled by the people they met in Ecuador. Despite the language barrier – "the high five was my only method of communication," Mike says – Big Daddy Weave was able to clearly comprehend the difference World Vision was making in this poverty-stricken country. In many areas where children are sponsored, crime has decreased 60 percent, and in every region where World Vision is working, chaos and aimlessness have been replaced by hope and purpose.
Witnessing those changed communities firsthand has made a huge difference in how Big Daddy Weave presents World Vision back in the U.S. "It really took the spook out of me about asking for money," Mike says. "There was this reservation before, but I know now where that money is going. There are faces associated with it."
Now, each night when they pause during their concert to present the audience with an opportunity to sponsor a child through World Vision, they don't struggle with asking, they struggle to find words that can accurately communicate the power that gift has to change lives.
"There are things I saw that I wish weren't real," Mike says, "like the places they were living. I wish those weren't real. But I don't regret seeing those things. We ask the Lord to help keep this experience fresh in our hearts."
And if he ever finds himself in need of a little extra inspiration, he says he just remembers the feeling of those little kids' hands on his and it all comes flooding back.
