May 12, 2005 - Day 81 ( Read more... )

My last full day in Ecuador….bittersweet ( Read more... )

Carlos and I headed to church early this morning to finish up a few things on the church addition - moving kitchen furniture and the stove and a few other things. I went to John’s house when we got there to find him so we could work together. He was sitting down having breakfast with his grandma, so I sat down with them. John told me how God ( Read more... )

Another goodbye day. Carlos wanted to do something special for the family and for me, so we got up early and drove two hours to Mindo, a beautiful little town in the cloud forest on the western slopes of Pichincha ( Read more... )

Today is Mother’s Day - not just in the states, but here in Ecuador, too. Carlos preached a Mother’s Day message, in large part to challenge the men to love and respect their wives more. Every woman in the congregation received a rose and there were lots of hugs. The youth made today’s lunch - a fantastic meal of encebollado - for the moms and ( Read more... )

At 2:00 pm on Friday, May 6, I met Russ Meehan and Alain Swanson in back of Alianza Academy. Alain was catching a quick siesta while Russ was loading up his 80s GMC Sierra with our backpacks. I had just come from a Restaurante Chifa where I picked up my dinner-togo: some fried noodles and vegetables (and a spoon because the only chopsticks they ( Read more... )

I had my Spanish class early today so I could zip downtown real quick to say goodbye to Luis and Manuel, two of the street kids I have been working with. I had a picture for Luis and a Bible for Manuel, and Manuel and I had a great chat again today. After I gave him the Bible and explained to him why I was giving it to him and what it was for, he ( Read more... )

I got up crazy early again this morning. Well, crazy early for me. I rode the bus into town with Jimmy, who always gets up this early to go to school. How these kids manage on 6-7 hours of sleep a night, I don’t know! I got to La Primavera around 6:45 and started hiking up Ruco Pichincha again, this time a different way. I got up to about 11, ( Read more... )

The first of many bittersweet days ahead…. I went to the dump at Zambiza for the last time today. It was particularly sad for a number of reasons. First, Jonathan and Henry weren’t there, so I didn’t get to say goodbye to them. Second, since it was the last week of the Wednesday afternoon VBS there, the student leaders decided to give out ( Read more... )

I left the house at 5:30 this morning to get some exercise, because Russ called me last night and let me know that if the weather is good we can climb the volcano Antisana on Friday night / Saturday morning. It’s the fourth highest peak in Ecuador at just under 19,000’, and is notorious for its bad weather. There’s no overnight hut on the ( Read more... )