Wowee! Great day! Among other things, I had class, turned in my hermeneutics homework (what a relief!), chatted with people online, and did some shopping. But probably the coolest thing all day was hanging out with one of the street kids, Luis, again.


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Last night’s Bible study in La Merced was fantastic. It’s truly moving to see this “house church” grow in their relationships with God. Carlos even talks of La Primavera “sending” Danny and his wife to La Merced to pastor the church eventually. This congregation of 60 people has trained two of their own parishoners and sent them as pastors to ( Read more... )

The Termales de Papallacta turned out to be even nicer than I thought they would be and we relaxed for several hours, soothing the muscles that were sore from a week of driving and hiking. Carlos says I have to come back here for my honeymoon. We’ll see what the “jefa” has to say about that.


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This morning we woke up in Archidona, had a relaxing breakfast, and made our way four kilometers north to the caverns of Jumandy, one of many cave systems in Ecuador. These caves go for 1.9 kilometers, but because they are privately owned, we could only get a 1-hour tour of the main sections of the cave. Our guide had only one leg, and we were ( Read more... )

Carlos, John and I are sitting in the only internet cafe in a tiny town called Archidona. Its about ten kilometers north of Tena, where we were last night. We got up this morning and had a wonderful breakfast on the balcony overlooking the town of Tena from our four-dollar hotel. The hotel runs tours to various sites around town for about thirty ( Read more... )

Yes, as I write this I am actually in a shop called "Selva Selva Internet-Artesanias", that is to say, "Jungle Jungle Internet and Handicrafts!" We are in Tena, one of the larger jungle towns here in the Oriente. Today was a bit of an odd day... We awoke at 7, had breakfast, and drove with Pastor Jaime to the Covenant radio station in Shell. ( Read more... )

We finally made it to the jungle! Carlos and I left Quito at 5:00 am to head to La Primavera and pick up John. En route we stopped briefly in Baños to visit the sights, ride the chintsy cart across the gorge, visit a few waterfalls, etc. Our first real destination was Shell, the home of Radio Interoceanica, the Covenant radio station that covers ( Read more... )

Because we weren't heading to the jungle, I slept in today until 8:30, then studied and read and wrote emails until about 1:00. Carlos got home from running errands and let me know that Andy had found the matricula, so we can head to the jungle tomorrow! Too bad it will cut one day off our trip, but the plan is to head out at 5:00 am tomorrow ( Read more... )

April 24, 2005 - Day 63 ( Read more... )

The big minga! We got up at 6:30 to head to church in La Primavera for the work day. More than half the church was there at some point to help with the big task for the day - loading about 25 yards of dirt into dump trucks to haul away. Mateo has been grading the hill behind the church for a week now to help prevent a landslide; after the ( Read more... )