Long Overdue Update

Hi everyone!

I know it has been a really long time since I have updated, but I have been real busy and without internet a lot of the weeks. This is going to be a real long post, just a forewarning, so you may want to prepare to read in sections if I start to ramble on a little bit :)

First, I'll start off with my time in El Carmen. We were there with a team from Port Charlotte, Florida from July 21st until July 26th. The night that we got there, the church set up a special service for all of us with music and prayer for us to have a successful week of work and VBS with the kids in the neighborhood. It was so amazing when I got to church because not only did I recognize a lot of people, a lot of them remembered seeing us girls a couple weeks prior when we were with the other teams. I love being able to go back to places and seeing the same people and showing them how much I really do care about them. I saw my family that I stayed with last time, and they were sad that we couldn't still stay there again this time, but they were still going to help us work during the day and come to be with the kids in the afternoons. I also got to see Elmer, who is the pastor of the church, and I hadn't seen him since the Amazing Race since last time we were in El Carmen he was in the United States. Even right before the church service, a little girl ran up to me and covered my eyes and I turned around and saw that it was a girl I had spent a lot of time with in the VBS last time I was there. I only saw her a couple of times, but she remembered me. And, the coolest thing about it is that her name is Anayi too, just like the little girl at the orphanage in Quito who I have spent the most time with. Maybe it is a sign that I have to name my first daughter Anayi or something :) Elmer talked a little bit about Philippians 1:3-6 and how God began good works in all of us and He is going to complete them as time goes on for the rest of the week. It was a great encourager when we didn't quite know the task that was going to be ahead.

I was real excited the next morning to go out to the site where I had once took a machete to a part of it and then worked on digging up that hill/mountain with the last team. I really wanted to see the progress that had been happening in the couple weeks I was gone. When I got there, nothing really looked different from the last time we had left it. It was weird, but I found out that it had been non-stop raining since we left, so they had no way of getting anything done. They were praying for good weather for us so that we could use our time efficiently and help them out the best that we could. They delivered 17 truck-fulls of dirt to the site, and our job was to level them all out to make the ground a couple inches thick of dirt for the foundation. It was great to be working with some of the same people that we got to spend a lot of time with last time. Cesar is an elder in the church and was so excited to see us and for us to help him again, and even Rudolfo (who was my daddy last time in El Carmen) loves coming out to the site and working along side of us all. It was definitely more about building relationships with the people of the church instead of actually building a building. We worked all morning, and then after lunch, we went to our first day of VBS. The team was not expecting too many kids, but I tried to tell them about our experiences last time, and I was hoping that the same amount if not more kids would come by. As we were driving down the same road to get to the area in the neighborhood where the kids would meet for this VBS, kids just flocked out of their houses, ran with excitement, jumped in our car and truck with us, and loved on us completely. There were kids singing songs that we had sung with them the past time only twice, but they remembered every word. Then, when we actually pulled up to the classroom building and open field, there were already 30 kids there just waving and screaming with excitement to see us. I looked out in the crowd and one little girl in the back caught my eye and she was jumping up and down staring at me and waving like crazy. I looked at this girl and I remembered how much time I had spent with her last time I was in El Carmen. On the first day of VBS she was really sad, so I just held her and got her to stop crying, and I spent the other day with her blowing bubbles and playing with the jump rope. But, now little Mylai was standing out there waving and remembering me and the second I got out of the truck, she ran up and gave me a huge hug and wanted to take a billion pictures. Needless to say, I spent most of my three days at that VBS with her and her sister. We got to play a ton with the kids, sing songs with them, teach them a Bible story, have them listen to some testimonies, and even do a craft with them. It was seriously a successful three days of VBS and I loved being able to spend more time with the kids I had met a couple weeks prior. It broke my heart when on the third day they started asking if we would be back tomorrow and I had to say no that it was the last day, but there is going to be a club starting for them on Saturdays in a house, and they will be focusing on Bible activities, so hopefully most of the kids will attend that. Elmer spent time on the last day of VBS to talk to the kids about the importance of believing in Jesus and God and devoting their lives to them. He also told them all about the church we are building and how they can help encourage their families to attend with them. It was great because all the kids really wanted to listen to Elmer and they loved listening to the word of God when we spoke it to them. The faith of children, especially here in Ecuador, continue to amaze me.

Each day after VBS, we went back to the river that we were at a couple weeks before. It was a great way to cool off and relax and even shower-- yes this was my only form of shower for 6 days, washing my hair in the river-- but it was still good. I got to play a lot with Krystal, who is Elmer's 8 year old daughter, and spend more time talking to my family from last time. One time when we were driving out to the river, I was in the back of the truck with Marissa (one of the other interns who stayed with the same family as me last time) and then Jessy and Ruth (my two sisters) and Rudolfo (my daddy) and he said, "Look, all four of my daughters are on this truck with me." It was so sweet and made me miss staying with them even more. That is what is so great about the people here. They are so willing to give up their houses and their lives and their love for people that they hardly even know. I still talk to Jessy and Ruth and we say how much we wish we could see each other again, so hopefully that will work out sometime in the future. Yo extrano mis hermanas muchos!

On Sunday we started off by going to Bramadora (which is about 40 minutes outside El Carmen) and went to church there in the morning. I was in Bramadora once during the Amazing Race (it was where we stayed the first night) and that was the first church that Elmer helped start up before his call was moved to El Carmen. It was a great service, and a lot of the people there were really excited to see the leader of the Port Charlotte team again. The church in Port Charlotte actually helped build that church and they help sponsor the pastors there and Elmer so they can get paid a decent amount to not have to work another job while they are trying to get these churches up and running. They are all Christian Missionary Alliance churches, and it is amazing to see the support from not only El Carmen to Bramadora, but from the United States to these churches in Ecuador. It was a really great service, and there was a lot of great music from some of the youth who lead the worship there. Then, we all road back to El Carmen, the youth worship leaders too, and had a really huge meal waiting for us. All of our meals were provided for by the ladies of the church, and believe me, they were absolutely amazing and we probably all gained a ton of weight just being there. So good! Then we all got to relax for the afternoon before dinner and church at night. At the house I was staying at there was this amazing hammock outside, and because it was so hot, it was better to lay outside than inside. I took the best 2 hour nap in that hammock probably in my life. I don't know if I will ever nap as good now that I am without a hammock. At night, we went to the service at the building they are temporarily holding services and we had more great worship and messages and testimonies from the Port Charlotte team and the people of El Carmen. We got to hug everyone afterwards and it was really hard to say goodbye this time because I knew I wasn't going to come back later this summer, but I know that God is definitely blessing their ministry and their congregation. We took a lot of pictures and like I said earlier, I still keep in touch with my sisters from last time and have them tell my daddy that I say hi. It was such a blessing to be there and I pray for their continued growth in ministry and love for God.

We left El Carmen on that Monday morning and spent the rest of the day driving back and doing last minute stuff with the team. I finally got to meet the missionaries that started Inca Link, Rich and Lisa Brown, because they just returned to Ecuador after being in the states for a year spreading more news about their mission here in Ecuador and Peru. They are great people, and I have enjoyed the time that I have spent with them so far. Then, Tuesday I went off to El Tingo, which is about 40 minutes away and it is in the valley, and I helped out with a VBS. The people in charge are from England, so it was enjoyable to hear an English accent on some words, but they have a ministry called Mano y Mano. In England, the ministry is Hand and Hand, and that is why they translated it into Spanish here. They help out during the school year by giving kids a place to go after school and giving them a healthy meal, and then on Fridays they invite all the kids in the neighborhoods to come by and they put on something called "The Grand Show." They play games and sing songs and just do everything to help the kids glorify God more. But, for these two weeks, they were doing a VBS with the younger kids and doing a "hang out" time with teenagers to try to introduce them to the idea of God and Christianity. From 2-5pm, about 60 kids from the ages of 6-12 came each day for the VBS part. We started off playing games and then grouped them together to sing some songs. Then, we separated the little kids (6-8 years old) and the older kids for the lesson for the day. I helped with the little kids and even got to teach them a song that I knew from El Carmen. Then, they do a craft and play more games before getting a snack and grouping back together for one or two more songs before the end of the day. The teenagers (13-20 years old) came from 6-8pm and we started off by just playing futbol and basketball for an hour---yikes they are good, but I think I improved some by playing with them--- and then we sat down and talked for only 10 minutes or so about God working in their lives, and then we went back to playing other games. The point of the teenagers was not to overwhelm them, because most of them were not Christians or attending churches, but just to see that there is something so much bigger than themselves out there in this world.

Wednesday (July 28th) was my birthday and I got to celebrate it like crazy during the VBS and even at night. It started off in the morning with Dave and Ana wishing me a happy birthday at breakfast and the other two interns that I was with, Marissa & Cassidi, giving me pink roses. It was super sweet. We spent the morning getting the place ready for the kids to come by getting the craft together and sweeping and doing any last minute things that were needed. Then, when the kids came and we were all grouped together, they had me go up to the front and they pulled out a cake and candles and everyone sang happy birthday to me, first in Spanish and then any of the kids that could sang it in English for me :) After you sing happy birthday, it is tradition here to shove the cake in the person's face. Ana said she didn't want to put it in my face, but the kids were going to make her, so I ended up with a lot of frosting on my face. It tasted good though, so I didn't mind too much :) After the lesson each day, one of the leaders of the VBS has to sit in a chair and the kids get to answer questions, and if they are right, they get to throw a cup of water on the leader. I figured since it was my birthday, the kids would really love it if I volunteered to sit in the chair. Of course, it went over real well, and the kids loved getting me completely soaking wet. At the end, Dave called up one of the other volunteers (all the other volunteers were amazing and we all became good friends) and he had Esteban dump the whole bucket all over me as a special birthday gift. It was a good time, and a lot of the kids afterwards came up to give me a huge hug, even though I was soaking wet. The night with the teenagers was really good too, just a lot more futbol and games with them. Then, at 8pm when all the teens left, everyone from Quito came to go out for my birthday. So, to go out for my birthday there was Rich and Lisa Brown, their four kids- Olivia, Michela, Josiah & Alexa, Mark and Cheryl, the three interns- Cassidi, Marissa & Michelle, Dave & Ana from Mano y Mano, Ana's sister and her son Dan, and even Esteban, one of the volunteers at Mano y Mano with me. It was a crazy big group, but it was so much fun. We just went out for some pizza and enjoyed conversation and being with each other. Then, they had a huge chocolate cake for me, but they didn't make me shove my face in this one because everyone really wanted to eat it. It was definitely a great and memorable 21st birthday, and I am so happy I got to celebrate it all with my Ecuadorian family :)

On Friday with the teens, I shared my testimony at night. It wasn't easy, but I had a good translator helping me out, and I really felt that the teens listened to me. I sometimes forget that teenagers really are my favorite age group to work with, so I was really excited when I realized I was going to spend a lot of time with them. They aren't used to hearing other people around their age talk about God working in their lives, so I think they really appreciated hearing from Cassidi, Marissa, and me each one night. They even came up and asked a couple of us questions about what we talked about, and that was amazing because then we know that they are starting to see how much they do really need God in their lives. After that, I knew exactly that I wanted to go back to El Tingo the next week for the second week of the VBS. We were going to do something else, but I didn't want to be anywhere but El Tingo again. I was able to tell the kids and the teens that I would be back the next Tuesday and spend the rest of the week with them all.

Friday night we left for the last weekend that the four of us interns would have together. We decided to go to the beach, which is about a 6 hour bus ride, but we wanted to be in the sun and the sand for our last couple days together. We drove through the night, and then got to the beach by sunrise. We decided to sleep a little longer at the house we were staying at before heading to the beach, believe me, sleeping on a bus (especially the way they drive in Ecuador) is not easy at all. We left for the beach around 11am and stopped to get some food and a batido (it is an amazing fresh fruit drink. the best one I had was strawberry-orange, so good) and then we decided to lay out and get some sun. Especially since it has been colder than we thought in Ecuador, it was nice to be on the coast getting some warmth and beautiful sun. We decided to go walk around a little bit and we saw these inner tubes things that were being pulled around by boats in the ocean and we thought that we should check it out. They told us the four of us could go for 10 dollars, and we couldn't pass it up. It was completely crazy and we were flying all around and hitting waves, but I managed to somehow stay in the inner tube the whole time. We had a ton of fun doing that. Later at night we went back to get ready and walked to a place to get dinner. Conveniently, there was a great ice cream place right next to it, so we of course had to stop there before going back to the beach house. We played cards a little bit and then went to bed. We woke up on Sunday morning and went to the beach at 9:30am because we decided that we wanted to go look for the whales on this boat. It only cost 10 dollars a person so we decided it would be a good deal, and they told us we would see whales. We weren't quite sure, but when we got out on this speed boat far enough, we saw at least a couple of whales, and even one of them was a mother and a baby. It was amazing how close we were to these whales. I took a couple good pictures, and it was just beautiful. We just relaxed the rest of the day on the beach and then when we went back before dinner to change, we decided to go quickly so that we could see the sunset back on the beach before we went to dinner. We made it back in time, and it was once again completely beautiful. We walked around the beach and took some pictures and once again enjoyed each other's company. We also decided to go back to the same place for dinner, because it was so good and because of the amazing ice cream next door :) and we had another great meal. I tried conch for the first time too, and I actually liked it! We left late on Sunday night on another all night bus ride back to Quito, and made it back to spend Monday together before Michelle had to leave for the states early on Tuesday morning. We really had a good time at the beach, and it was great to go at the end of the summer to just relax from everything that we had done.

Tuesday morning I went back to El Tingo (and I was SO excited to be back there) and got to be with the kids for VBS and the teens at night. I got to talk more to the other volunteers and build good friendships with them, I got to know the kids a lot more, and I really got to build relationships with the teenagers at night. Like I said, the teens really started opening up to us, and I friended a lot of them. There were two boys that were brothers, Nicolas was 15 and Alejandro was 11, and I started talking a lot to them. We started joking around that they were my little brothers, and even by the end of the week Alejandro was calling me his hermana! I taught them how to play the game "Spoons" and it was so much fun, even though it got brutal when people were reaching for the spoons. It was just good to hang out with them and be goofy and play, but also be someone that they can ask serious questions too. I really enjoyed my time with those teenagers, and it was really hard to say goodbye to them on that Friday night. Dave and Ana want to keep in touch with them and be there for them if they continue to have questions, so hopefully all that works out.

On Friday with the kids at the VBS though, Dave needed someone to volunteer to sit in the chair for the water again, so Cassidi, Marissa, and I decided that the three of us should do it as a little going away thing for the kids. They LOVED being able to get three of us soaking wet, and believe me, I was completely soaked. That was the one day that it was a little overcast too, so we were freezing with the water, but once again, it was so much fun. The kids were just chanting our names each time someone went up to dump the water on us, and that was just great.

Saturday during the day the three of us decided to go to the market one last time to get all of our last minute gifts for ourselves and for other people. I, of course, had to pick up some more coffee :) Ecuadorian coffee is amazing. Then, we went out to a historic street called La Ronda and saw the fourth house that was built in Quito and a lot of celebrations that were going on because they are beginning to celebrate their Independence day. We had a good night walking around and listening to some music and going out to a nice Mexican food restaurant.

On Sunday we went to church with Mark and Cheryl, and I actually got to go to one of the churches of one of the pastors that I met at the pastor's retreat in Otavalo. It was really cool to see Raphael again and his wife Dioselina. Mark asked me to share my testimony in front of the whole congregation without any warning, but I decided to get enough strength up and I did it. Once again, Marissa was great to translate for me, but I guess it is a good thing that I am getting a lot more comfortable talking in front of people. After church, we came back to Casablanca and we were able to cook a nice meal together.

Yesterday I was able to go back to the orphanage that I spent the couple weeks at before in Quito. I was kind of nervous because I of course wanted the kids to remember me but I didn't know if they would. But, the second I got there, some of the kids were screaming my name and they were all jumping all over me and asking where I had been the past three weeks. I went out to the playground and I saw Anayi in the distance and she saw me, screamed "amiga" and came running to my arms. It was amazing to have all the kids know who I was and I loved being able to spend that one more day with them :) We spent the night hanging out with Rich and Lisa and their kids. They made us dinner and we got to talk to them some more about the summer because they weren't here the whole time, and it was just more good conversation. Later at night they took us to a prayer meeting for missionaries in Ecuador, so we were all just there praying together for each other and all of our missions.

Today we are just hanging out and doing some last minute things before Marissa leaves tomorrow, I leave Thursday, and Cassidi leaves on Friday :( I can't believe this summer is ending. Thank you all so much for your support and your patience with my lack of internet so these really long updates. Pray for safe travels for me on Thursday morning (and that I don't get stuck in the Miami airport again) and I will let you all know when I return back to the states! And I finally got a couple more pictures up, so I hope you like them!

Dios les bendigas,

Lisa

Singing with the kids in El Carmen at the VBS

Shoving my face in the cake for my birthday at the VBS in El Tingo

getting water dumped all over me at the VBS in El Tingo, also on my birthday

The four of us interns at the beach for the sunset

Sitting with some of the kids at the VBS in El Tingo

My two hermanos (Alejandro y Nicolas) at the teenage group in El Tingo

Loving Otavalo

Hi everyone!

It was so great to be back in Otavalo again for that pastor's retreat at the beginning of the week. The main point of the pastor's retreat was to give these new pastors from mostly indigenous areas in the jungle some instruction on how to lead a church, especially during the difficult times. They also brought their wives and even a couple brought their small children, and those are who I mostly hung out with. There were 9 pastors there and 6 women, and all of them were so nice and caring to me, as I am only an intern for the summer and wasn't able to speak too much Spanish to them. However, Spanish wasn't the only language barrier between us. A lot of the pastors and wives are fluent in Quichua, which is the native language of those in jungle. Quichua is nothing like Spanish, so I couldn't even pretend to understand what they were saying. But, during the meals, I spent a lot of time talking to people and getting to know them, and when they spoke in Spanish, I could generally understand them :) It was exciting to see how much I can understand and translate into English when people talk, and they were telling me that I was doing a great job speaking Spanish. When they found out that I knew French as well, we would spend time pointing to an object, saying it in Spanish, English, Quichua, and French. Sometimes I was on a little bit of a language overload, but it was pretty cool. The Quichua that I remember from the trip is wa wa which means nino or baby, uma which means cabeza or head, and yaya which means padre or daddy.

On Monday I got there and we did all the introductions, and then we sat down to lunch. It was the first meal and we tried to divide ourselves amongst the tables, but even all the pastors and wives did not know each other so it caused for a little awkward silences here and there. We tried to have some conversations, and I sure had an interesting one. I sat next to Lenin, a younger pastor in the jungle, and we started talking about food that he eats and enjoys in the jungle and he kept saying that he liked gusanos and I knew I had heard the word before, but I couldn't remember what it was. He kept describing it, and I realized that he was talking about worms. He asked me if I had ever tried one, and I did my best not to make a face and say no, but he kept going on about how great they are and how I should eat them. I just smiled and said I wasn't sure, but maybe. We also were talking about how many kids he had and he said a number that sounded very much like 15 and I couldn't believe he had 15 kids being so young, but then he told me another number, tres, which is only 3, and it wasn't until then that I realized that the number 3 in Quichua sounds just like the number 15 in Spanish. After the little bit of language barrier road blocks during lunch, we split the women and the men up and I went off with the women for a Bible study. We started off with a little worship and then when we went to the Bible study, we could tell how much the women enjoyed reading the Bible because they do not get to much at home. A couple of the women ended up sharing their testimonies, and some of the stories just broke our hearts. There was one woman who knew her husband was so busy and wrapped up in his work on a church that he was opening that he had no time for her. She was working all the time to help get them out of debt, and she was not able to have any time for her own ministry, not even any time for herself. There was another woman who had 12 boys, most of them were older, but she was still taking care of the young ones on top of taking care of a lot of grandchildren. All she wants is to be able to host people from the church in her house and be more involved in the churches activities with her husband, but she is once again, too wrapped up in the home to even think about doing anything for herself. The three leaders of the women group and the other intern and I talked about this afterwards and we realized how hungry these women were for the word of God and we wanted to supply them with a safe place to talk about what was going on in their lives and realize that there were ways they could change some of their situations.

Tuesday morning after breakfast when we split up again, one of the other interns did a Bible study for the women about the story of Mary and Martha. We talked a lot about how Martha was too busy doing things around the house to prepare for people and making it look good for Jesus, while Mary just sat at Jesus' feet and talked with him for a while. The women completely connected to this story because they all felt they had so much to do and were not taking any time to have their own personal time with God. They saw that they really were wanting that, and struggled with how they were going to incorporate it into their lives right away. We talked about getting up that extra half hour or even just telling their children they needed this half hour during the day to sit and read the Bible, and letting themselves take the time that they need to really take care of themselves. It is sad how easily we can forget about ourselves when we have a lot of stuff going on, this includes men as well as women, and how all we really need to do is take that half hour to an hour away from our day and give it up to God. I could tell the women were inspired because some of them marked the page in the Bible and I just know they were going to look back on that passage whenever the hard times come. Then, we were able to take the women to the Otavalo market in the afternoon. We supplied them with a little money, and they got to relax and do a little shopping for themselves. One woman was so proud of the fact that she got a great deal on this beautiful blue shawl, and it was awesome to watch her wear it for the rest of the time there.

That night, we did a talent show! Mark, one of the missionaries in charge, told us the night before to prepare something, so OF COURSE the other intern and I were really excited about what we could do. We thought of this YouTube video called "The First Semester Spanish Love Song" (which is hilarious and you should look it up if you have not seen it) and we thought that would be a great idea to do for everyone. It basically uses all the words that you would learn in one semester of a Spanish class and it randomly puts them together so that it forms a love song. It doesn't make sense, but it is really funny. So we practiced that a few times, and were ready for the talent show. Mark had us go first since we were representing the United States, and it did turn out really funny. Someone video taped it for me on my camera, so I will have that moment captured forever. All the other families did a great job as well. They all ended up singing either a song in Spanish, Quichua, or both. It was a lot of fun and I could tell that everyone, even if they seemed uncomfortable at first, enjoyed themselves. We handed out glowsticks to everyone too, and since it was something that neither the kids or the adults had seen before, it was a big hit with all.

Wednesday we spent the morning with the women and just prayed for each one of their individual needs. Sometimes there were prayers in Spanish, sometimes in English, but it didn't matter because we all spent the same time praying to the same God. It was a great connection that we made with these women, and I am pretty sure they made a great connection within themselves as well. It was tough saying goodbye to everyone, especially because they all asked me to go to their churches and when I would be coming back to Ecuador, but I am really glad that I was a part of this great experience.

In the afternoon when we all said goodbye, the other intern and I decided to go back to the market to shop for ourselves and our families a little bit. I was just looking around and I saw an area where I had bought some necklaces before and I thought maybe I would like some more. When I was looking, all of a sudden a little girl just jumped in my arms and I looked down and it was someone who I had spent those 10 days with in the Compassion ministry when I was in Otavalo a month ago. This little girl, Sisa, remembered me and just basically attacked me down to the ground. I had to quickly explain to her parents that I knew her from Compassion and I stayed with Lorena when I lived here a month ago so that they didn't freak out that their daughter was jumping in a strangers arms, but it was just amazing. It was at that moment that I realized how much I loved Otavalo and how that has probably been my favorite ministry so far. It was such a blessing being able to see this little girl again. I, of course, was sad to say goodbye again, but I still knew how great it was to see her.

I spent Thursday and Friday back at the orphanage I had been going to in Quito. Of course I enjoyed more time with Anayi and the rest of the kids, but they were a little crazy those two days. On Thursday they had lunch and instead of rice they got a treat of french fries, and they went a little insane. They tried to steal each others' food and protect their own... I had to stop a lot of almost food wars. It was such a treat for them to have something else with their food that they freaked out a little bit, but I managed to stop a lot of food from being stolen. Friday was a little bittersweet for me because I said goodbye to the kids, just in case I do not get a chance to get back to the orphanage before I leave. I have a very busy schedule for the rest of my time here, so I may not be able to see them again. I was sad leaving them, so I do hope I can get back there at least once.

Saturday we got up early in the morning and went to Teleferiqo de Quito where we got to ride up a mountain in a cable car and end up 12,000 feet in the air. I think it would have been even more of a beautiful site than it was, but it had been a little cloudy. We hung out at the top for a little bit and ate lunch, and by the time we were ready to go down, it started to storm. We were literally in the middle of a storm (because we were in the clouds) and it even started to hail a little bit. They never shut down the cable cars, and by the time we were in one, it let up a little bit, and we did make it down safely :) We spent the rest of the afternoon at the market and went out to dinner for one of the girl's last nights here.

There is a team that is coming tonight and we are doing some Quito ministry with them until Wednesday morning. Then, we are heading back to El Carmen to keep working on that field to get ready for the building of the church. We will also get to do some VBS in the places that we were before. I am excited to see the people and families again who we will be staying with. We get back to Quito on Monday, but then at night I am headed straight to a place which is 40 minutes outside of Quito to stay for the week and finish helping with the VBS. Friday night, there are four interns that have been here from the beginning together and we are the only ones left so we are going to go to the beach. The beach is like 6 hours away, but one of the intern's has a friend who owns a house there and is letting us rent it for pretty cheap. It will be a great and relaxing time for us. We will be there for a couple of nights, and then I am probably going to another place outside of Quito and staying for a week for another VBS. I may not be back in Casa Blanca until August 6th when I leave this Wednesday, but I know I will get to do a lot of really great stuff. I may not be able to update until then, but I will do my best to get a couple things down to let you know what is happening.

I hope you all are doing well & time is just going so fast in Ecuador! My internet is bad again right now so I can't get any pictures up, so hopefully next time! :D

God bless!

Just a Good Week

Hola everyone!

I just wanted to share with you a couple of good things that happened this week while I was at the orphanage. I actually got to spend the whole week in Quito and going to the same place, which is the first time that has happened, so I was really looking forward to going back to the same kids every single day. The kids at this orphanage are really cute and just really need love right now. I spent a lot more time with my little girl Anayi (I learned how to spell her name! :D) and we definitely had a lot of fun continuing to bond. I played games with all the kids such as "got your nose" and I think they were a little confused because it may not translate quite the same in Spanish, but by today they were "getting my nose" too, and laughing the whole time. We got to listen to music and dance. Some of the older girls taught me some new dance moves, so maybe my dancing skills have improved. I love being able to help out while they eat lunch as well. The ladies there have a lot of it organized, but it can still get hectic with trying to plate up everything and serve it, especially when they kids don't like to sit the whole time, so I am able to be there and help them either get the food out or get the kids to stay in their chairs. Today, I got to bring my nailpolish and paint a couple of the girls' nails. They were so cute and excited just to have a little red on their nails, and I may have to bring it back again later next week to touch up their nails. But, the best thing that I am able to give these kids is just love and attention. The women who run this orphanage do an amazing job at caring for the kids and doing their best to get volunteers in to help them, but it is still really hard to make these kids feel like individuals. A lot of the kids have been through so much already, and I don't want them to ever feel like they are not loved and not wanted. There are a couple sets of brothers and sisters at this place who have been taken away from their mothers for various reasons, and the hard part about that is they have different fathers and different family members that may want to take them. There are a couple of grandmothers that want one child because that is their blood relation, but the other isn't, and the orphanage doesn't really want to separate the siblings that are there. There is also a little girl who is suffering badly from withdrawl right now because her mother was addicted to alcohol while she was pregnant. They were lucky enough to remove her from the household, but she is really struggling and looks about 2 years old when she really is 5. I also found out that the children at this orphanage are not up for adoption unless they have absolutely no family relation options that could take them in. A lot of the time the families do want to take the children, but because they are poor, they do not have the money resources. There are only a few kids there that are up for adoption right now, otherwise, they just hope and pray that family members will find resources to take the kids in full time to give them the full love. The little girl who I spend a lot of time with, Anayi, is not up for adoption, which is probably a good thing otherwise I would end up with her back in the states in August :-) but she and her 1 1/2 year old sister Daisy are just waiting to see if their Grandma or Aunt will be able to take them in. They have been living in this orphanage for about a year now, and it is hard because Anayi still remembers her mom and dad a little, but little Daisy will never know them. They were not functional, but it is still hard to go away from something that they knew. But, like I said, I did my best this week just to freely love these kids and do anything I could to show them I do care for them and want them to be happy and have fun. I became a jungle gym for them and I come home every day completely exhausted, but I love it. Yesterday they had me be pretend to be a tiburon (which I found out later meant shark, I thought it was dragon so I pretended to be the wrong animal, but they didn't seem to mind), and I got to chase them all around and it was just a good time. I feel so blessed that I got to spend this whole week with them.

This weekend I will help out with a youth group on Saturday and spend some time at that church with the community there, and then Sunday we may take some time to watch the World Cup final game. I just got asked last night to go to Otavalo from Monday until Wednesday to help out with a pastor's retreat that is going on. One of the other girls who I am working with is going, and the missionaries asked if I would be willing to go as well. It is a convention for new pastors that come from indigenous areas in the jungle, and they bring their wives too. I will spend most of my time with the pastor's wives, and we will do things like a Bible study on how they are special and we get to go shopping in the market, and basically just let them relax for a couple of days and let other people serve them. It is a helpful get away for them and they won't have to worry about their children, food, their husbands, just anything. I am real excited to be a part of that and really honored that the missionaries asked me to be there with them too. Also,I am hoping to get the chance to meet up quickly with the family I stayed with at the beginning of the summer and say hello to them again and introduce my friend Michelle to them. I will be sure to let you know what happens with all of that. I will be able to go back to my orphanage on Thursday and Friday next week too before the next team comes, so it will be yet another busy but good week!

That's about it for now. I can't believe how late into the summer it is already; only a little over a month left, and when I look at my schedule, it doesn't seem like too much time. I'm making the best of my moments here!

Anayi and Valeria

Playing soccer-- this kid sticks his tongue out with every kick

Hermanas (sisters) Anayi y Daisy

Mi favorita foto!! Anayi and me!

Painting Karla's nails

How to Celebrate the 4th in Ecuador

I hope everyone had a great fourth of July celebration the other night! We chose to celebrate in Ecuador by making chili cheese hot dogs and a lot of guacamole. We invited people over that night and the end result of who was there was: 6 girls from the United States, 1 Peruvian girl, 2 Canadian brothers, and 1 Ecuadorian. It was quite an interesting mix, but we all had a really good time. After dinner, a couple of the girls surprised us with a pinata outside and we got to take a few whacks at it. Inside the pinata were balloons so we blew them up and popped them all at once to make the illusion of fireworks. This was definitely the most unconventional fourth that I have ever celebrated, but it was a lot of fun and it was a good way to celebrate it all together being so far away from home. And, I also get to celebrate the Ecuadorian Independence day in August, so I get to see how they really celebrate independence days! I thought you would all enjoy that and I'll let you know how the orphanage goes this week!

All of us at dinner in Casa Blanca

Having fun with the balloons that were in the pinata

The whole group by the pinata

From El Carmen to Guayaquil

Hi everyone!

I have had a whole ton of stuff happen to me since the last time that I wrote, so I apologize in advance for the lengthy post that this will be. It all started two weeks ago when a group from Daybreak church in Pennsylvania came for a week to do ministry. This was not just the typical high school youth group; it was actually a group of mostly adults, and I was in working with a couple other girls in my group (who were all younger than the group just like me) and we were leading them around. It caused for an interesting group because there was a mom and a 12 year old daughter, a father and a 24 year old daughter, another 24 year old girl, a 29 year old guy, 30 year old girl, a married couple that were both in their late 20's/early 30's, and two people in their early 50's. Although it wasn't what I was expecting, I was very happy with the group that we had. Everyone was so connected and prepared and excited for this mission trip they were taking. The mom of the group was the leader, and she knew how to lead the group through debriefing each night to really get at the heart of the day. We were all able to learn a lot about what it takes to lead a mission trip and be accountable for an entire group.

So, on the first day that they arrived, we took a 3 hour bus ride to El Carmen, a town that is near the coast (it is technically considered the jungle, but it didn't look much like a jungle to me.) We were introduced to the three families that we would be staying with for the next couple of nights, and the really cool thing was that one of the houses that some of the girls were staying in (I stayed in a different one) was the house that I went to during the Amazing Race last month and got to cook lunch with the ladies there. They remembered me and it was really exciting to see them again, and also their willingness to open their house to another group with Inca Link. After that, we helped set up for the special church service they were having that night for Father's Day. They are only renting a space for the moment to have their church services because they are working on clearing land to help build the church, and that is what we got to work on all week. The church service at night was so amazing and they welcomed all of us with open arms.

After the service, I played with a lot of the kids in the congregation that I knew we would be doing a Vacation Bible School for the next day. They were real cute and enjoyed letting me chase them all around the building, and no matter how many times I tried to tell them I was tired, they weren't, so I kept chasing :) They were great.

Monday morning we woke up to meet for breakfast for a long morning of work on the land for the church. I was staying at a house with two other girls, and we were just ready to walk a couple blocks to get food, but the dad of the house we were at was ready to give us a motorcycle ride over there. Basically, any time in the morning or at night when we were getting back to the house we were sleeping at, Rudolfo was there to give us a ride. It was a fun cultural experience to be on a motorcycle flying through town, and it caused a lot of glances because a gringa girl was riding on a motorcycle, but it was still really cool :) After breakfast we went to the field that I also got to clear a part of during the Amazing Race, and I saw the progress that they had already made. All the brush was gone, we just needed to put it all in a pile in the corner so they could burn the excess. Then, we started our large project-- we had to dig up this huge hill (which we referred to as a mountain because that made it sound a lot better) and move the dirt to level out the ground so they could be prepared to build the foundation for the church building. We worked alongside of a lot of the people that belong to the church, and even though they only knew broken English and we knew broken Spanish, we still had a good time communicating with them and getting to know them. I enjoyed seeing some of the people I had already met during the Amazing Race quickly and being able to actually get to know them besides just a passing hello. The whole group didn't know any Spanish, so they looked at me to be the translator a lot of the time. I tried to tell them that it was a pretty scary thing when I was the Spanish translator, but I was able to do a lot more and understand a lot more than I ever thought I could. After we broke for lunch, we went straight to an area outside with children to do a Vacation Bible School. I enjoyed seeing some of the girls and boys that I chased around the night before, and we all basically jumped out of the cars and started playing with any kid in sight. They loved bubbles, jump rope, a parachute game, and of course- soccer! After play time, we sang some songs with the kids (in Spanish of course!) and did a lot of hand motions to really get them into it. We did a Bible story about the feeding of the 5,000 and made a craft with them afterwards. Since we all fell in love with the kids and they didn't want us to go that day, they asked us to come back the next day and we immediately said yes, even though we didn't have anything planned at the moment. After being a little run down and completely sweaty from our day, they took us to a river and we got to just swim and relax and basically that was our form of bathing. It was relaxing and beautiful though.

Tuesday we woke up and after my motorcycle ride to breakfast, we went back to move that mountain. We definitely enjoyed ourselves even though we were tired and sweaty from digging so much. We told riddles the whole time or just goofed around and sang songs. It was amazing how much this group really invited all 4 of us Inca Link interns into our group- they told us from the first day that we were now part of the Daybreak family, and they really meant it. We ended up getting a plan together for the VBS that day, and it was easy to see that not only all the kids faces lit up when we showed up, but also all of our faces. We loved being able to come back and continue the relationships with the kids we saw from the day before and even meet some new ones. Kids had brought their parents that day and were getting their parents to take pictures of us with on our cameras and just wanted to show their families their new friends. After more games, singing, another VBS story and more coloring, we had to sadly say goodbye. We then went to another river that was just as beautiful to do our cool off again. We got to float down this long area, and had to try real hard to avoid some rocks, but the current would just take you so you just went with no effort. Once again, a lot of fun.

Wednesday morning we went back to our mountain and dug it up some more. But, that afternoon there was a huge parade in the middle of El Carmen because it was celebrating their anniversary of the foundation of the town. We got to go down and see all the dancers and music and groups that took part of this celebration. Later that night, the church decided to quickly put a service together to say goodbye to us because we were leaving the next day. They got most everyone together and they shared some music and testimonies with us from the week, and we then shared some of our music and testimonies for them. It was really amazing to see our group and the people of the church really come together and just freely love one another. They would pray for us and we were praying for them, and it was just a great God moment that night. It was really hard to say goodbye to all the people that night that we had been staying with or working with or eating with, and even though I know I will be back in a couple of weeks with another group, I still didn't want to leave then. We woke up the next morning to crack away a little more at the mountain, they fed us lunch, and then we took the trip back to Casa Blanca in Quito. We got back around dinner time, ate, and then after another debriefing session, went to sleep right away to catch up on some of our exhaustion.

Friday morning we took the team to the Center of the World, which is the tourist place to see some of the old tribes of Ecuador and to stand on the equator line. I enjoyed myself there too because I had not been there yet. Later, we went to another orphanage around the area and did another VBS program for them. The kids there were real cute too and loved having us there. Saturday morning we went to a handicapped orphanage that is also close by and got to sing some songs for the kids and just do whatever we could to help out. I was real nervous about going, but I was definitely doubting my ability to work with them. Right away when I walked in, I felt no insecurities, and I loved being there with the kids. It is hard when they don't jump all over you or can talk with you, but just being there with them or blowing bubbles around them or dancing with them is exactly what they want and need. That afternoon we took the group to the market and I got to practice my skills at cutting prices and getting good deals to help the team buy some gifts for their friends and family back at home. Saturday night was another hard goodbye because it was our last night together before they left real early the next morning. They really were such a great group of people with a heart for missions and serving others, and I know I was blessed to know them all.

Riding around in a truck-- basically our main form of transportation in El Carmen

My favorite girl at the orphanage in El Carmen :)

The parade in El Carmen

Me on the equator!

the orphanage in Quito

Ah-this is such a long post. I apologize again. Okay, so the past week I have been back in Quito and staying in Casa Blanca for the most part. We got to sit down with two of the missionaries on Monday and talk about what we want to do and have to do for the rest of the summer. Until July 18th when the next team comes, I am allowed to find my own ministry and pick my own schedule for what I would like to do. There was an orphanage that I visited before the Daybreak team came, and I decided that I wanted to go back there and check it out a little more. So on Tuesday morning, I woke up and went to the orphanage. Right away, the kids pounced on me and basically thought I was their new jungle gym and climbed all over me. I didn't mind, because, well I love kids a lot. We played outside all morning on the playground, and then I got to help serve them lunch. There was one girl that I really loved, her name was Anilie and she is 6 years old, and something happened that upset her at lunch. I didn't see, but she was crying a lot and refused to eat, so I went over to her, and she just jumped in my arms, so the ladies asked me to take her to her bed thinking she was tired. I asked her what was wrong when we got there, and she didn't want to say anything, and I asked if she wanted to lay down in bed, and she just squeezed me tighter, so I just sat there with her in my arms for about an hour and let her cry a little and slowly she would fall asleep. Every time she fell asleep, she would occasionally wake up and then just squeeze tighter and hug me more. I thought about how she probably never had anyone really sit with her for an hour and devote all their attention to her when she was upset so she would know she was safe in someone's arms, and that broke my heart a little. I was so happy to be able to love her for that hour and really be there for her. The next day I wanted to go back to the orphanage, but we ended up going as a whole group to a street kid ministry for the day. They were real rough there because the kids didn't really want to connect with us, they more wanted to be there to get their food and have a place to go for some time. I was there for a couple of hours and I had to break up a lot of fights between the kids. They were real rough, but I did have some good conversations with some of the older boys that were preparing for a soccer game they had the next day. Thursday I was real excited to go back to the orphanage and see the kids, and right when I got there, my little Anilie saw me and ran to me and said "Hola amiga" and I was probably even more excited to see her and that she remembered me than she was to see me. I played with all the kids on the playground again in the morning and helped even more with lunch. The kids wanted to know my name, and they had struggles pronouncing it, so a lot of them started calling me "Lisabella" or "Elisa" which is the Spanish version of my name. I am real excited to continue to go to that orphanage for and really get to know all the kids there.

Thursday night we decided to take off for Guayaquil, which is 7 hours away from Quito and near the coast. One of the girls here sponsors a little girl in Guayaquil through Compassion, so she had to opportunity to go and visit her for the day on Friday. So she didn't travel alone, Gustavo, Cassidi, Sarah, Allie, Sara, and I went with Michelle. We took a 7 hour bus ride through the night to get there, and after we got Michelle to meet her girl, Gustavo found his friends there and we went to an orphanage to do some ministry there. We got to help teach English to the kids during the morning for their school program. I worked with Gustavo and Allie, and after we worked on some of the basic English, we thought it would be a great idea to teach all the kids the Hokey Pokey. They loved it and had me write down all the words on the board so they could copy it in their notebooks. Then, we got to sing more songs and color with the kids. We told some of the kids to draw a picture of their best friend, and one of the boys around me named David who I had been playing with chose to draw me and him together. It was the cutest picture, and he gave it to me afterwards. He labeled the people "David" and "Elisa" and we are standing in a park or something. I will definitely hang that up when I get back home :) After we left the orphanage, we got to spend some time walking around by the Guayaquil river and then just hanging out with some of Gustavo's friends who are from all over the world and all interested in ministry. We took a flight back to Quito, which was only 30 minutes, but of course because I have travel problems, it was like 2 hours delayed, but we still had fun in the airport, even though we were exhausted.

Sara and I on the bus ride to Guayaquil

Jose and David from the orphanage in Guayaquil

Our group by a statue in Guayaquil

Well, that has been a lot of what I have been doing the past two weeks. I will try to update again sooner so they aren't such long blogs, but I hope you enjoyed reading about it and seeing some more pictures.

Happy 4th of July in the States! We are having a BBQ shortly for some of the missionaries and their friends here to celebrate. We get to celebrate the Ecuadorian independence day on August 10th, so I don't completely miss out this summer!

Peace and blessings!

A Fun Night In Quito

I just thought I would update another time before the team comes to tell you about last night in Quito. One of the girls that I am working with celebrated her 23rd birthday on Wednesday, so last night, Gustavo (one of the guys in charge of us at Casa Blanca through Inca Link) took us out to this amazing Mexican restaurant and then he took us downtown to a place where we could karaoke. It was so much fun and we just spent the whole night laughing and having a great time in each other's company. I sang a ton of songs, but some of the highlights were: "Never Gonna Give You Up," "Kokomo," "Pour Some Sugar On Me," "Sweet Child of Mine," "Barbie Girl," "As Long As You Love Me," and "Gangsta's Paradise." We just had a great time with one another and it was a great way to finally be all back together all 4 of us before we have a team coming tonight. I just wanted to share how awesome of a night I had last night just because I was hanging around the right people, but still being able to be the goofy person that I can be. Today we are just continuing to prepare for the team and prepare ourselves to go off to El Carmen for a couple of days. It has been real cold here, so going towards the coast by El Carmen will be quite a temperature change, but it will probably be nice to feel some heat for a change. I'm excited to get myself in some construction projects and work hard for this building of the church this next week.

Thanks again for all the support through all the great experiences I have been having!

Here's some picture highlights from last night :)

Cassidi and Me with an AMAZING chocolate shake!

Singing "Never Gonna Give You Up"

"Gangsta's Paradise" with Marissa :)

"Kokomo" with Gustavo!

"As Long As You Love Me" with Michelle

My time in Otavalo

Hi everyone!

I just made it back from Otavalo today and it was such a great experience! I was able to do so much and learn so much while I was there, it was definitely a blessing. The family that I was staying with was so sweet and did everything they could to make me comfortable and really worked with me, especially because of the language barriers. The father, Oswaldo, knew the most English out of all of them, and he enjoyed every time he could say a word in English to me. Lorena, my mother for 10 days, was the sweetest probably. She is a school teacher, and every morning before school she would get up and make breakfast (desayuna-- i know Spanish!) and she was just always taking care of everyone in the house. I would ask her questions of how to say things in Spanish and she would ask me how to say things in English; we definitely both learned a lot from each other. She made the best fruit juices in the morning and at night. She would take fresh fruit and in the morning add milk to make something like a shake, and at night she would add water to make the juice. Michelle, their daughter, is 14 years old and we were able to bond over music. She knew a couple songs in English and enjoyed going through my Ipod of over 5,000 songs. Even though she didn't recognize much, she enjoyed that I had The Lion King, High School Musical, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and especially Enrique Iglesias :) I connected the most with the son, Christian, who is 10 years old. Him and I had a ton of fun playing games, dancing around in the kitchen, playing soccer, and just laughing a whole bunch. I taught him to fist pound and say the word "booyah," which I must say was quite funny. We joked around a lot, and it was really cool. The family was seriously so sweet and really enjoyed being around each other. One night, we all just sat around the TV and watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (in Spanish of course) but everyone was guessing the answers and laughing and having a great time together. The closeness of the family was truly a blessing, but it made me miss my family a lot more.

My mornings during the weekdays consisted of taking Spanish lessons for two hours with Rosa. She taught some of the missionaries that I am working with this summer when they first came to Ecuador 9 years ago, and they have been sending interns to her ever since. She was great and I really did learn a whole lot. We crash coursed verbs, in the present, future, and past, and we tried to get as many phrases and words written down so that I could take them with me and practice while I am back in Quito. It was a lot work trying to get Spanish down as quick as possible, because the more I learned, the more I was able to contribute to the conversation in the family. The most frustrating part of the experience probably was that I could understand most everything that they were saying to me, but it was real hard to try to say anything back to them. I couldn't find the right words, and when I thought I knew what I was saying, I would speak in French instead of Spanish and just confuse everything. I did get a lot better as the week went on, and I was able to write a short, but nice, thank you note to the family.

One of my favorite parts of my experience in Otavalo was working at Compassion in the afternoons. Every day at 1pm I went over to the Alliance church and got to hang out with kids until 5pm. The Compassion program, which was started by Lorena, is a place for kids to go after their school day and they can get a decent meal and not only play with other kids, but there was also education classes that they had to go to. I helped out in the classes by doing whatever was needed of me by the teacher, but I would say playing with the kids was the most fun. Whenever I tried to take pictures of them or with them, they just wanted to take pictures themselves. They kept grabbing my camera, and since I am kind of a sucker for kids, I would let them try to take some pics. All I kept saying was "cuidado" (be careful) over and over again, and thankfully no one dropped my camera, and a bunch of cute pictures came out of it. I met some great kids, and once again, a lot of them just wanted to play with me or show off some of their English skills. Most of them could count to 10 and say a couple of colors in English, and every day they would repeat them for me. I think it was their way of connecting with me, and that was really cute. The last day that I was at Compassion I spent a lot of time just goofing around with the kids. e were listening to music and dancing and, of course, taking more pictures. Then, the girl I was with and I taught some of the kids the YMCA and Macarana. They thought it was the funniest thing because we were just having fun and dancing and not worrying about who was watching, but they all got into it. We even got Christian and his friend Joel to dance with us, and that was quite an accomplishment! The kids at Compassion were just amazing and it was such a blessing to be able to meet them all.

Over the weekend, the family wanted to take me out to see some of the other sites around Otavalo. On Saturday, we went on a walk to la cascada (a waterfall). It was close by, even though we had to go through a bunch a little spaces and climb some high stairs, but it was worth it. It was so beautiful, and of course I took a lot of pictures. On Sunday we went to a lagoon in a town over where we were able to see Cuicocha, a volcano. It was really awesome to be so close to something that could erupt at any time. Ecuador has so many beautiful sites, and I just cannot stop being captivated by the beauty of everything. Even during the bus ride back from Otavalo today I found myself looking out the window the whole time at the mountains and the towns and the clouds. It's such a high elevation that half the time you basically feel like you are in a cloud.

What's in store next for me is that my first team is coming down on Saturday night and then on Sunday we are headed to El Carmen. I was in El Carmen for the Amazing Race and that is where I got to use the machete to clear a field for a church. Well, our project until Thursday is going to be working on construction for that church. I also will be helping with the Vacation Bible School while I am there with the team. Thursday night we will come back to Casa Blanca and then hang around this area and finding some ministries here until the team leaves early on Sunday morning.

I am still doing well and really enjoying the time that I have here. I'm trying to include some pictures of my time in Otavalo below, so hopefully it works!

View in Otavalo, so beautiful!

Me and the kids at Compassion

La Cascada

Michelle, Christian, Me, and Cassadi

Christian, Joel, and I at Compassion

What an Amazing Race!

Hey everyone!

It’s been a crazy, but fun, last week. The Amazing Race sent us all over Ecuador doing a bunch of stuff and not knowing anything about it until we opened our clues for the day. Tuesday morning we started off splitting into our teams and then taking a bus into Mindo. When we got there we had to take another car down into the city and then hike up this huge hill where we were told that we needed to complete a ropes course. When we got to Canopy Adventure, we realized that the ropes course meant a zip line course. Needless to say, I was completely freaked out, but excited at the same time. I got up enough courage to get on the zip line and go, and then got off, shaking like crazy, but thought it was good experience. We started walking up this hill, and I am realizing that we were not done with the zip lining yet. It wasn’t until then that I realized I had to do 13 different courses before we were done! After a minor panic attack to keep doing it, I was okay, and by the 4^th one, I loved it! It was so beautiful to basically be up in the clouds and zip lining from one mountain area to another. The last one that we had to do was real long and since we were up in the clouds, you could only see about half the line and then it disappeared into what looked like nothing. That one was probably the most beautiful site, though. After we got done zip lining, we took a 4 hour bus to St. Domingo, took another bus to El Carmen, and then got in this truck to go to a Missionary Alliance church. It was real late at night, but we still had to play soccer against 3 natives and score a goal before we had to send one of our teams members in to a dark room to catch a chicken. Finally, we got to eat dinner and we stayed in Bramadora at the church for the night.

Wednesday we woke up and had to take a chiva back into the town of El Carmen. A chiva is kind of like a bus, but you can sit on the top the whole way. We had to duck to not get hit by the banana trees that were passing by, and I was sitting next to a couple of chickens, but that was probably the coolest form of transportation that I got to take. After we got into El Carmen, I had to go to another site and use a machete to chop a section of the field away. They are using that land to build a church, hoping to get most of it done this summer. After we used the machete, we had to run up a hill, catch a taxi to a house, and meet our other team member that was helping cook lunch with a family. We ate chicken and rice and fried bananas. The family was so happy to have us there with them that they didn’t want to eat with us, but we made them sit down so we could have a conversation. After that, we took the bus back to St. Domingo in order to catch a 5 hour bus to Riobamba. Yes, a lot of this Amazing Race was on the bus, but it did help make me more comfortable to catch transportation around places. Once we got to Riobamba, we found out we were checking into a hotel, and we went out to a Texas BBQ place for dinner. It was nice to be able to sleep in a bed and grab a quick shower in the morning before the last two days of the race.

Thursday we woke up and took a bus to a place where we had to walk up hill for over an hour. Being that high of elevation and walking on only stones uphill, it was real challenging. A couple people had to stop because it was just too much, but we eventually all made it to the top where we found another small Missionary Alliance church. We got to rest a little bit and watch some kids play soccer, and then we went down to a potato field and had to harvest potatoes for 30 minutes. We were just picking potatoes up off the ground, and we probably were able to fill a couple of large bags. The discouraging factor was that we found out that a huge bag of potatoes can only sell for about 6 dollars, and we only worked for a half hour and were tired, so we couldn’t imagine how people do that all the time. To get back to the church for lunch, we were told that we had to ride a burro up the hill. I am not a big fan of horseback riding, but, it was just another task that I had to do. The burro was nice, but I was happy when I got to get off of it. We all ate lunch together that was prepared by some of the ladies of the church, and then we took a bus to Quitochu, a town that is only 10 miles away from the volcano that just erupted that caused me to be stuck in the airport for a long time. The people there were looking forward to seeing us so much and promised us we weren’t in danger, so we still went there anyways. When we got off the bus, we saw one of our leaders at a house, so we went there to meet him. The whole family came out and gave us tea and cookies and it wasn’t until about halfway through that Mark told us that we weren’t supposed to be at that house. The family knew Mark from before, and they invited him in for food, and once they saw all of us, they wanted us there too. We were still going to go to another house for coffee and bread, so he told us to save our appetites. The first family that wasn’t even expecting us asked us to stay for dinner and to sleep in their beds for the night. We already had plans for dinner, but we knew that they were just trying to serve God by offering up their beds, and we ended up accepting them. But, for dinner, we probably had the most challenging part of the Amazing Race. They told us that we needed to skin a guinea pig and prepare it to eat for dinner that night. That was not the best experience, but here, it is considered to be a delicacy to eat guinea pig. They usually go for 15 dollars, so for them to be willing to share with all of us was a big deal. We finally got through that, and then we got to go to a small church service for the night. They sang some of their songs, and then we went up to the front and sang some worship songs in English and in Spanish, and they enjoyed it a lot. The sermon was all about being united and being one in Christ, and it was a beautiful message considering we may have had some language barriers or cultural differences, but we are all still one in Christ. After that, we went back to the house that we were going to stay at and just talked to some of the girls that lived there. They were showing us pictures of some of their friends and just enjoying spending time with us. That night, however, we didn’t get much sleep because we could hear the volcano the whole time. It shook the house a couple of times, and we could see smoke coming out, but we knew that we were protected if anything were to happen. It was a crazy experience to hear all that noise and to be in a position where we were so close to a volcano, but it didn’t bother anyone in the community because they were so used to it.

On Friday we took a bus back to Quito in the morning and had to learn a song called “Chullo Quiteno” by asking people on the bus to sing it for us. Once we got back to Quito, we had to take some trolleys around town and go to a park. We then had to find a couple of buildings until we got back to the guest house of the Missionary Alliance. Once we got there, we had to count all the stairs in the building while we were singing the song that we were taught. They had 108 stairs in that house, and once we got that correct, we had to get our way back to Casa Blanca. After arriving back there, we were FINALLY able to take a good shower, and relax until dinner. We all ate dinner together and then just had some time of worship. Afterwards, they told us our placements for the Amazing Race, and since we switched teams every day, our scores were individual. I ended up coming in tied for 5^th place out of 12 people, which I didn’t think was too bad J

My internet is pretty spotty right now, so I will try to post pictures another day from the Amazing Race.

Because of all the hard work they put us through during those four days, they took all of us to the Hot Springs. It was a little over an hour drive, but it was amazing and completely relaxing. We went to Crepes and Waffles for dinner, a really great restaurant here where you can get any type of crepe or waffle that you want. On Sunday we did some worship as a group for the last time because the Peru people were going to leave that evening. We spent the rest of the afternoon together, and then we sadly said our goodbyes, and they left on their bus ride.

Tomorrow I am headed out to Otavalo (about an hour and a half away from Quito) so that I can live with a family for 10 days and study as much Spanish as possible. Pray that I learn some Spanish or I will have 10 pretty quiet days J I’ll let you know how my experience goes!

Took a long time...but I'm finally in Ecuador!

<--view from Casa Blanca in Quito!

Hey everyone! A lot has happened in the past week, but it has all been pretty good experiences so far. Last Sunday morning I flew out to San Diego and met up with a pretty good sized group to drive down to Ensenada, Mexico. We basically jumped into vans and found the basics to talk about. The training was for people that were a part of Christian Missionary Alliance groups this summer, so I met people that were going to Gabon in Africa, El Salvador, Jordan, Peru and the ones going down to Ecuador with me. We stayed in a nice bunk house that had just been rebuilt because they are hosting more teams this summer. Before we even got settled, we went straight to a village where we lead a VBS for some of the kids in the area. We walked around and knocked on people's doors to see if the children wanted to come to the VBS that we were putting on. Not too many showed up, but we still had a fun with the ones that did. We led a couple of songs, did a Bible study on the Prodigal Son, and played some classic games like duck duck goose and red light, green light. We ate some yummy tacos at a taco stand near the bunk house and spent the rest of the night with a speaker and some great worship.

Monday morning we went to a small church in the area and had some more worship time with a speaker. Then we did some team building activities such as a name game and getting everyone to stand on a tarp and find a way to flip it without having anyone step off. It was a lot of fun and really pushed people to work together and talk. The rest of the night was really relaxing and we had a great home cooked meal and got to sit around the fire and enjoy each other's company. Tuesday we got to do a service project of either helping a church put some concrete pathways in or painting the dining place of the bunk hall we were staying at. I got assigned to painting, which I love to do anyways, and the place looked really great afterwards. It was really cool to not only do a service project for someone, but to do it for a family that is allowing you to stay in their bunk house for a couple of days. That night was our last night in Ensenada, and it ended with some more great worship and a final speaker about how it might be hard to where we are going and how to deal with what was going to take place this summer. He discussed a lot about the disorientation process and how it is going to be okay as long as we deal with it and work with one another. Those words were great to hear because it is kind of scary to completely step out of what you are used to and go on a trip like this.

On Wednesday we drove up to Los Angeles and got to spend the night on Hollywood Boulevard together. I got to see a lot of the hand prints and the stars of all the famous people. Thursday we wrapped everything up and broke up into the teams that we will be spending the summer with to talk about last minute details. Also, we got the chance to talk with some of the CMA workers in our hometown area about how we were feeling about this summer and even life after it. It really put me in a good state of mind to leave the next morning and be ready to go to a completely new setting for the whole summer. That night, we went out to a great Italian restaurant called "Bucco de Bepes" where we had SO much food. It was a little bittersweet because it was the last night we were going to all spend together before we broke off to our own countries, and I had made some good friends with a couple of people that were going off to Gabon, but we still had a great time together. We got to walk around the Santa Monica pier afterwards and go down to the beach to run around in the sand.

The next morning I began all my travels to Ecuador. I was in the first group of 6 travelers that woke up at 3am to get to the airport for our early 6am flight. We got to Miami just fine and quickly ate lunch before we were going to board the plane at 2:30pm. We got on the plane and were sitting there for a little bit until they finally came on the intercom and said that there was some volcanic activity in Ecuador and they weren't sure of the situation so they would keep us updated. It wasn't too much longer that they told us that all flights out to Quito were cancelled for the rest of the night and to go out to the gate for more information. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but we were able to meet up with the rest of the people in our group as they landed in Miami and we got a hold of the people in charge. We got a hotel for the night and decided to grab some dinner together. We called the airline number many times to figure this all out, but it just so happened that everyone got rescheduled for flights on Saturday except for three of us, myself included. We couldn't get on a flight until 6:30pm on Sunday, but at least we ended up with something. However, we went back to the airport at 3am on Saturday with everyone to try to get our names on standby to at least get a flight out that day. When we went up to the counter, they told us that there were over 100 people on the list before us, but we could try. Basically, we sat at the airport all day and went around to any airline that we could to get on a flight, but the three of us needed to stay an extra night in Miami. I was with Chelsea and Cory, two great people that will end up going to Peru in a week, but I was so happy that I was with them because we were completely comfortable together. We started just turning everything into humor, otherwise we probably wouldn't have gotten through it. Long story short, after over 39 hours in Miami, we finally took off for Ecuador. We got in late last night and crashed. Today I was able to unpack a little and try to prepare myself for tomorrow. We are headed off to The Amazing Race where we will be split up in groups of 3 and have to spend 4 days running around the whole country of Ecuador with just a backpack and doing all these tasks that they are assigning us along the way. I'm sure that will be quite an experience and I'll be sure to write all about it.

Thanks again everyone for all the prayer support throughout everything! God is good and He eventually got me to Ecuador and I'm safe.