Hola,
For those of you wondering, yes I did make it to Ecuador safely. I do feel that this is where I am supposed to be. On the plane ride from Houston to Quito I sat next to some missionaries from North Korea, which was very neat. They were friendly and talkative. Late Monday night/very early Tuesday morning I landed and made it through customs. I had some friends I know; pick me up from the airport. They have been living in Quito for several months already. I stayed the night with the Roseland’s (my friends) and woke up early for Richard to take me to “It’s About Kids”. I met up with a team from Ohio, who were going down to the jungle for five days. The bus ride to Antioch (the name of the location I will be working at in the jungle) took roughly six hours to drive. I slept off and on, the way there, as did most of the team. Even though I had never seen any of the team before, we quickly and smoothly got to know each other. When we arrived in Misauhaulli, the team stayed in the local hostel, which is like a hotel. I went with Roberto to Antioch and met the family and kids that live there. There are currently two boys: Junior and Anthony, along with six girls: Marisol, Saida, Jadyra, Lali, Anahi and Mireya. The last three girls are Roberto and Charmai Davalos children. I sleep in the boy’s room at the moment because the cabin for the teachers it being used. Antioch is a 10 acre plot that is very close to the river and is technically apart of the community of Pununo. We have a lot of fruit bearing trees including Coco, Orange, Plantains and a couple others I believe that I do not the names of yet. It gets dark very early here, after about 6:30 the sun is completely down. With the sun setting so early it makes you sleepy by 10pm. I was told that this will go on all year, sun gets up at 6, sun goes to sleep at 6, and that’s how it has always been. That is something that I did not realize till I arrived.
We have breakfast at 7:30 every morning, normally consisting of some kind of fruit, granola, yogurt and sometimes cereal. The kids clean up the kitchen and any mess from breakfast; they do this every day and after every meal in order to earn money. Since we have a team here this week, they show up close to 8:15 and everyone starts to work. The jobs we do, change with each team, for this one we painted the house and dug a trench/laid PVC piping in order to catch the rainwater off of the roof. The piping took about three days to finish and the painting took five. When I arrived all of the walls were white, when we were done painting every wall had a new color. The girl’s room is now pink, the boy’s room and the kitchen share the same olive green, the bathrooms, class rooms, living room and parent’s room is a sandy tan. All in all it looks great now that it is done. Every day the team would leave at lunch time to go back to the hostel and eat. After lunch we would do our chores and then it would be time to go to do VBS. These programs were put on by the team and were really the team’s gig. I would help if they needed it but mostly I watched and listened. We had VBS in Pununo for three days, then in Pusuno and the once by the school near Quito. We had roughly 70 kids in Pununo for the last two days and 45-50 the first day. We had Bible lesson, craft, games, final parting pray/sermon, then gave out snack as they went back home. I cannot say the number of people we had saved because after every sermon we always had every single child go down to pray for salvation. While I cannot say how many true conversions that we had, I do know that we have planted new seeds and watered others. When they come to fruition is in the Lord’s plan, we did everything that we could do and to the best of our abilities. The village of Pusuno is a 30 minute boat ride down river. The VBS there was a lot smaller then in Pununo only about 30 kids. After we finished there, we went down river a little ways and had lunch on the shore. After lunch Marisol, Anthony, one of the team members and I went swimming. The water was cold, but refreshing; it was strangely not a very large shock to my system since I don’t like cold water. After we returned to Misauhaulli, the team had a short break and then came to the house to finish up the painting. The final effect looks great. I hadn’t noticed how plain the walls were until they had all been redone.
Saturday we woke up early, ate breakfast and then waited for the team’s bus to arrive to pick us up. The “Ohioans” were all done in the jungle and it was now time to go to Quito. We made several stops along the way, we saw a waterfall, rode a homemade cable car that was ran with a bus engine and transmission, stopped at the town BanosMontebello close to 11pm.
The following morning we had another VBS that we held in a soccer field that was just up the hill. We had another large turnout, close to 40 kids. The team did great as always and afterwards we cleaned up and went to the mall for lunch. After we had filled our bellies, we drove back to Montebello and just chilled till we ate our late supper. I was able to talk on the phone to my parents for the first time since I had been here and also learned a new game yhat evening. After we had eaten, I went to stay at the home of Richard and Ximena Roseland and Gustavo, a friend of theirs that they met when they were in Mexico helping at another orphanage. I stayed with them for a couple days so I could have my Visa processed and to get an Ecuadorian ID. Another person from Texas came in the next day; she is going to be teaching in Manta, a coastal city about 5 hours from Quito. Since we were all roughly the same age, Ximena put together a bingo night for the older kids from the school. We played several games and it was a blast. After everyone left, we had some moths that we spent 10 minute trying to get rid of, needless to say, we won. The stay at the Roseland’s was relaxing, we sat and talked a lot, watched TV and visited tourist things. Sunday we went to church at the school and then I was reunited with the jungle clan. We went to take Charmai to the airport so she could go the United States to pick up their oldest daughter, who is visiting family. Roberto and I took the other kids to the Beach which has been an experience. It took 6 hours to arrive. The water is similar to Corpus but the waves are huge.
GOD is using me here and I appreciate your prayers while I am here.
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