Early in the month of February we had the dreaded midterms. A week of testing over all that the kids had learned over the first half of the trimester. The bane of teachers, well maybe not, but you get the picture. Luckily, Jean and I are world class teachers and had no doubts about our student’s ability to pass these exams. I’m sure it’s not a surprise to any of yall that all of the kids passed, and with flying colors in almost all cases. While it did throw a kink into our schedule since we forgot that we had the midterms, we have been able to get it all straightened out and we’re ready to face the ones coming up next week on April 11-15.
We also had Jonathan, an Ecuadorian friend of mine come to stay in the cabin with us for five weeks. He is the younger brother of Ximena and he was interested in possibly coming to help with the ministry later on down the road and spent some of his break from school getting his feet wet. He helped me out in Math, PE, Bible and did the Spanish class for the kindergarteners. He was a great help and it was a lot of fun having another guy around my own age here in the cabin. While it might not have been the sanest to go in some of yall’s eyes, we did jump off of the tallest bridge around. It was a lot of fun and overall it was a success. Jonathan and I went tubing a lot with the kids while he was here, something that I hope to continue. One evening he made us a traditional Ecuadorian supper, which turned out very well. Hopefully I watched closely enough that I will be able to make some of the items later when we want a change of pace from our normal fare.
We had a team from the freezing state of Massatuses come to help lay the second floor foundation for the house. They did an excellent job of it and the floor looks awesome! There were several people who said that they were interested in possibly coming back to teach at some point, but we will just have to wait and see who The Lord provides us with as teachers for the upcoming year. We had a lot of fun with this team and the kids had a blast with them at VBS, almost every afternoon after VBS was over some form or shape of water fight broke out.
Joyce had her 17th birthday in the month of February. Jean made a bunny rabbit cake and we made an evening of it over at the house with the kids. There was a lot of dancing, which yours truly was utterly awful trying, but the kids and Joyce had a lot of fun at it. We even had an enactment of Little Bunny Foofoo in honor of Joyce. It was a great night, and hopefully we gave her a taste of the appreciation that we have for her.
Baptisms (insert Jean’s part here. I wasn’t there to see it. I had to stay home and watch the property.)
March was very memorable, and parts of it will always be adhered to my memory. Less than a month after the Massatuses team left, we had another team showing up; however this team was straight from the South, Tennessee. They had come from Darrin’s home church TDF, and if all goes as planned, they will be sending two teams a year. One compiled of college and young adults, the other older high schoolers. The TDF team busted their backsides for us for four mornings in a row, digging holes for piers to go into and then pouring concrete for them. It was a major undertaking and they did a stellar job on it. What they did was literally lay the foundation for another cabin that they are building so that we can house more interns. In the evenings, even though they were tired from the morning’s work, they put on a VBS program. After the second day of VBS three of the guys and I jumped off of the bridge. They had some great landings, and I’m pretty sure they had a great time jumping. Jean, Joyce and I were able to go to dinner with this team, get to know some of them better and even give our stories about how it came about that we live here
The day before the team left, Jonathan had to leave to go to Quito to visit with Richard and Ximena before going back home to Manta. It was strange to think of him leaving, he had been here long enough so that he became apart of what we are doing here. We had gained a member to the family, a friend and a coworker.
I had the opportunity to take the bus back to Quito with them when they left that Saturday, making a couple of stops along the way. We stopped off in Banos for a couple hours so that the team couple pick up some thinks at the market is they so desired. It was here that I was able to pick up items for the auction that I donated to. After that we had the driver step on it and we made tracks for Quito. I stayed with the Roselands that night so that I could make it to Lealani’s baby dedication that they were having that morning at church. Then I took the bus back to my beloved jungle.
Things went pretty normal the first couple of days I was back, but Wednesday after school was over I was attacked. I had laid to rest, and then when I got up I found that I hurt pretty much everywhere and was very cold, so cold in fact that my teeth were chattering, and I still very tired in spite of resting. I was supposed to watch the kids that night, but I had to ask Jean to do because I was just wasn’t up to it. I went to bed early that night and when I woke up I was in no shape to be teaching. I had gotten a fever before I went to bed the night before and I still had it when I woke up. However, I didn’t stay up I was exhausted so I rolled over and slept until after lunch. When I awoke, I drank some water and crawled back into bed. This was how it went until Friday night. I felt a lot better when I woke up Friday in the afternoon and even had something sizeable to eat. Saturday I felt just about healed up and we at the cabin decided to go the Tena. I walked the three-fourths of a mile felt pretty good, just a little tired. Then we walked over a mile when we got to Tena and I was wiped. I didn’t even feel like eating when we took a break for lunch. Soon as got back home, I crawled into my bed and took a three hour nap. When I awoke, sickness had reared its ugly head once again. It was same song, third verse, but this time on Monday I went to go get blood work done to see if I had Dengue Fever. The report said that I did not have it at that time, however it did say that I had had it previously, go figure. We decided that there wasn’t much that we could do, but wait it out and keep on doing what I had been. I spent most of my time sleeping, resting and drinking fluids. After Tuesday I didn’t sleep as much, but I did lie in bed most of the day. Over the course of the week I watched several movies and rested, not having any energy for anything else. The next Monday I had enough strength to teach three classes, Tuesday I taught four and then Wednesday through Friday I was able to get five under my belt. I am still gaining strength back, and am at about 90% at the moment. I would like to thank everyone that prayed for me during my sickness and to those of you who sent me messages of encouragement, wrote on my wall or called to make sure I was keeping up the fight, thank you. Yall helped my keep on keeping on brightened my day.
Until next time, from the heart of Ecuador, keep breathing and don’t die.
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