Downtown Colonial Quito

Anniversary Flowers

As promised here is a photo of the beautiful bouquet of flowers from my husband for our 1st anniversary! As many of you know, Ecuador is a major international exporter of roses and this is a perfect example of them. Thank you to my dear husband for this thoughtful gift!!!

One Year Later

It's been fun to reminisce this weekend and remember that a year ago we were joining our lives together forever! And now just a year later, our lives are about to change once again!

We had fun celebrating our one year anniversary this weekend - on Sat evening, we went for a horse carriage ride through beautiful downtown colonial Quito followed by a lovely dinner together.

I also received a beautiful bouquet of flowers (which Santi made a big effort to make sure it included the colors of our wedding - pink and green)! Tomorrow, I'll post pictures from downtown Quito and also of the flowers! We are very grateful for this year that God has given us and we both feel that it has been the best year of our lives!

7 1/2 months and counting!

Yes - 7 1/2 months along and counting. Our doctor's appt on Thursday went well, with all my labwork coming back just fine. So it's confirmed that I don't have preeclempsia which is an answer to prayer! My blood pressure has come back down which is also a good thing (probably due to the fact that I have been taking it easy since last week). The doctor took me off the light bed rest I was on but told me to still try not to do anything extra. So we're happy for the good report from Thursday.

And we are celebrating our FIRST ANNIVERSARY tonight by going to downtown Colonial Quito and taking a horse carriage ride and going to a special place to eat. Our actual anniversary is tomorrow, so I guess we're celebrating a day early. We'll have some photos to post I'm sure, of our time together downtown!

Thanks to all for asking how we're doing and for praying!

updates!

Thank you to everyone who commented on our last post and the various things we have going on. Here's a quick update for you

• My niece Cris arrived without any problems on Sat. evening. In fact, her flight arrived a bit early. We enjoyed going to church together at our Spanish church on Sunday and then had some friends over for lunch and a rousing game of Mexican Train (a dominoe game if you're not familiar with). On Monday she started her orientation at Pan de Vida where she will be working the next 6 weeks. I think a good description of her first few days here would be "hurry up and wait" as she is learning the ropes and trying to figure out her place at Pan de Vida. She's already been a great help there, helping prepare food baskets for 13 needy street families and helping getting things ready for the Weds evening feeding program. We'll have to write more about this!
• Thank you to everyone who prayed for Santi and his wisdom teeth being pulled on Monday evening. All four teeth were out within an hour and we were soon on our way home with pain-killers in hand. Two teeth came out right away with the other two being a bit difficult. He was a brave patient and survived all the pushing, pulling, breaking, drilling, etc. to get the teeth out. They just do local anesthetic here. As I was watching the dentist work, I was hoping that I'll be as brave as him through child-birth! smiles! After spending the day at home yesterday resting, he went to work today and seems to be doing just fine with taking Advil regularly! He was a very good patient and I have no complaints!
• The first Moms Club at the dump was today coinciding with the Kids Club. I was unable to go since I'm still on light bed rest until my doctor's appt tomorrow. Once I hear from the other leaders on how things went, I'll let you know.
• I will have my appt with the doctor tomorrow afternoon to find out what is going on with my blood pressure. Apparently my blood tests/lab work came back fine as they haven't called me (I did finally call them today and the nurse said that if the doctor didn't call me, all is fine). So we hope to find out more tomorrow. I do find that I don't have a lot stamina/energy. I'm actually finding that I really need the bed rest, even though it's frustrating to me with so much to do at the office, Kids Club and home. But everyone has been very gracious and helpful - its so good to have friends and co-workers who pick up the pieces when one isn't able to keep up!

So once again, thanks for praying. I hope to post some pictures this week as well. In the meantime, I felt I owed everyone an update on what is going on here!

Noteworthy News

Just thought I'd share of a few things going on here . . .

• My niece Cris will be arriving tomorrow night to spend 6 weeks with us. We're thrilled to have her here and are glad that she is able to work with the Pan de Vida (Bread of Life) ministry - helping street people through a hot meal program, health clinic, clothes closet and many other ways.
• Santi will be having all four of his wisdom teeth pulled Monday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Pray that all goes well with the procedure. He is a very brave person, so I have no doubt that he will come through just fine. I would be terrified if it were me!
• The FIRST MOMS' CLUB at the dump will be starting on Weds afternoon at the same time as the Kids Club. As many of you know, we have been wanting to start this ministry since last year, due to the interest of a number of moms who regularly attend the Kids Club. Brenda Walker will be leading it and the club will include the same Bible story and craft as the Kids Club, but we're adding other topics such as nutrition, health, family, marriage, etc. Please pray that this will be a way to reach these ladies even more. I've included a photo of Teresa, one of the moms who comes every week!
  

• I have an appt with my doctor on Thursday afternoon. He has been concerned because my blood pressure is creeping up, so we will be checking that again as well as seeing the results of some lab tests from this week. We're hoping that preeclempsia is not setting in - the lab tests should let us know for sure. In the meantime, I've been trying to take it as easy as possible, not going to the office unless necessary and not doing any extra activity.

As you can tell, we have a busy week ahead of us! Thanks for praying and for all your encouraging notes and comments! It's so wonderful to hear from you!

The Baby's Room

This past weekend, Santi worked hard in getting the baby's room cleaned out and painted. We also had the help of some good friends, Paul & Susan. We are grateful that they had the time to come to our home and help sort out items, clean, paint and move furniture! Below you can see the photos of the process and the finished product! THANKS TO PAUL & SUSAN FOR ALL THEIR HELP!

They were also able to paint our guest room (twice, but that's a long story) in preparation for my niece Cris, who is arriving this Sat to stay with us for six weeks. She will be working at an Extreme Response partner here in Quito called, Pan de Vida (Bread of Life). Pan de Vida is an outreach to street people here in Ecuador and includes programs such as education, clothes closet, health education and hot meal program. Cris will also be helping on Tuesdays and Fridays at the medical clinic out at the garbage dump. I look forward to sharing about Cris's experiences during her time here! I know it will not be a boring time for her!

Did you know?

I was just reading a magazine from the Ministry of Tourism about Ecuador and found the following interesting facts about Ecuador:

• That in Ecuador, you can find the largest amount of plants and flowers per square kilometer in all the world.
• Ecuador is the 2nd country in the world with the most diversity in animals known only to Ecuador (in other words, animals that you can only find here in Ecuador).
• Ecuador is the 3rd country in the world with diversity in amphibians.
• Ecuador is the 4th country in the world in number of bird species.
• And is 5th in the world in number of butterflies.
• You will also find 10% of all plant species in the world in Ecuador.
• 10.7% of all vertebrate animals are found in Ecuador.
• 35% of all hummingbird species are found in Ecuador.

And all of this is in just 0.19% of the surface of the earth! Ecuador is a pretty amazing place to live and there is never a lack of places to see and visit.

Here is one of my favorite photos of one of the snow-caps here in Ecuador - Antisana! Just to give you an idea of the beauty of Ecuador. Click on the word "Antisana" to find out more about Ecuador's fourth highest volcano and to see more photos (taken by a professional!).

A View from the Doorway

Last Weds at the Kids Club I was standing in the door-way to the little room where we hold the club at the dump. I think that because we go so often, it's easy to get used to seeing the people work and the garbage all around. I decided to snap this photo as I was standing there to remind me of the reality of these people's lives.

This group of people spend their days sorting through the garbage and classifying the items they find. They usually have stacks of plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and even glass that they pile up and wait for the trucks from the recycling companies to come and pick up. If they work really hard this family may earn about $150 a week by selling the re-cycable items to the companies (to be split up amongst all of them). It's very common to see the families like this one working together.

First Kids Club!

This past Weds was our first Kids Club at the dump to start off the school year. Weds also appeared to be the first day of our rainy season, providing us with a major rain storm right a the time we headed out to the dump with the high school students. I personally was glad that I had on my black rubber boots as there was mud, water and garbage everywhere! But none of that mattered much as we were greeted with smiles and hugs from the children we hadn't seen for a month!

We had good attendance in spite of the rain and we kicked the year off with the story of Creation. We are once again proud of our high school students and all their hard work in getting ready for the club. In two weeks, we will be starting the Moms' Club. We talked to some of the moms who came this week and they were excited about it! We are hoping to reach out to the moms who come to the club in a special way. Pray that we will be able to come up with ideas that will be meaningful to them and their lives.

Introducing our CSO High School Students

Here are some photos I found from our first orientation and "get-to-know-you" time with our new group of high school students! Like I said in my previous post, it's interesting to note that 7 nationalities are represented in the group - USA, Ecuador, China, Korea, Japan, Columbia and Germany! And what an enthusiastic group we have!

CSO High School Group

The school year has officially started at Alliance Academy and our new CSO (Christian Service Outreach) group with the high schoolers is up and going! Once again we have a great group of students. We enjoyed a overnight retreat at the Papallacta Guest House last weekend.

(The Papallacta Guest House is owned by HCJB and is located about 2 hours from Quito over the continental divide at their hydro-electric plant high in the mountains - a beautiful place to get away from the stress of the city!)

During the retreat we were able to get to know our students better and spend some time planning and organizing for this year. One of our leaders, Paul, provided some great fun with "team building games" - I'll let you try to figure out what they were doing from the photos!

We also had our first Kids Club of the school year at the dump yesterday. The story was on Creation and we were very proud of the way the high schoolers pitched right in and told the story, taught the memory verse, sang songs and did the craft. Our spirits weren't hampered too much by the heavy rain (rainy season has started in Quito!) and the lower attendance (due to the rain)! The children were thrilled to see the high schoolers again and it was great time together!

It's interesting to note that we have 7 nationalities represented in our group of high schoolers - the students hail from the US, Ecuador, Japan, China, Korea, Columbia, and Germany! It makes for quite the international group!