CSO Retreat

Thank you for praying for our CSO retreat this past weekend with our high school group. We had 100% attendance and it was a great time to get to know our new group for this year. We enjoy quite a multi-cultural group that includes Koreans, Ecuadorians and some North Americans. For some English and Spanish are a second or third language.

All of the students came with a heart to learn and to serve. God used the devotionals to speak to all of us about our commitment to "Tell the Story" of the Good News of Jesus Christ this year to the Kids Club and Moms Club. We spent time working together to plan for our groups this coming year - the Bible Stories (based on a series on Experiencing the Life of Christ), the memory verses (this year we're going to memorize Matthew 5:1 - 12, The Beatitudes), and the crafts. The students who will help with the mom's club also met together.

And there was lots of fun and laughter too - special "skits" with unusual props, our traditional game of "I have never . . . ", team building activities and time to just hang out! We are grateful for such a great group of students to work with this year. And we appreciate our adult leadership team who puts in many hours helping to prepare for the Kids Club.

Pray for our group this year. There are some students who do not know Christ as their personal Savior. Our prayer is that through the time in the Kids Club they would come to have a relationship with Him.

We had our first club this past Wednesday. Attendance was a bit low due to a rainstorm that passed through Quito during the same time as the Kids Club, but we still enjoyed re-connected with the children and moms who did come.

Here are some photos from the retreat:

Our whole group at the Papallacta Guest House

A puzzle piece made by one of our students during team-building time (we need all the pieces of the puzzle to work together). I really appreciated the poem that he wrote - it sums up our Wednesday afternoons at the dump so well!

Looking at our finished puzzle - each piece made by one of our students - and praying that we will all work together this year!

We have some great artists in our group!

A Good Samaritan skit . . . .

David participating in another skit - the Feeding of the 5,000

Another retreat tradition - playing Jenkins Hands Up (don't ask!)

Happy 1st Birthday to Isabella!

Isa has been in our lives for a year now and has brought us so much joy, happiness, and delight! We are so blessed to have two sweet children.

During her birthday week, Isa has learned to stand up and is working on doing some walking on her own too. She now has six teeth (four uppers and two on the bottom). She says "mama" and "dada" and is generally a happy baby. She adores her brother, Nathan and wants to see him as soon as she wakes up in the morning or after her nap. Happy Birthday, dear little Isabella!

Here's a reminder of how much she has grown up in one year!

Nathan's Snowman

The other morning while I was baking in the kitchen, Nathan was playing with Play Doh at the counter. I asked him what he was making and he told me it was a snowman and then he asked me to open the cupboard to get some eyes.

I was confused (I know, my normal state of mind) but opened the cupboard anyway. Well, that particular cupboard is the one that I pretty much stuff just about anything into (recipe books, random papers, dominoes, flashlights, bubbles, crafts from Nathan’s day care, phone books, coloring books, crayons – seriously, there’s all sorts of stuff in there!). So I really wasn’t sure if I was going to find any eyes in there or not . . . but Nathan was insisting . . . so I opened the door and sure enough, there were some eyes staring me in the face . . . on one of Nathan’s crafts from his day care that I’ve been hanging onto (because it’s too cute to throw away!).

So I pulled the eyes off (don’t worry – I saved them to glue on again), and handed them to Nathan and he proceeded to take about five minutes to get the eyes in just the right place. I just love the look of concentration in this series of photos! Oh and I’m not sure that he has ever seen a snowman in real life, but he knew to make three balls and put them on top of each other – have no idea where he got that from (we do talk about snowmen from time to time in his picture books –maybe he got the idea from that).

Happy 1st Birthday Isa!

Last night we had a little birthday party for Isabella’s 1^st birthday (she turns 1 on Wednesday). We invited the Dawson family and celebrated Isaiah’s 4^th birthday as well. It was tons of fun!

Waffles for Breakfast . . .

So we usually have waffles for breakfast on Saturdays, but since we will be gone to the retreat this weekend, I decided to make waffles this morning for Nathan and Isa - they seemed to enjoy them!

Packing our bags . . .

. . . for the CSO retreat this weekend! Our high school is set to go - we have 19 great students this year who are ready to dig in and get started with the Kids Club at the dump on Wednesday afternoons. This weekend, we head to the mountains - up to Papallacta where HCJB formally had a hydro-electric plant. We are still able to use the large guest house there and it's perfect for our group - 24 beds and we have 24 people!

We have lots of activities planned - including team building games, planning for the Kids Club, great food, skits and some music and devotionals. Pray for us this weekend that we all would seek God and grow together in Him. I'm looking forward to having a chance to get to know our students better - we have a few repeats from last year (we had a lot of Seniors who graduated last year), but lots of new students. And they are from all over the world - Ecuador, the US, Asia . . . .quite the multi-cultural group!

Nathan and Isabella are staying back in Quito at home with Santi's mom who is coming to help us out for the weekend . . . we are grateful that she's able to help.

What is a CSO group?

One of the things we enjoy most here is the Wednesday afternoon Kids Club at the dump and we're excited that we're getting back to it this month. And we can't wait to meet our new high school students who will be a part of our Extreme Response CSO this year!

What is a CSO group, you might ask?

Well, today all of the CSO (Christian Service Outreach) opportunities will be presented to the high school students at Alliance Academy International. These are volunteer groups that do various service activities after school, usually on Wednesday afternoon. There are a total of 10 groups. For example, one group goes to the local children's hospital to visit the children and give them gifts and share about Jesus. Another group helps with Pan de Vida - a ministry to street people, providing them with a hot meal and other programs. There's a group dedicated to painting murals with a Christian message on the walls in the neighborhood. A couple of years ago, this group painted a beautiful mural depicting the story of Creation on the wall that surrounds the HCJB property in Quito. The Guardian group mentors middle school students. One group spends time praying during their lunch hour for persecuted Christians around the world.

And our Extreme Response CSO group plans and provides the Kids Club for the children at the dump every Wednesday afternoon. As you can see, the groups are varied and God is providing lots of avenues for these high schoolers to be involved in ministry!

We are asking that you please pray for the students today as they listen to the presentations by the various CSO groups and make decisions as to where they will be involved this year. This is a non-required extra-curricular activity for the students and it seems that there is almost 100% participation every year! The opportunities are huge!

And as you pray - please keep our CSO group in mind along with the following events:

1) Weds Sept 15 - 1st meeting, orientation at the dump

2) Fri/Sat Sept 17 and 18 - overnight retreat in Papallacta to do team building activities with our new group and to plan for this year's Kids Club

3) Weds Sept 22 - 1st Kids Club at the dump, starting our Bible story series on Experiencing the Life of Christ. Pray too for the moms who will come and be a part of their own Mom's Club.

Starting up again . . .

It's rather embarrassing that our last post on this blog was back in April! We have lots to catch up on - including tidbits about our time in the US from May 13 to July 20. Hopefully, we will add some posts which will show some highlights and photos from our time in the US. For the moment, we can say that we so enjoyed visiting family, friends and our supporting churches and the time went by way too quickly!

We returned to Quito on July 20 and jumped right back into things. We are grateful that both Nathan and Isabella did well traveling (relatively speaking - depends on if you really enjoy traveling with a 2 1/2 year old active little boy and a growing baby who changed a lot during the 2 and 1/2 months we were in the states!). We are also glad that they both adjusted quickly to our life back in Quito.

Once back in Quito:

1) we adjusted to the altitude again - even Santi (who has lived in at over 9,000 ft altitude his whole life) noticed the difference this time.

2) we unpacked 7 suitcases and one car seat (for Isabella) - full of things that were given to us while we were in the US (thank you, everyone) - clothes for Nathan and Isabella, tools for Santi to use (on Ruth's to-do list for the house! smiles), fruit snacks for Nathan and goldfish for Isa, and well . . . .let's face it - items we picked up during several Walmart runs!

3) we enjoyed getting back into our ministry and work . . . . Santi returned to the Information Systems office at HCJB and picked up the slack during the next month while most of his co-workers were still on Home Ministry Assignments in their home countries. Ruth has been coordinating details to start up the Kids Club at the dump again (1st club will be on September 22) and all the preparations to accept a new group of high schoolers to help with the club.

4) Isabella worked on cutting her four top teeth (looking quite pretty, if I might add) and learning to go up and down the stairs (it took her about a day to figure this out and she would literally spend hours going up and down if we let her). Otherwise, she's just a happy, smiley baby who loves to be around people - it's hard to be grumpy around her as she always has a smile on her face!

5) and Nathan gave up his pacifier (or "mimi" as he liked to call it) and is learning not to harass his sister too much! The giving up the pacifier was actually not as hard as we expected - he did pretty well with it and is now talking up a storm (now that he doesn't have something in his mouth all the time!). He's talking in both Spanish and English and we're amazed at his comprehension in either language.

6) we also have been to the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home for the Elderly) several times on Sunday morning (and one time during the week with a team that was here) . . . . . and we are impressed more than ever with the importance of sharing with these dear, elderly, needy people. We ask God for wisdom as to how to help them. One of our latest projects is looking for funds to re-pave the patio where they sit and hang out during the day. The ground is very un-even making it difficult for them to walk or roll around in their wheel-chairs. If you'd like to help with this project financially please let us know - send us an email or contact us on Facebook.

That's the latest from the Arteaga family - we will soon share more photos and high lights from our time in the US - so keep checking back! We are grateful for all your prayers and encouragement and all the wonderful visits we enjoyed while in the US. WE APPRECIATE YOU!

Blessings from Quito . . . .