Where did May go?

All of a sudden May is gone and the summer is upon us! We're looking forward to some great things this summer - including having two summer missionaries staying with us. James is a pre-med student from Northwestern College (MN) and he will be serving at HCJB Global's Hospital Vozandes. Tyler is an engineering student from Clemson University (SC) and he will be serving in EcoLuz, HCJB Global's Hydro-electric Department. We are excited to have them with us.

Nathan is growing a lot - it seems like all his pants are getting shorter quickly these days. Ruth is also growing with baby #2! And Santi is staying busy with projects at work (and at home - seems like the "honey-do" list never ends). But we have found time to go to the park and do some fun things as well.

Snow in Quito?

We've been having some strange weather in Quito lately with 2 major rain storms over the weekend. But imagine my surprise to run into snow on the way home from HCJB this afternoon! It was definitely a unique scene when you are living at the equator - and if I didn't have photos to prove it, I might not even believe that there was so much snow on the ground! It was only a small section of the highway and apparently the weight of the snow took down a few power lines as well as a sign for the Case company at that section of the highway. It was interesting to say the least . . . . I just happened to have my camera with me and got a few photos of the snow.






Here are some more photos of the snow that we had on the north side of Quito today - these were in the El Comercio newspaper on-line. Click here to see the photos from El Comercio.

Training of Trainers . . . .

One of Santi's main responsibilities at HCJB Global is to provide technical support for their radio staff here in Quito and around the world. And part of our radio ministry in Latin America includes radio training - a service to radio stations in various parts of Latin America, providing support in the areas of production and technology. . . a huge benefit for many of these small, struggling ministries with very few resources of their own.

Last week, Santi had the privilege of being involved in a seminar at HCJB called "Training of Trainers" - a time together with HCJB radio staff to work on becoming better trainers in the area of radio.

According to one of the facilitators of the seminar, Allen Graham, "We had a great group of coworkers from the production, technical and support sides of HCJB. There was great interaction by all the participants and many commented how they will also be able to use these principles in their church ministries as well as in HCJB training events."

Santi really enjoyed the time with his co-workers as they worked through training principles. Pray for Santi as he seeks better ways to help the radio staff through technical support and also for the radio training department as they go out to train others to do more Christian radio throughout Latin America!

Global Leadership Summit

One of the organizations here in Quito, Leader Mundial, puts together a Global Leadership Summit here in Quito each year.

This year, 36 leaders, partners and coaches are gathering here in Quito, Ecuador for their 3rd Annual Leadership Summit. The Community is made up of 3 kinds of people:

*Leaders: These are strategically placed leaders around the world that lead or manage organizations that are impacting their city, country and region for the Kingdom.

*Partners: These are people that come alongside these leaders, providing the financial resources for the leaders to participate, as well as coming to share their life, experience and passion.

*Coaches: These are people that simply help the leaders & partners to process, to grow, to apply the things they learn and to become more effective leaders.

The 4-day event consists of training, networking, building community & relationships, seeing a little of Ecuador and being challenged in our personal and organizational leadership.

The Summit is happening this week and we are so excited to have many of our Extreme Response partners here for the Summit. Some of the participants include:

Joshua Benavides from Youth Mobilization in the Philippines. Jonhattan Constante from Ambato, Ecuador. Dan Maloy from the Extreme Response office in Quito. Rich Brown from Inca Link (Ecuador and Peru). Pierre Roux from ATAIM in South Africa. And Patrick Crowster from Woodstock Baptist Church also in South Africa. There are others participating as well.

And what a privilege for us to have all these people here in one place as they learn and grow together. And so many people who represent sacrifice in ministry. I think of Pierre who is an Army Chaplain in the South Africa Army, and he also runs a ministry there called ATAIM, using short-term teams to impact projects and partners who work with people in very needy situations (think of dump communities or AIDS orphans, etc.).

And then there's Claudia and Patrick Crowster . . . . who both gave up well-paying jobs to pastor an inner city church among drug lords and thieves to make an impact in that community - which they are doing so very well through the church and an education program. I will have the privilege of translating for Claudia on Thursday as she shares her testimony with the women who dig through the garbage at the Quito City Dump - please pray for us that it would be a time of ministry to these women and that God would give us the words to say.

I could keep going as the list and information is great, but I think you get the idea. And what a blessing to have partners who come from the US, providing the funds for this event as well as sharing their personal experience. Anyways, if you want to read more, please visit the Leader Mundial site by clicking HERE. And you'll see some faces that you can pray for (visit their blog as they post info from this week's activities).

More fun news!

Santi and I are happy to announce that we are expecting Baby Arteaga #2!!! We are excited and thrilled and are looking forward to his/her arrival day sometime around October 1. Nathan doesn't have a clue yet, but we're reminding him daily that he's soon going to have a little sibling. We're sure he'll catch on shortly after the baby is born!

So far, everything has gone well with the pregnancy (with none of the issues that Ruth had early on with Nathan) . . . . only lots of tiredness and morning sickness! Please pray for us in the next five months as we prepare for a new little one in our home and that the baby would be born healthy. We are grateful to God for this gift!

Easter Fun

Easter is a bit different here in Ecuador - mostly because we don't have the newness and fun-time of spring and all the "new life" that brings (thinking of the North American ideas of Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and all that cute stuff).

It's always interesting to explain all the North American "stuff" to my English class when Easter comes around - why the Easter bunny, coloring eggs, cute little baby animals, etc. Ecuador doesn't have four distinct seasons, so the concept of Spring is a rather new and unknown idea for my students - the flowers blooming (flowers bloom all year round here), grass turning green again (grass is always green here), trees budding out (trees never lose their leaves and bud again here), a new growing season (things grow year round here) . . . .

But the cool thing is that as we talk about this symbols of Spring and Easter in my class, we are reminded once again of the New Life we have in Christ - the true meaning of the celebration of Easter!

And in speaking of New Life - it was a joy on Easter Sunday to see three of the elderly residents at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home for the Elderly) raise their hands to receive Christ as their Saviour! Santi decided to include an opportunity for salvation at the end of his message and 2 new ladies raised their hand to say a prayer of salvation along with another man, Luis Alfonso, who has been there for a while! Needless to say, this was a joyful time for all us! I don't have photos of the two new ladies, but here's a photo of Luis Alfonso.


Please pray for these three people as we help them to grow in their relationship with Christ!

And at home, we also started a tradition of coloring Easter eggs, with some guests we had for lunch! It seems that the adults enjoyed it as much as the kids! This was the first time that Santi had colored Easter eggs (this is definitely a north american tradition) and Nathan really wasn't quite sure what to do with the eggs. We had fun!


A typical Ecuadorian tradition during "Semana Santa" (or Holy Week) is to eat Fanesca. This is a special soup/chowder made with a number of ingredients, including 12 grains (to represent the 12 disciples of Jesus). It also has potatoes and pumpkin in it. Often it is garnished with boiled eggs, a sprig of parsley and some plantain chips. Some people like to put salted cod in it as well (due to the concept of not eating red meat the week before Easter). Anyways - everyone has their own recipe and the taste can vary in different parts of the country. We had the priviledge of being invited to some Ecuadorian friends' home for a "fanesca meal" on Palm Sunday - it was delicious (although I can usually only eat about one portion as it's very filling with all those grains and stuff in it!). Here's a photo of our bowl of fanesca!


We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday with friends and family and are enjoying springtime. . . . all the flowers popping out and green grass and hopefully warmer temperatures! If you'd like to see more of our Easter photos, please click HERE.

First Kiss!

So at 15 months, Nathan had his first kiss! We were at the home of some Ecuadorian friends yesterday to enjoy some fanesca (more about that later) and they have a little girl, Nicole, who is 3 months older than Nathan! Well . . . . let's just say they had a fun time playing together (as you can see from the photos!).

Nathan is a growing 15 month old - his 1st year molars are almost all the way in and he's walking, talking, jabbering, and learning new things every day - he keeps mom and dad pretty busy most of the time! If you want to see some more photos from this year, click HERE.