Just a quick note to let you all know that Baby Arteaga is a BOY!!! We had an ultrasound today and there is no doubt that he's a boy. He seems to be well and healthy at this point. We appreciate all your prayers!
As soon as I am able I will get a new post out telling about last week along with some pictures from the Kids Club at the dump - but for now we can say that it was a fabulous week with 80+ kids in attendance!
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Kids Club Weds July 18
July 18 found us once again at the Kids Club at the dump. It seems our usual attendance for the summer is around 60 children. Ennie continued her series on the Wordless book. The color was RED - representing the blood of Jesus Christ who saves us from sin through His sacrifice on the cross. Can you believe that once again, the craft, brought by a group from Kentucky, coincided with the story? They had brought crosses for the kids to make out of craft sticks and yarn! So the children all went home with a reminder of Christ's sacrifice on the cross for our sins. We also celebrated a birthday with cake for everyone which the children seemed to love! The dogs also didn't mind the crumbs that landed on floor.
PRAY FOR US THIS WEEK - the Vacation Bible School at the dump starts tomorrow morning at 9:30. The team arrives tonight so hopefully they have everything all set to go. They will be doing the VBS at the dump in the morning and then going to a partner ministry Nuevos Amigos in the afternoon for another VBS. Santi will be helping with both VBS's but I will probably only help in the morning, depending on how much energy I have.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Baby news
We had another ultrasound yesterday and were excited to see Baby Arteaga once again! He's growing and doing well. The doctor doing the ultrasound confirmed that all is well at this point. I was especially glad to hear that there is no trace of my earlier complications. So we are grateful for healing and that God has brought us this far! Thank you to all of you who have been praying! We're at 16 weeks and counting!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Weds Kids Club at the Dump
As you can see, I'm into a lot of photos today! These are from this past Wednesday which is the big day for the Kids Club out at the Quito dump. We had the help of a wonderful team from Center Grove Church in Greenwood, IN! We are so glad they came to help, especially since 65 children, babies, adults and 1 dog who showed up!
Sixty-five people was a record attendance for the Kids Club - somehow with some extra benches we found in another room there at the dump, we were able to get everyone around the tables. Our friends, Tommie & Ennie Bowen provided the story and songs. The team brought the craft and I had coloring pages and snacks for everyone!
It was so much fun for me to be out at the dump again (I haven't been able to go for several weeks due to the pregnancy) and it was especially nice because Santi was able to take some time from his work at the computer department at HCJB and come and help! He's great with kids - a lot more patient than I am! Hee, hee.
Two of our high schoolers from this past school year, Christine and Michele, also came to help. THANK YOU GIRLS!
The story was on the color black & sin from the "wordless book" - Ennie is doing a series on the wordless book this summer, talking about a different color each week, using it to explain more about God and how we can know Him personally. The cool part was that the team had agreed to bring the craft several weeks ago when we were coordinating the details. We had no idea what craft they were going to bring. Can you believe that they ended up bringing bracelets to make with all the children that had the colored beads from the Wordless Book!?!?! Isn't that awesome! So even the craft reinforced the story this past week.
If you think of it on Weds afternoon pray for us as there's a lot to prepare and many volunteers who come and help. We hope that through this weekly club we are able to make a difference in these kids' lives.
Also - a team is coming from St. Joseph, MI to help us with a four-day Kids Club at the dump July 24 - 27. Please pray that this would be a good week for us to get to know the children better and help them to know God better! As you can tell by the attendance, there is definitely a lot of interest!
Monday, July 9, 2007
Sunday at the Hogar
We want to take a moment to thank you for praying for us on Sunday and the service we helped with at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home). Roger did a great job in leading the songs. . . .even though our rhythm was hampered by two elderly gentlemen sitting in the front row and singing very loudly. The loud part wasn't the problem. . . the problem was that they can't hear very well, so they sang the song at their own rhythm (having no idea where we were in the song). Roger (leading singing) and I (playing the piano) just smiled and carried on! It brought new meaning to the verse from Psalms that says: "make a joyful noise unto the Lord!"Our next Sunday at the Hogar will be July 22. Pray for Santi as he will be sharing the message from God's Word that day. Our usual song leader will be back from his trip to the US so that will be a blessing.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Cravings . . . never knew how crazy they could be. And everyone keeps asking me if I'm having them so I thought I'd share the latest ones with you.
Here's my top 10 list of cravings so far. I'm guessing they will be changing as the weeks go by.
1) Big Macs from McDonalds (they're even on special right now at McDonald's for $1.25 - what a deal!)
2) marshmellows
3) butter (on fresh baked bread from the corner bakery)
4) salty potato chips
5) chips and salsa
6) spaghetti and meatballs
7) water with ice (if you have been to Ecuador you know that drinks are most often served without ice and I have gotten used to that . . .but now, there's nothing like a big glass of water with ICE!)
8) Oranges (probably about the only healthy thing on this list)
9) Strawberry jam
10) and Santi's favorite (NOT!): green olives filled with anchovies (I keep trying to share them with Santi and for some reason he always says "no gracias!", mmmm, I wonder why!?!)
Here's my top 10 list of cravings so far. I'm guessing they will be changing as the weeks go by.
1) Big Macs from McDonalds (they're even on special right now at McDonald's for $1.25 - what a deal!)
2) marshmellows
3) butter (on fresh baked bread from the corner bakery)
4) salty potato chips
5) chips and salsa
6) spaghetti and meatballs
7) water with ice (if you have been to Ecuador you know that drinks are most often served without ice and I have gotten used to that . . .but now, there's nothing like a big glass of water with ICE!)
8) Oranges (probably about the only healthy thing on this list)
9) Strawberry jam
10) and Santi's favorite (NOT!): green olives filled with anchovies (I keep trying to share them with Santi and for some reason he always says "no gracias!", mmmm, I wonder why!?!)
Friday, July 6, 2007
Life in Quito
Today I was out doing a couple of errands and once again was reminded of how our life here differs than life in the US.
The first week of the month I try to pay all our house-hold bills. Which here in Ecuador means that you have to go to all the various utilities and stand in super long lines to wait your turn to pay in cash. No such thing as putting a check in the mail. So that is what you would have found me doing today. Thankfully there is a paying service company where we can stand in one line and pay most of our bills at once . . . they do charge a small fee for this service (usually around 30 cents per bill), but I think for this service alone, I'd be happy to pay a large fee! There's nothing worse than standing in a long line here - especially when often it's finally your turn at the window and they close it for lunch or some other silly excuse - the favorite one seems to be "no hay sistema" - the computer system is down!
My other errand included a stop at the local pharmacy. As part of our ministry with the elderly residents at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home) on Sundays, we try to help them with some of their needs for medicines. Last Sunday when we were there, I asked if they had a list of medicines that they needed. Jaime, the care-taker there, pulled a list out of his pocket! I told him I'd try to have the supplies to bring back with us this Sunday.
So yesterday I stopped at the pharmacy to drop off the list which included everything from Tylenol to gauzes to stomach medicines to antibiotics to other things that I can't even pronounce let alone know what it is. The unique thing about this is that I didn't need a prescription to purchase all this stuff. Pharmacies here are a whole lot different than the ones the in US - usually you can walk in and buy just about anything you want without a prescription. I have heard that you need a prescription to get meds like Valium - but thankfully things have never gotten so bad where I felt like I needed Valium! Smiles!
Anyways, I walked out of the Pharmacy with a box full of meds which we will be taking out to the Hogar Betania on Sunday. Pray for us as we are without our usual song-leader who is in the US at the moment. None of us (Santi, me, Lois and Roger) are what we would call "musically talented" - we tried to find someone to come and help us with music this week but everyone had other obligations! So it's just us and the residents! Should make for an interesting choir this week!
By the way, we are able to purchase medicines for the residents through donations that are given to us specifically for this need. If you are interested in helping with this need, let us know - we can give you the information needed to send your donation to Extreme Response International.
Below are a couple of photos from a few weeks ago at the Hogar! Pray for us this week!
The first week of the month I try to pay all our house-hold bills. Which here in Ecuador means that you have to go to all the various utilities and stand in super long lines to wait your turn to pay in cash. No such thing as putting a check in the mail. So that is what you would have found me doing today. Thankfully there is a paying service company where we can stand in one line and pay most of our bills at once . . . they do charge a small fee for this service (usually around 30 cents per bill), but I think for this service alone, I'd be happy to pay a large fee! There's nothing worse than standing in a long line here - especially when often it's finally your turn at the window and they close it for lunch or some other silly excuse - the favorite one seems to be "no hay sistema" - the computer system is down!
My other errand included a stop at the local pharmacy. As part of our ministry with the elderly residents at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home) on Sundays, we try to help them with some of their needs for medicines. Last Sunday when we were there, I asked if they had a list of medicines that they needed. Jaime, the care-taker there, pulled a list out of his pocket! I told him I'd try to have the supplies to bring back with us this Sunday.
So yesterday I stopped at the pharmacy to drop off the list which included everything from Tylenol to gauzes to stomach medicines to antibiotics to other things that I can't even pronounce let alone know what it is. The unique thing about this is that I didn't need a prescription to purchase all this stuff. Pharmacies here are a whole lot different than the ones the in US - usually you can walk in and buy just about anything you want without a prescription. I have heard that you need a prescription to get meds like Valium - but thankfully things have never gotten so bad where I felt like I needed Valium! Smiles!
Anyways, I walked out of the Pharmacy with a box full of meds which we will be taking out to the Hogar Betania on Sunday. Pray for us as we are without our usual song-leader who is in the US at the moment. None of us (Santi, me, Lois and Roger) are what we would call "musically talented" - we tried to find someone to come and help us with music this week but everyone had other obligations! So it's just us and the residents! Should make for an interesting choir this week!
By the way, we are able to purchase medicines for the residents through donations that are given to us specifically for this need. If you are interested in helping with this need, let us know - we can give you the information needed to send your donation to Extreme Response International.
Below are a couple of photos from a few weeks ago at the Hogar! Pray for us this week!
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY . . .
. . . to all you living in the United States! I imagine that many of you are enjoying picnics, fireworks and the hot summer weather! Sometimes I can't remember what those "dog days" of summer are like.
After 10 years of living at the equator where
the weather is basically the same all the time . . . the change of seasons that you all experience seem like a world away. We are definitely entering what we call our "dry season" when it hardly rains and the wind has become stronger and the sun makes things hot and dry . . . however, it's never too hot for us here in the mountains . . . and once the sun sets, the evenings are very cool . . . cool enough to wear sweatshirts and warmer clothes.
Another unique thing about living at the equator is having days that are about the same length year round. The sun rises in the morning between 6 and 6:30 am and the sun usually sets by 6:30 pm. It varies just a bit depending on the time of the year. I must admit that I sometimes miss the long days of summer that you're all enjoying in the north right now. But I certainly can't complain as we have spring-like weather all year round - I'll remind you of this again when winter time rolls around and you're outside in freezing weather shoveling snow!
Here is a photo that reminds me of how cold winter can be! I also like the red, white, and blue in the photo making me feel a little more patriotic today. This was taken a few months ago during our trip to the US in November for our stateside reception. You'll see Santi's mom on the left - this was her first trip to the US and I don't think she was very impressed with the cold temperatures! We took day trip with my nephew and niece to see Lake Michigan and came across this beautiful red lighthouse (this was at the Holland, Michigan Harbor). Maybe this photo will help you all feel a little cooler today!
We hope you enjoy the holiday together with friends and family!
. . . to all you living in the United States! I imagine that many of you are enjoying picnics, fireworks and the hot summer weather! Sometimes I can't remember what those "dog days" of summer are like.
After 10 years of living at the equator where
the weather is basically the same all the time . . . the change of seasons that you all experience seem like a world away. We are definitely entering what we call our "dry season" when it hardly rains and the wind has become stronger and the sun makes things hot and dry . . . however, it's never too hot for us here in the mountains . . . and once the sun sets, the evenings are very cool . . . cool enough to wear sweatshirts and warmer clothes.Another unique thing about living at the equator is having days that are about the same length year round. The sun rises in the morning between 6 and 6:30 am and the sun usually sets by 6:30 pm. It varies just a bit depending on the time of the year. I must admit that I sometimes miss the long days of summer that you're all enjoying in the north right now. But I certainly can't complain as we have spring-like weather all year round - I'll remind you of this again when winter time rolls around and you're outside in freezing weather shoveling snow!
Here is a photo that reminds me of how cold winter can be! I also like the red, white, and blue in the photo making me feel a little more patriotic today. This was taken a few months ago during our trip to the US in November for our stateside reception. You'll see Santi's mom on the left - this was her first trip to the US and I don't think she was very impressed with the cold temperatures! We took day trip with my nephew and niece to see Lake Michigan and came across this beautiful red lighthouse (this was at the Holland, Michigan Harbor). Maybe this photo will help you all feel a little cooler today!
We hope you enjoy the holiday together with friends and family!
Monday, July 2, 2007
Update from the doctor
Just a quick note to let you know that things went well at the doctor's office today. She used a "doppler machine" (I have no idea what that is called in English, but I'm assuming that it's something similar in English) to hear the baby's heartbeat! That was fun! His heart is beating loud and clear (and very fast!).
In two more weeks, we go back for the 16 week ultrasound. We're looking forward to that.
Otherwise, I have a bit of high blood pressure which she wants us to watch (thanks, Paul & Susan, for loaning us your blood pressure cuff) and I need to cut back on salty food! Which was sad news for me as I seem to be craving mostly salty things (which probably explains the higher blood pressure)! For those who know me well, you know that I love chocolate and sweets . . . however, neither of those taste good to me anymore. Isn't that sad (for all you fellow-chocolate-lovers out there!)!?!?!?
Thanks for praying for our appointment today - it was thrilling to hear the baby's heartbeat! July 16 is our appointment for the ultrasound.
In two more weeks, we go back for the 16 week ultrasound. We're looking forward to that.
Otherwise, I have a bit of high blood pressure which she wants us to watch (thanks, Paul & Susan, for loaning us your blood pressure cuff) and I need to cut back on salty food! Which was sad news for me as I seem to be craving mostly salty things (which probably explains the higher blood pressure)! For those who know me well, you know that I love chocolate and sweets . . . however, neither of those taste good to me anymore. Isn't that sad (for all you fellow-chocolate-lovers out there!)!?!?!?
Thanks for praying for our appointment today - it was thrilling to hear the baby's heartbeat! July 16 is our appointment for the ultrasound.
Quito on a sunny day . . .
There is no doubt that summer time has finally arrived to Quito. We have big huge blue skies and very sunny days. One of the nice things about this time of year is being able to see all the mountains that surround the city. Quito is located in a valley at over 9,000 ft. altitude and it's hard to believe that at 9,000 ft, we can still see mountain ranges towering up over the city.
Today, from my office window on the second floor of our building, I have been enjoying the view so much that I decided to go up to the rooftop and take a couple of photos. You will see one snow-capped mountain, Cotopaxi. I believe that peak of Cotopaxi is around 20,000 ft. altitude. I have also been watching another snow-cap, called Cayambe, which is noted for being the only snow-capped mountain sitting on the equator. It's almost completely clouded over now, but it was very pretty earlier today. Anyway, enjoy the views from the rooftop (my view on the 2nd floor is not quite as nice as the rooftop - but it's similar). Hard to believe that I can sit here and see snow while sitting at the equator in July! Enjoy the photos.
Oh and today at 3 pm, we have an appt with my doctor and hopefully another ultrasound to see how Baby Arteaga is doing. We'll keep you updated . . .
(click on the photos to see more details)
Can you see Mt. Cotopaxi? It almost looks like a cloud.
Another view from the rooftop looking another direction (east) . . . this is just a small portion of the city - it still spreads out towards the north and the south.
Today, from my office window on the second floor of our building, I have been enjoying the view so much that I decided to go up to the rooftop and take a couple of photos. You will see one snow-capped mountain, Cotopaxi. I believe that peak of Cotopaxi is around 20,000 ft. altitude. I have also been watching another snow-cap, called Cayambe, which is noted for being the only snow-capped mountain sitting on the equator. It's almost completely clouded over now, but it was very pretty earlier today. Anyway, enjoy the views from the rooftop (my view on the 2nd floor is not quite as nice as the rooftop - but it's similar). Hard to believe that I can sit here and see snow while sitting at the equator in July! Enjoy the photos.
Oh and today at 3 pm, we have an appt with my doctor and hopefully another ultrasound to see how Baby Arteaga is doing. We'll keep you updated . . .
(click on the photos to see more details)
Can you see Mt. Cotopaxi? It almost looks like a cloud.
Another view from the rooftop looking another direction (east) . . . this is just a small portion of the city - it still spreads out towards the north and the south.
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