Hi all! Its been awhile since our last post before we got back home in March. My apologies to those that were following our blog and then we stopped posting cold turkey! So the deal is that we’ve been absolutely slammed with…making preparations for MOVING to Ecuador!! The whole point of visiting Ecuador in the first place was to check it out and see if we felt like we could live in a foreign country for awhile and serve – well, we came back, talked about it, prayed about it, and decided that, yup, with Jehovah’s help we think we can do this! It almost seemed like He was opening the door and inviting us down when our friend Rose in Atuntaqui offered her house to us while she is back in the States for a few months this summer. I mean, how perfect is that?? We’ll have time to put more thought and research into the decision of exactly where we will settle in. Plus, the economy has been tough on our business here so really we should just do what any witness does when losing their job – increase our service! We’re convinced there will be some real challenges down there and we’ll miss some of the amenities in our ‘comfort zone’ here (think access to good coffee, ethnic food restaurants (like Thai & Indian food!), and, oh yeah, that little detail of being able to communicate reasonably well with the general population). But the experience, similar to the 5 months we spent in New Orleans, should be life-changing and spiritually positive. Learning Spanish while we’re there will also hopefully give us even more flexibility to go to other countries in the future. So, at the moment, we are heads-down trying to make arrangements to head out. Things like: building a storage shed this weekend at my parents’ house to store some of our materialistic-stuff-we-can’t-yet-part-with; getting remodel projects finished so we can rent our place out; selling the stuff we CAN part with so we don’t have to store it!; finishing up taxes early (normally I extend and figure it out by October); little stuff like burning all of our CD/DVD’s to disk; researching and figuring out arrangements for mail; figuring out how to keep my cell number…and the list just goes on. You know, I figured it would be a lot of work but man I had no real idea! Our time frame now is dependant on getting the travel visa that we need from the Ecuador consulate. That process takes a couple months and we were just able to get that started last week (long story). So we probably won’t be able to leave until end of June (best case) or sometime in July (more likely) – assuming they approve us! With so many moving pieces, we’re also aware that there is always a possibility that we hit a major snag that kills this grand idea, but we’re just going to work towards it and pray hard that Jehovah blesses our efforts.
Well, that’s all I have for now. We would love to hear what everyone else is up to, so send us an email if you get a chance.
