It’s been awhile…but this should keep you busy…

Well, when I started this blog I was thinking that I would have sooo much free time here in Ecuador that surely I would be able to blog once or twice a month.  Hasn’t quite worked out that way…real similar to that grand idea of exercising 3 or 4 times/week (most maybe can relate to how THAT good idea usually turns out).  So, sorry it’s been so long and I hope you haven’t forgotten about us already!  Here are some of the things we’ve been up to (some of the local pics are repeats on Facebook)…

We’ve really been enjoying the field service!  There is definitely a difference between the city territory and the ‘campo’ or rural territory.  The city territory that we have is harder to work in the sense that, while we place a lot of literature, it is harder to catch people home again and cultivate the interest into studies.  That said, there is a lot of initial interest!  It is a rare morning that we go out and don’t find people who are interested in at least reading the latest magazines.  Most in the city are busy but they respect the bible and will often consider the question you pose and let you read them a scripture.  Plus, the one good thing about our obvious bad Spanish is that the householders will be curious as to what the heck a couple of Americanos are doing there at their door when we can barely talk to them.  We get to explain (we’ve got those Spanish words down pat now) and that sometimes leads to a nice rapport and the opportunity to give a witness.  That approach also works really well with informal witnessing.  When we go to a store, take a taxi, or even just meet someone in passing, once we start sputtering out badly pronounced Spanish they want to know where we are from and why we are in Ecuador.  Informal witnessing like this is pretty easy! 

We’ve had some good experiences, too.  Awhile back, I had briefly placed a God’s Friend brochure in passing with one of the security guards in our neighborhood.  Later that evening someone rings our doorbell and sure enough, its the security guard at our front gate.  ‘Freddy’ had read the whole brochure that afternoon and then scribbled down about 10 questions on a sheet of paper that he wanted answers to!  We spent the next hour+ answering each of his questions from the bible.  He seemed satisfied with the answers and we sent him off with a Teach book and a Bible.  Sam ran into him a couple days later around the corner and he had another question for her – why did his Catholic bible have more books than our bible (the Apocryphal books)??  She gave him a brief answer and promised more research.  He came by later (right in the middle of dinner!) and we gave him a more detailed answer and some printed research.  He ends up telling us how he had been a pretty bad person earlier in life and realized that he needed to straighten things out.  He accepted a study and we made rough plans to start the next week.  Well, we’ll have to see what happens later because he disappeared after that!  We aren’t sure if he quit/got fired or what, but he doesn’t seem to work in our neighborhood anymore.  Unfortunately, I never got a phone number from him.  Someone commented that maybe he got fired because he was in our house talking to us instead of working – I sure hope not!  Although maybe that explains why he kept coming over right after dark (when no one could see him?)… 

Another experience we just had last month started when we had just come back from the Lima, Peru International Convention.  Sam’s sister/brother in law came back to Ecuador with us and we went to the Mindo cloud forest direct from the airport.  Well, by a plethora of weird circumstances (missed flights, power outages in Quito, husbands separated from wives, bus schedules – actually I guess that is pretty normal stuff here) we decided to cough up the $60 for private hotel transportation instead of the usual $2.50 bus ride.  At the airport a young 20 yr old picks us up and it ends up he can speak relatively decent English.  He has this super enthusiastic personality that had us cracking up right off at the start of the 2 hr ride to Mindo.  The good part started when we told him that we were Christians…he got all excited and proceeded to tell us how he was Christian, too, and that he reads his bible all the time and he just loves God!  So, we decided to test him out a little and ask him what God’s name was…well, of course, it is Jehovah, he says!  We were kind of shocked!  We couldn’t believe he knew that…turns out, he really does read his bible!  He commented though that the bible is hard to understand sometimes.  When we told him that we could give him the new brochure that we just got from the convention, he expressed so much appreciation.  So after we got to Mindo and settled in, I found the brochure in my luggage and took it down to him.  I was planning to keep the conversation short but he started to ask a bunch of questions.  I had my bible and got to show him how the bible’s theme was all about God’s kingdom and how God was fixing what had happened in the Garden of Eden.  We discussed Gen 3:15, Dan 2:44, John 17:3, Rev 21, Isa – all the usuals and a few more, and he was actually familiar with several of them from his own bible reading.  Every time I would say that I should probably let him go he would ask me another question or make another comment that would lead to another scripture.  He commented towards the end that he had been thanking God silently during our conversation for the things he was learning.  We talked about how Jesus spent his life on the earth preaching about God and His kingdom.  Then I asked him what our life purpose should be now if we are supposed to imitate Christ…he sat there for several minutes just thinking about it…finally he said, ‘wow, you just changed my whole life.  I know what I should be doing now.’  I’ve never personally experienced someone so young in the world with so much sincere zeal for God and the Bible!  Apparently a couple years ago at age 18 he had considered becoming a priest because he sincerely wanted to show God his appreciation for life.  Long story short, I’ve had the chance since then to go back to Quito (about 2 hours from where we live in Ibarra) a couple times and have some conversations with him on the Teach book.  He wants to study and hopefully we’ll get officially started this coming Saturday.  On a side note, his mother had also read that initial brochure and told him that it was a blessing from God.  I gave him a 2nd copy of the Teach book for her and she apparently has been regularly reading it along with her bible…

Sam has had some good experiences, too.  I don’t have all the details, though, so we will have to get her to write some of these blogs and relate them!  One experience she did have awhile back was at a small English school in the congregation territory.  After talking to the owner she got permission for us to come back and talk to the teenage students.  Apparently he thought it would be great idea for his students to converse with native English speakers and we thought it was a great idea to tell the kids about what we were doing here and worldwide with the preaching work!  We did have a nice round table discussion with at least a dozen maybe 15 students a couple weeks later. 

We also get to preach up in the campo territory (in the mountains).  This is fun stuff!  When I was a kid I used to think it would be sooo cool if I could ride a horse or a motorcycle or go four wheeling in field service.  Apparently, some childhood dreams do come true – apparently, you just have to come to South America for it to happen.  There is a family from New York living about an hour south of us that use horses to get up to their campo territory.  They even camp out up there!  In the campo territory our cong has we typically use a couple trucks one day a week to haul a bunch of brothers up to the little mountain towns and then we spread out from there on foot to preach.  A couple brothers here then take their motorcycles back up to the territory later in the week to call back on the RV’s…pretty sweet!  I’m looking for a bike now so I can get in on this action!  Some pics:

 

 

Picking up people at the first stop

 

 

 

Where we have the service mtg

 

 

 

 

 

Heading into the territory…

 

 

 

 

Breathtaking country up here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four wheelin territory! Unfortunately didn’t get a call up this road..then again, it was a not-at-home…

 

 

 

Horses & donkeys everywhere…watch where you step

 

 

 

 

A sweet little ol’ lady who listened intently but said she just couldn’t believe it, even if it was in the bible…oh well, at least she got a good witness

 

 

 

Having lunch in downtown San Francisco (yeah, this is the OTHER San Francisco you’ve probably heard about)

 

 

     

Seriously, we haven’t gone country cowboy or anything, the sun is just so darn strong up here we need hats!  I hear in WA right now y’all need hats b/c its so cold…hehehe…

 

 

 

Instead of a coffee break, we took a blackberry picking break

 

 

Speaking of trucks and bikes – we finally fired the buses and taxis and bought our own truck! (the white one in the last two pics above). Its a used little 4WD 4-door Chevy DMax – pretty common here.  These Chevy’s are assembled in Ecuador so we’ll see how reliable it is.  Right now we are still in the euphoric stage where every time we get in the truck we grin at not having to ride the stinky buses with the chickens and being squished and jostled between sweaty women with hairy armpits.  Doing return visits is a lot easier, too, since you can drive to them instead of walking.  The benefits of having your own wheels are so nice down here it is difficult to describe to you in words.  If you’ve lived in a 3rd world country I know you understand.

Exercise has been a little scarce for us since we got here aside from walking in field service.  I tried to keep my regular tennis schedule going but the courts here are awful, the tennis balls ridiculously expensive, and I haven’t been able to find anyone that plays regularly in the afternoons after service.  So, I just eat and get fat, then get sick from some bad food and lose the weight…this system has worked well the first couple months.  But now we don’t get sick very often so it’s not working so good anymore (good and bad I suppose?).  So, in our quest to exercise and play some kind of sport, we’ve been able to get some of our cong into ultimate frisbee!  Now we play on most Sundays after the meeting in the afternoon.  It was kind of funny to watch these guys throw a frisbee for the first time in their lives – but they caught on pretty quick and we have some good games.  Well that covers one day per week.  To get another exercise day in we’ve started to become regulars at the Friday night soccer (futbol!) games.  I have a whole new respect for the game of soccer now.  Fun game!  But I’m always so sore the couple days after…not sure if it’s from all that running or perhaps my big-wind-up kicks at the ball that completely miss and land me backside on the field looking up at the stars.  Its one or the other…  Then there’s Sam.  She’s the only girl who plays and it was kind of comical the first time or two because it was almost like the guys didn’t know what to think of having a girl there.  The first game they hardly passed her the ball and then when she would do something good they would rib the guy pretty hard who let it happen.  But now they seem to be getting used to her and both of us are getting a little better each time.

No blog entry would be complete without an update on our Spanish.  At this point, we have been here 5 months (as of the 14th) – wow, time flies.  In reality, I thought I would be further along by now.  We can hold rough conversations, but we still have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time and I am continuously at a loss for words to finish sentences that I’ve started.  Sam understands people much better than I do although I have a slight advantage of being able to read pretty well.  My brain just doesn’t process fast enough to keep up with a normal paced conversation yet.  Definitely not thinking in Spanish yet although I did dream in some basic Spanish recently (I’ve heard this is some kind of magical milestone when learning a new language…well, I don’t feel any different, am I supposed to?). 

Having bad Spanish apparently is no excuse for getting out of theocratic responsibilities here.  Sam has her 2nd talk coming up next week.  So far, I’ve given a bible reading, a part on the service meeting, and I have the bible highlights, announcements, and a chairman part coming up in the next couple weeks…I feel so bad for our congregation.  I did get to give the public talk for the English group a couple weeks ago – ah! it was so nice to express myself without effort up there!  Things are getting slighter easier lately but I remember the first time I was asked to give a prayer in Spanish when a family had us over for lunch a few months ago – it came as a surprise and I had never even tried practicing a prayer in Spanish before.  Those were the longest few minutes…not to mention the sweatiest.  I absolutely butchered the thing.  Nobody asked me to say prayer again for about two months, the word must have gotten out.

Yesterday we finished a 3 month Spanish class that a sister was providing for 7 of us gringos.  Now we have to stay disciplined to keep studying on our own…we’ll see how that goes.  The class has been really nice – some of the games and competitions we’ve had in the class have solidified words and important rules for us.  For our final class yesterday, each family was assigned a drama.  The family of 3 did Joseph, Mary, and Jesus when Jesus was left at the temple; the other couple did Isaac and Rebecca, which was absolutely hilarious; and we did Ruth and Boaz.  Here are some pics of Blaid & Sonya’s skit and one of the group:

 

Blaid and Sonya - from Australia, they live about an hour away and have been here over 6 months now

 

 

 

Blaid says this is the first time in his life he’s had muscles…their skit was so funny.

 

 

 

 

All of us together with Monica, our ‘maestra’ in the middle

 

 

Some other things we’ve been up to the last couple months:

The International Convention in Lima, Peru:

 

 

Part of the welcoming committee at the airport

 

 

 

My trusty Starbucks mug was perfect for sipping coffee on the bus ride to the stadium…mmm…

 

 

 

 

We ran into Eden in Peru!!

 

 

 

 

 

Bolivian brothers have cool socks.

 

 

 

Juan Carlos & Brigitte from Columbia Bethel – met them when they stayed with us on their way to Peru a couple weeks before the conv. JC plays some very mean ping pong

 

 

This is us a few weeks prior trying on JC’s & Brigitte’s Columbian outfits

 

 

 

Downtown Lima

 

 

 

 

 

Unofficial counts of about 78k on Sunday (unofficial because they couldn’t announce it when the capacity is only 60k)

 

Papallacta: A couple weeks ago we went to a hot springs resort in the mountains called Papallacta with Sam’s cousin Brian and his girlfriend Lisa (visiting from Seattle area).  It sits at almost 11,000 feet.  This is one of the most relaxing places we’ve ever been to.

 

 

Hot spring pools right outside your door…ah…

 

 

 

 

I had a funny experience awhile back when I went to get some butter for the french toast Sam was making for breakfast.  Sam had already started making them when we realized we needed the butter so I figured I would try the little mom & pop store around the corner instead of going to the grocery store.  I asked the owner-lady in the little store if she had butter and she said yes.  She grabbed a block of unrefrigerated butter off of the shelf and showed it to me.  It was wrapped in plastic with no writing on it at all so I had to ask her whether it was salted or not.  ‘Well’, she said, ‘I don’t know.  Let’s see.’  She then proceeded to open one side of the package, stick her finger in the butter and then put it in her mouth!  ‘Yep, it’s salted’, she said.  Needless to say, I found a lame excuse to not need this particular butter at this particular moment and I beat feet out of there to the grocery store…yikes.  But, its a good metaphor if you’re thinking of serving where the need is greater…don’t wonder how good it is, stick your finger in and try it. :)

We love and miss you all.  Please email us and tell us how you’re doing.  Until next time…