¡Feliz Navidad!

Days before Christmas (the 22nd) we went to the beach! We just went for 2 days. The missionaries said it was the best way for us to spend Christmas because otherwise we might get sad. We wore our Santa hats as well!


I spent Christmas in Ecuador!!!

I was so scared that I was going to spend Christmas alone! You all know I was worried before I came here! But I spent the day with lots of people, and the missionaries here did a WONDERFUL job of making me feel at home! I wasn't even sad one bit! I missed my family of course, but I wasn't sad.
In the morning, we woke up and got all pretty in dresses :) Then we went to the orphanage to visit and give just a couple of gifts. My little Nicolas...the boy I want to adopt...wasn't there! But the other kids are so precious as well.
After going to the orphanage, we went to the Browns' house (the missionaries). They completely surprised us with some stockings full of stuff!! So then it felt a bit more like Christmas. We opened our stockings, hung around the house, picked up some more people from the airport (which we've been doing a LOT lately). Then we cooked TONS of food and had people over. It was so nice. The Browns did a great job of making us not feel sad at
Christmas.
Notice how we're wearing those dresses ON CHRISTMAS!

Mindo

I forgot to write about Mindo! A couple weekends ago, I went to Mindo with some friends. Mindo is in the jungle and known for butterflies and hummingbirds. But we never even got time to look at those things...and we still had lots of fun!
We just left really early Saturday morning and stayed over that night. When we got there, we ate breakfast and then went to David's (one of my friends here) grandmom's house. She was making cañita, which is sugar cane juice. The process was so neat. She has this machine....
She puts the sugar cane in one side and then it just crushes it and pours the juice out into the strainer and container.
Then we went to a river to swim. It was a long ride there in the back of a truck, and then it was an even longer walk down to the river. But it was beautiful.
We spent the day at the river. Then we went to a cool little bar place with bar SWINGS! so cool!!! and got batidos de coco...coconut shakes...It was so much fun.

Crying Babies, Prison Bible Studies, and Shoe Boxes

Well, I figure it´s time for an update! so here goes... I have moved houses. Now I´m staying in another house with another Ecuadorian family. They are a young couple with 2 children. The husband is a youth leader in a local church. We live in a huge house on a big property with 2 other houses there. The one house is the future home of a teen pregnancy home.

Then there is one other house, which is ¨La casita del amor¨or ¨The love shack¨and it´s for pastors to come with their wives to spend some time. Then there is also another little building, which will be a small sewing factory for 6 women in the future. After women get out of prison, they can come to work there. These plans are for the future, though. Right now the missionaries I am working with are trying to raise money to pay for the houses first by renting it out. So the future teen pregnancy home is now a guest house for missions teams that come, or for this big missions conference.



Since I have stopped my student teaching, I have been going to an orphanage to help. There are 17 infants and usually 1 or 2 at most tías there, or helpers. The first couple days I went, the babies were fine. But yesterday, I could have cried with them, it was so sad. First, I just fed a baby and then changed diapers (cloth diapers). But then, I heard just one baby in another room crying. So I entered the room, and all 4 babies started screaming. And they all hit their heads on the posts of their cribs. I was getting upset though, because I just couldn´t keep every baby from doing it. Then of course they were crying even more because of the pain. So finally I asked the tía why they were doing that. She says they all do it, and it´s just a result of being abandoned. I was so sad though.
All the babies wanted to get out of their cribs, so I put them all on the floor. As soon as I did that, they were so happy playing. But I had to just go get something in another room, and as soon as I´d take just 2 steps away, all the babies would cry. One little girl...I mean all the babies are about 6 months....grabbed onto me and was just hugging me and cuddling. I just feel so sad for these babies, because who knows how often they are held. The tías have enough work to do just feeding, changing diapers, keeping hte place clean, and doing was, that it appears the babies hardly ever get held. And this one boy Nicolas keeps following me around eveyrtime I´m there. He´s one that hits his head a loooot even on my chest or wherever he can. And he´s always crying, but he is the cutest and I want to take him home! Haha. I think by the end I will have a very hard time leaving the orphanage permanently. It´s so hard to leave each day, especially when you have to leave with 17 babies screaming and holding their arms out. I pray that God can be a father to every single one of them, and provide great families for them all as well.
Today we returned to the prison for a Bible study. Monday we had a huge Christmas party for the women, gave gifts, ate food, and had a great time. Today, first we gave out Christmas shoe boxes from Samaritan´s purse, which were sent here from the U.S. It was amazing. Some of the kids´faces just lit up. I had to try not to cry it was so nice. And it´s just neat that people in the U.S. send these boxes...in fact, I have in the past....and here I am on the other side watching people open the gifts. How amazing! Thank God for the boxes and the people sending them! People send little letters or cards inside too, and those are really special to the children.
Well, I will have to meet with my Spanish tutor now! (Two people recently have told me they were surprised to find out I wasn´t Ecuadorian bcuz of my accent....so yay!)

I forgot to write about one thing...The church that I've been attending here has been talking a lot about Quito, how it's dangerous now and keeps getting worse...and how God wants to change it. Apparently Quito has been called the light to South America, and the Pastor says that Quito will now be called the light to the world....that's what the Pastor says God told him. So anyways, the Pastor says that God has been telling him for the church to pray around the Panecillo, which is a HUGE statue of the virgin Mary. It is a huge statue that is supposed to protect/ look over the whole city. And most of the city is Catholic, and it is like a huge idol. So he says that God said to go around the statue seven times like Nehemiah did in the Bible with the wall of Jerusalem until it fell. This huge statue is also leaning a lot, and everyone says that it is going to fall soon anyway.
The night of December 6th, which is Fiestas de Quito...sort of like our 4th of July....everyone gets really drunk and parties outside. So that night at midnight, the church met and got together to pray for the city. I said I would go, but I didn't really know what I'd be getting into.
First, we just prayed in small groups of 8 to confess our personal sins, then pray for God to have mercy on the whole city for everyone's sins. Then, the pastor talked about specific things that we should pray for. Everyone had a paper from the whole month of things to pray for each day, along with Bible verses. Some things, for example, were for drug addictions, violence, teenage rebellion, orphans, pray for all the pastors and churches. And so we started to pray at the church, and just talked a long time about how God can change Quito. There were 56 people there. Then at 2:30 a.m., we left the church and got into a bus. We drove the bus ALL around Quito for HOURS and prayed for the city. We drove past lots of people drinking and one person on the ground hurt with an ambulance. Then finally after driving around and praying, we drove to the Panecillo, the huge statue of the virgin Mary. And we drove around it 7 times, which took a long time because it's a long drive around it. At the end everyone was singing praise songs to God, and lots of peopel would stare at the bus as it went by. Pretty much everyone we passed had a bottle of alcohol in hand.
Finally, when we got to the top of the mountain after driving around 7 times, we got out of the bus and walked around the Panecillo 7 times. Then we prayed for the city and the people once more at a spot where you can look over the whole city. It was amazing. Now, we just wait to see how God changes it. Quito has been getting progressively worse over the years, and now it's just really dangerous. The missionaries who I'm working with right now saw someone get shot outside of their house 2 nights ago. And I've heard so many stories of people getting robbed in clear daylight. Because guys just come up to you right in the middle of a crowded park and flash their guns or knives at you from inside their jacket. then they tell you that they have friends all around the park watching you, so if you panic or try to run they'll get you, and so you just have to give them whatever you have. Also, I was out with some friends and a girl wandered off alone and some guys tried to rape her, but some other guys came around the corner, so they let her go. I have felt safe walking around myself, but I know you have to be really careful and this city is very dangerous. Anyway, it was interesting doing that prayer vigil. It lasted until 7:30 a.m.! Praying for 7 1/2 hours!!! The pastor asked me what I thought, if I thought they were a bunch of crazy people or what. I just told him it was great to see a church so passionate about God and prayer for the city. It often seems like we don't want to pray for 20 minutes. 7 1/2 hours was a long time! But yeah...that's something neat that I did recently. Also, if you look at the picture at the bottom of this blog you can see the Panecillo at the top of the mountain way off in the distance.

Feeling Better, and Loving Ecuador!

Well, I haven't written in such a long time that I'm not sure where to begin. First of all, I will share how my Thanksgiving went.... Patty and I cooked a huge amount of food for Thanksgiving including a turkey and stuffing, and we had 12 people over for it. But we ate it on Wednesday instead of Thursday, because Wednesday night I left for the beach with a bunch of young teachers from the school. We went from Wednesday til Sunday. It was BEAUTIFUL (see facebook pics!) and I loved it so much. Our hotel was right on the beach the closest I've ever stayed to the beach. And we just spent the days laying out in the sun and we went out on a boat pretty far for just $4 and they took us to this island which was beautiful, and let us jump out of the boat far out which we also loved doing. Then besides that, I went to the closest city with my host family because they were staying at the beach also near me. Overall, I enjoyed the trip SO MUCH! It was wonderful- hot, beautiful, good seafood, and just a great time.
Since then, I've just finished teaching which was also wonderful. Before Thanskgiving, my students and I practiced a Reader's Theatre for many days, and then performed it for the parents. It was sooo cute, and I loved doing it because it's something I've learned about doing in class, but the first time I actually saw it done in a classroom. I really enjoyed the class I worked with, and my students were so cute. But now I've finished my student teaching completely, and I said bye to the kids. They were so cute because they were so sad to let me go. I was sad too.
Since I'm done student teaching and started my missions' internship, I've moved out of Patty's house and into a house with another Ecuadorian family. This family pretty much only speaks Spanish. The husband knows a little English, but yea mostly Spanish, which I am excited about. Also, I will start taking Spanish lessons with a tutor starting tonight.
I know more of what I'll be doing now with this internship. Tomorrow and each Wednesday I will go to a women's prison to help lead a Bible study. Then I will also be helping out at an orphanage which is right down the road from my house. Also, I'll just be helping a lot Rich and Lisa (the missionaries here) get ready for the huge missions conference that's coming up.
I will spend Christmas...from Dec. 19-25 at the beach again. Rich and Lisa told me I can go with their family, along with the other 2 or 3 interns. They say it's the best way to spend Christmas away from home because when you're at the beach you don't even feel like you're missing Christmas. I'm happy we'll be going to the beach, because I already am getting homesick thinking about all that I'll be missing!
Since it is the last month, I keep thinking it is going to fly by, and I REALLY am going to miss it here and miss all the people I've met. I don't want my time here to end! Yet at the same time I obviously want to see everyone at home also. Well, I miss you all... hope everyone at home is doing well too! Thanks to EVERYONE for your prayers while I was sick...it really was a miserable time, but I'm so thankful to be better now, and eating whatever I want! :)