Christmas Eve

So Christmas Eve has been slightly different this year. :)  Normally I'll be running around making deserts for Christmas Day, and finishing up (read starting and then finishing) my shopping and wrapping and then going to church for the Christmas Eve service.  Now for this year...

First of all, I'm not in a part of the world where there are seasons, so my body waiting for it to get cold to tell me that it's getting close to Christmas didn't happen this year.  I can walk outside in a tee shirt and Monday was swimming in the river!  Yesterday I drove with the administrator and his wife to Cuenca to visit his family.  Since I have no family in Ecuador, they invited me to join them for Christmas.  It was very entertaining traveling with 2 little boys, a 5 year old and a 3 year old!  Of course they slept much of the way, but when they were awake, life was NOT boring. :)  I love hanging out with those two, so I had a lot of fun with them in the car.  Today, instead of running around shopping and baking, I went with their family to some Incan ruins about an hour from Cuenca, called Ingapirca.  I loved it there!!!  It was built a little bit before the Conquistadores came to Ecuador, right after the Incas conquered the people here in Cuenca.  Such a difference from Salem, where the oldest buildings were built in the late 1800s!  I took far more pictures than I needed to, but the countryside was soooo pretty and I loved the ruins that I kept taking pictures of things I saw, so I'll add as many pictures as I can and when I get back to Macas, I'll put more pictures on Facebook and link to it.  The first couple are of our drive to Cuenca and then after that from Ingapirca.

Christmas program

I realized anew, last night, how truly blessed I am to have the privilege of teaching at Emanuel.  Last night was the annual Christmas program, so very different from the Winter concerts schools I've taught at have had in the past.  For starters the theme was Dios al mundo amó (God so Loved the World), which coming from my experience in public schools in the States, as an incredible difference that we were now allowed to talk about God and the true reason we all celebrate Christmas, but the fact that it was an outreach to the community made it even more incredible, in my mind.  Every single child (well, at least those who showed up, which was nearly all of them) had a part in the program, from the little not-even-3yrs old preschoolers, all the way up to the teenagers.  Some kids danced, some sang, some acted, some recited and some played instruments, but all kids had a chance to do something in the program. The drama that the high schoolers put on was really good, especially considering they only had just over a month to practice for it.  It was entitled "The daughter of the king" and was about a king and queen who were celebrating the birth of a prince and in the process forgetting about their daughter.  The princess got jealous and decided to run away to show everyone that she shouldn't be forgotten.  She got kidnapped by some evil gang in the forest (Robin Hood and his men gone bad).  The king sent some soldiers to rescue her, but all except one were killed.  The king then decided to send the remaining soldier back to the gang, this time carrying the infant prince, in hopes that the gang would respect the new life and send the princess back.  The gang accidentally kill the baby prince, but as a result forget about the princess.  This allows her to escape back to her parents with her brother.  The last scene brings her home, weeping in shame for having caused the events that lead to the death of the newborn prince.  Her father, the king, says that was the baby's reason for being, to bring about peace in the kingdom, just like God sent His son to take our place in death, to bring peace on earth.  I enjoyed the message and thought that it was a different take on helping people understand the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, although I have to admit, I enjoyed the funny parts at the beginning more so. :)  Some of the high schoolers are already really good actors and it was fun to watch a different side of these kids that I see every day.

Random

Since I've been bad about writing on here, I've got all sorts of random stories and thoughts, so here's a few.

Beauty
Last week one of the vice-principals invited me to visit a little village over an hour from Macas, where she used to live, called Pablo IV. We got on the bus at 8am and I got a great view of the amazing countryside here. As we were driving along, it hit me that I'm extremely blessed to be surrounded by such beauty. Alongside the road are innumerable banana/plantain trees, tall trees that look like they could reach the sky, tall grasses, ferns of all shapes and sizes, and the amazing fruit plants that grow wild here. The diversity still astounds me and I can't get over it. I love seeing this one kind of plant, it looks like fan-shaped grass, with a tall stalk that divides itself and kind of falls over. It's so different from the plants back in the Willamette Valley that it fascinates me. The amazing part of all this is the weather. All of these plants were shining brightly under a deep blue sky, with the sun overhead. As we got closer to the village, we could see Sangay, the closest volcano to Macas, getting bigger and bigger. It's nearly a perfect triangle and when it's a clear day in Macas, everyone tries to take a picture of it, it's gorgeous, but this time I could see it without any effort at all!

Pablo IV
It was fun to be able to visit a small town/village and meet Maria's friends. I think what made the most impression on me, though, was the church we went to Saturday night. Pablo IV doesn't even have it's own Evangelical church, but there's one in a smaller community about 20 minutes outside the town. We weren't planning on going to church until the leader (too small to have a pastor) showed up in his truck to give us a ride. We bumped along on the dirt/rock road for 15-20 minutes, picking up some guys, along the side of the road, who wanted a ride in the back of the truck (very common here, since not too many people have cars, and a way for people to bless others). We got to the place where we were going to have the service and I realized that it was someone's house. We met in the living room, a tiny room with benches on 3 sides and a tv stand on the 4th. The 2 guys started setting up a microphone and sound system. I couldn't figure out why on earth they would want a sound system in such a small, cement-block room. Once the service started, I understood; they broadcast the service to the area, so that people can listen in, even if they're too scared or proud to attend in person, they can still learn from it. Maria introduced me as a missionary to the leader who then proceeded to ask if I would be able to share with the group. For those who've known me since high school/college, this is a very amusing request. I don't do well speaking in front of people anywhere near my age! However, I couldn't refuse, so I said that I could share my testimony. Before he invited me up front, he asked if I would be willing to share my name with them, so that they could put me on their prayer list. It was so very humbling to hear a small group of people from a little tiny village, in the jungles of Ecuador, pray for me, living in a relatively civilized city, with nearly all of the modern comforts of anywhere in the world! Throughout the night people kept showing up, until there was a grand total of about 14 in the room. As I was sitting there, I was reminded that this was how the entire church started, a small group of people meeting in a small room in someone's house. From that little beginning, God changed the world! It was a very different style of worship from what I was used to, much more Pentacostal, but I still felt extremely privileged to be allowed to be a part of it, even for just one night.

Students
People keep asking me how school is going and I tell them that it's going well. The truth is, I love all of my classes! Of course, some of them drive me more crazy than others, others are learning faster than others, but all are fun, in their own way. Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures of the students because when I'm with them, I'm usually too busy teaching to take pictures, so I've been accused by April, my sister, that I'm just playing here, when in reality, the majority of my day is with my students! :) The 3 year old class continues to amaze me with how far they've come from the first day. Looking back at my lesson plans, the first week was "console crying 3 year olds". Now they can listen to a story in English, they've started singing along to Jesus Loves Me, they color (sometimes even in the lines) and can tell me a couple colors in English! The 4 year olds have really picked up on colors and family members and love The Wheels on the Bus, I think I'm going to try to incorporate that song into every theme. :) So far we've done school and family members, we'll see what else I can tie into it! My first grade classes are always entertaining, but they've gotten to the point in understanding English where I don't have to give any part of the instructions for the activity in Spanish anymore! I just demonstrate while saying the English directions and then ask what they're supposed to do and they know it! :) The second graders are my most challenging class, it's the largest class and the one with the most new students to the school (well, aside from the preschool), so several of the kids are still figuring out what school's for and how to behave in a classroom. But even with all of that, they're learning the alphabet and vocabulary and also continue to amaze me with what they remember. The third graders are probably my most fun class, aside from the 3 year olds, because they're learning to read in English and so can do much more than the others. Class isn't all about pictures, but words, too (and I love words!). For the Christmas program, the 2nd and 3rd graders are going to sing Away in the Manger, in English, so we've been working on learning the words in those 2 classes. The first time I sang it with them, I wrote the words on the board, drawing pictures for some of the words, so that they would have an idea of what the song was about. Before I even finished writing the first line, I heard about half the class trying to read the words aloud and doing a decent job of it! Today, a bunch of the third graders said the song was too hard to learn and I told them that I was planning on having the words printed up for them to read while singing. The relief on their faces was hilarious! I love that I can use the written word to help them understand what we're doing. :)

That's all that I can think of at the moment, although I know I have more stories, they just aren't coming to mind, so I'll link to some pictures from Facebook for people to look at from Thanksgiving and my trip to Cuenca with Ivonne. :)
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=129523&id=517974210&l=105d7b7d35

Cuenca

One of my good friends, in Macas, invited me to go to Cuenca with her and her husband for the weekend. I had been wanting to go, so that I could buy a modem for my computer, the only way to have internet at home, since the waiting list for a home phone is several years long. I was able to get the modem Saturday (how I'm able to post, since I'm still in Cuenca and on my own laptop!) and then today, Sunday was for playing. :) Ivonne's brother had gotten tickets for Cuenca's soccer game, finals against Quito, so we all went along. Unfortunately, we got to the stadium too late to get seats, but were able to find a spot along the fence, so we were able to see the game pretty well. I enjoyed my first ever soccer game. I'd seen games on TV before, rather inevitable in Latin America, but never in person. The game is much more entertaining in person, although, I still enjoy watching the other people's reactions about as much as I enjoy the game itself. Then, we went and watched a movie in the theater, a rarity, since Macas doesn't have a movie theater. And tonight I go back to my little town on the edge of the jungle. :) I love visiting Cuenca, it's an amazing city, with Incan ruins, buildings hundreds of years old and thousands or millions of red roofs and adobe walls all over, but it's too big for me to live in. For living in a place, I much prefer a smaller town, like Macas. Well, I was going to post pictures, but for some reason it won't let me right now, so once again, I'm without pictures! Hopefully soon.

Rain Forest

Life has, as always, been entertaining here in Macas. About 3 weeks ago, we started having blackouts, when all the electricity would be shut off in town. Last week it was more frequent and this week it's happened every day. Now, the question isn't IF the electricity will go off, but WHEN. The entire county is in the same boat, with rolling blackouts by city in each province. The problem is that nearly all of Ecuador's electricity is produced from 1 or 2 hydroelectric dams. That doesn't sound so bad when thinking about all the rain forest in Ecuador, but the dams are actually in the mountains, which is suffering a tremendous drought (think the levels of the Santiam going into Detroit Lake in the winter and you have an idea of what it looks like directly behind the main hydroelectric dam). Even here, on the edge of the Amazonian rain forest, we've been having unusually warm, dry weather. Everyone keeps telling me that the weather isn't normal, that usually it's colder and rains every day. This last Sunday was the first time it was cool and rained in probably several weeks. So far, this week, the weather's been cooler and rainy (I even had my fleece on this morning!) :) Please pray that it keeps up, that it keeps raining and starts raining in the mountains!!! Any Oregonian who wishes to send the rain away, I know where it can go. :)

It's been rather entertaining, though, when the lights go out. The other night the electricity was out from 7pm-11pm so my roommate and I lit a few candles and sat around and talked in the dark until after we normally go to bed! It's also an adventure to get any work done when the electricity's cut in the afternoon, since my office is also the library and in what is essentially like a basement room, with only a little window in the back of the room next door. Since the walls only go half way up in the back, it allows a little light in, so I'll sit in the back and work or go upstairs, hauling everything upstairs and the down again. From what I understand, this will continue for another couple months, and hopefully by then, the rains will be back and there'll be enough water in the rivers to produce more electricity!

Youth Group

Saturday I went to youth group for the first time in several weeks. The past Saturdays I had either been out of town, sick or I didn't look at my watch until after 7:30, when the service starts at 7:30 and it takes 20 minutes to walk there! I'd been wanting to go for the past few weeks because they started something new. In the past, the youth group service would consist of some singing and then someone talking, with people anywhere from 14 on up to mid-30s. There weren't many my age who went because it was a bit awkward being included in the same group as teenagers, especially for those who worked at school, since many of the kids in youth group are also students at Emanuel. Well, a few weeks ago, the church leadership decided to, after the singing time was over, to split the group into 2, the teens stay in the gym and those 20 and up have their own group time. Last night there was about 20 of us in the jovenes adultos' (young adults) group and I know of others who fit into that age category, but who weren't there last night! It was neat to have that time to share a bit of life with people around my age. :) From what I understand, it took a number of young adults talking with the church leadership for it to come about, but it's happened. :) So that was fun and I was getting ready to walk home by myself, since the 2 people that live near me weren't going to their houses when several guys started convincing everyone to go hang out in the park. Nearly everyone agreed to go to Parque Proaño, which is more of a scenic paved path in between 2 streets with some benches than a park like I'm used to in the States. It was really funny to turn around and watch the group come, because there was nearly 50 of us, in a loooooong line of groups of 2-4 people, so the line lasted about 2 or 3 blocks! When we got to Parque Proaño, the guys organizing it said that we should go to the main park, the plaza in front of the cathedral, instead, so off we go again. We got to the park and found an open area that had a knee-high cement wall running around most of it and everyone sat down and started talking. Well, then one of the guys, Petete (not a clue as to how he got that nickname, but that's what everyone calls him), decided to organize an impromptu theater production of David and Goliath. Basically he would tell the story and whoever he indicated had to act out that portion. It was very much a comedy because the first person he chose was to play David and happened to be the tallest and oldest (I think) guy in the group. David was supposed to be watching over a couple adolescent sheep, with the help of a palm branch, which I think doubled as a shepard's staff and a flute, which led the sheep to start dancing around. :) The next scene had Goliath come onto the stage. He chose a quite small and young teen to be Goliath, at which everyone, including the poor kid, doubled over in laughter. :) At this point I was really missing my camera!! Although it was pretty dark, I don't know how well the pictures would have turned out, but it was hilarious! The rest of us got into the drama now, with half being the Philistines and the other half the Israelites. Then David got called back, to come fight Goliath and ended up with a baseball cap for a helmet, a shirt for armor and the palm branch again for the sword. At first he forgot that it was supposed to be heavy, but after a few reminders, he started drooping under the “weight”. Then we had to go to a commercial break because “David”'s phone rang. :) David then got rid of the armor and started looking for the small bag and slingshot and ended up using my purse and sweatshirt. It was hilarious to watch Goliath become more and more dramatic as time went on, in the production, and he ended up dying quite dramatically. After the theater was over, they took up a collection and bought crackers and pop and played Pinocchio dice (Simon Says) Extreme, although it wasn't that much more difficult than what I torture my students with. :) Although, instead of getting out, and having a winner, if you mess up, you have to pay a penance, which in this case, ended up usually being some form of barking (again, not a clue as to why). My stomach hurt, as we were walking home, from laughing so hard! I'm rather curious, though, as to what the other people in the park were thinking of us. It must have been quite a sight, to see 40 some odd teens and young adults making fools of themselves and putting on a comedy based on the Bible! :) I would see people walk by, look at us and hang around for awhile before walking off. There was even a truck that parked behind some of the kids, with some gradeschoolers in the back, who proceeded to sit on the cab roof to watch the performance! It was definitely one of the more fun nights I've had! :) I'm really going to half to remember my camera all of the time, because I never know when something random like this will happen.

update

So after being shamed by a high school friend who updates her blog all the time, I decided that I should write a little bit more than I have! :)  All sorts of stuff is going on here, so I'll try to put little snippets up.

Classes
The students are starting to get the hang of being in class!  At first it was a constant effort to have them still and listen to me, but now they're much more respectful and obedient. :)  Of course, they're still little kids, with all of the entertainment that provides, but they're doing really well in class.  The other day I was doing an activity with my first grade classes (4-5 year olds) and only explained it to them in English and they were able to do the activity!!!  Of course, the next day I tried the same thing, only with a different activity and they didn't have a clue, but still, there's hope! :)  It's been a lot of fun working with so many different ages, I feel like I have the best of all worlds, since I get the little, little ones who we sing songs and I point out the colors of their toys, to the 3rd graders (6-8 years old) who I'm teaching to read and we can play games like Hangman and stuff.

At recess time I'm usually in the library with about 15-20 kids all over the floor reading books and if I'm not here, for some reason, I'll have about 10-20 kids begging me to open it up, so that they can read.  They have a choice of playing in the gym, eating, or reading and these guys choose reading!!  I love to see all the different ages scattered all over the floor reading and sharing books. :)



Cuenca
This past weekend was a four-day weekend so Diana, my roommate, and I went to Cuenca.  It's one of the larger cities in Ecuador and about a 7-9 hour bus ride from Macas, up into the mountains.  It was so much fun to wander around the town that she'd grown up in and to see a different part of Ecuador, since I'd never been there before.  It was really pretty with Spanish colonial architecture all over, all of the roofs were red and many buildings made of adobe.  The foundations of the buildings in the historic district were often made with the stones from Inca buildings!  I loved the history of it all and spent all day Saturday wandering around historic Cuenca and visiting a museum that we didn't even get to go inside since we spent so much time walking around the Inca ruins outside! :)
Friday Diana's family got together to celebrate her sister-in-law's birthday, so they slaughtered a pig for the celebration.  I think literally every part of the pig was prepared or consumed that day, nothing was wasted!  I did eat some, of it, although I had more rice than anything. :)  I enjoyed hanging out with her cousins and nieces and nephews; her family reminded me of my family, in that everyone is included and there's a lot of people! :)  One of her cousins brought out cards and they were teaching me Ecuadorian card games, when one of her nieces, who'd studied for a year in the U.S. wanted to play Spoons.  So the 2 of us taught the others how to play Spoons, which we continued to do for another couple of hours.  Then on Sunday, before we left to go back to Macas, we played Spoons for another 2 or 3 hours!  At first one of her brothers didn't like it, but then we switched to using tea bags instead of metal spoons and he really got into it and even won in the elimination round! :)

It was a very fun weekend, but I think my favorite part was that even though Cuenca is really high in elevation, my asthma didn't bother me at all! :)  I put a bunch of pictures up on Facebook, if you want to see them, http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117939&id=517974210&l=d3e4fd8e34


That's a short summary of the past few weeks, and I'll try to do better next time! :)

The other day I was walking out of one of my classes trying to figure out why I was sweating so much.  It wasn't that hot outside, so that couldn't be it.  It didn't make any sense to me that every day after I'm at the preschool building I'm really warm and sweaty.  Then it hit me.  I'd found a far more intense exercise program than I could get at a gym.  It goes as follows...
1. Walk 8 blocks.
2. Sing movement/marching songs with 2 classes of 5 year olds for half hour each, then 2 classes of 4 year olds for half hour each and then play "Ring Around the Rosie with a class of 3 year olds for half hour.
3.  Walk another 5 blocks to the other building.
4.  Teach a class of 6 year olds for 45 minutes, singing movement songs and moving around the classroom, catching kids who are talking.
5.  Teach a class of 7 year olds for 45 minutes, singing movement songs and moving around the classroom, catching kids who are talking.
6.  Walk 14 blocks home for lunch.
7.  Walk 14 blocks back to the school for the afternoon.
8.  Walk 14 blocks home.
(steps 9 and 10 happen a couple times a week)
9.  Walk 14 blocks to the school/church for church service.
10.  Walk 14 blocks back home to go to bed.

Preschoolers singing/marching "The Ants Go Marching". :)

Beginning of the year

I have all sorts of stories saved up in my head, but haven't been able to write any of them down because I've been so busy living them! :)  We're in the middle of our 2nd week with kids and I'm slowly getting the routine down of my schedule and how each class's dynamics differ from the other classes and what works best with the kids.  That's my day and in the evenings and on the weekends I hang out with friends, either at church, their house or around town.  I've actually managed to make it to the river twice!!!  In the 3 years I've been coming here, I'd never made it to the river.  I'd seen pictures of it and heard all about it and even been invited once, but wasn't able to go.  A week and a half ago, Ivonne and Fernando invited me to go with them after church.  It was a really hot day (just walking a couple blocks, I broke out into a sweat), so I was really excited to be able to go.  We went to a portion of the river that formed a slightly moving pond and swam around for probably a couple of hours and then went to the actual river and ate sugar cane.  It was so nice to be able to float around in a lake on such a hot day!  Then this last Sunday (a week later), the some of the youth group decided to go swimming, so I went again. :)  For those who might be a little confused as to why a 27 year old is considered a part of the youth group, the youth group here is for people anywhere from about 15 or 16 up to whenever they get married!!  The group that went to the river was at least half my age or more. :)  I took a ton of pictures, but am not in any of them, my poor parents, they don't get to see me. :)

pictures

I haven't really had any time to write, when I've been anywhere near a computer with internet access, but I have been able to take some pictures!  Here's a few from this past month.  The second link is of pictures from my last 2 summer in Macas. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109492&id=517974210&l=2f0b90bf32

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40920&id=517974210&l=8b1b2d067e

my apartment

We're slowly, but surely getting our apartment fixed up!!!  Our new stove (see previous post for why it was necessary) and fridge came on Friday and the washing machine came on Monday.  Our kitchen is fully usable at last!  I celebrated this weekend by baking a lot. :)  I'd been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies for awhile now, but hadn't either had time or a working stove for the past couple months, but I was finally able to on Sunday.  When I started out grocery shopping on Saturday, I wasn't exactly sure what kind of cookies I'd end up making, sense I'm still learning what kinds of foods are available here.  I know that people have told me that chocolate is hard to find, which was hard for me to believe since I've seen cacao trees here!  But I knew what ingredients were necessary for a few different kinds of cookies and what I would make would depend on the ingredients I found.  I ended up walking halfway to the school from our apartment (7 blocks didn't seem like much going there, but coming home, it was a lot longer!).  There's a large grocery store there that carries many different kinds of foods that you can't get in other places, plus the closest open paper store was on that block so I had to be there anyway.  I started wandering around the aisles and found chocolate bars!!  No chocolate chips, but that's ok, the bar works. :)  The picture above is of me making my own chocolate chips.  So, Sunday after church I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  Yumm!!  I even found whole wheat flour, so my mom will be happy. :)  Cookies are a bit of a novelty here, so people who have been over to the apartment are pretty impressed, which is very nice for me! :)

I also thought I'd share a little bit of my view from my bedroom window.  The first is looking south, the second to the west (at Quilamo, the local hill) and the third is looking north.  :)

cooking

I always had an idea that it would be a bit of an adventure cooking for myself, here in Ecuador. In the past I've helped Wendy make things, but never had to do everything myself. It doesn't sound like it should be that big of a deal, but since I've never really cooked on a gas stove before, or had to buy all my groceries in a foreign country, I wasn't sure how difficult it might be. All this to say, it's been more of an adventure than I bargained for! :) Part of the adventure comes from not having a stove or refrigerator for the first week. The stove was delivered the first Saturday after I got here, but the electric burner starter didn't work and we thought it was because there was no gas in the tank. Monday my roommate and I bought 2 tanks of gas and connected the first one. That's when we found out the electric starter didn't work! Thankfully there were some matches in the apartment, so we were able to try it out. Most food items here are prepared on the stove top, so we didn't think about trying out the oven. We still didn't have a fridge, either, other than a little tiny one, Diana, my roommate had brought, so we couldn't do much, but it was better than before!

The true adventure came Friday night when I decided to invite my really good friend, Ivonne, over for pizza. I had been wanting to make pizza for a couple months, but when I was in my apartment in Oregon, I was trying to use up what food I had, not buy new stuff, and then I was with my Grandma, and I was so busy finishing my packing that there wasn't time. But now I had the time and finally an oven to cook it in!! Or so I thought. :) Everything went really well mixing up the dough and sauce, I was able to find everything that I wanted and it smelled really good! We decided to light the oven early, to see if it worked, since not all of the stove burners did. We lit the oven and walked into the dining room to wait for the dough to rise. Just after we got into the dining room, we heard a really loud BOOM coming from the kitchen. Ivonne was closer to the door and looked into the kitchen. She started yelling that there was fire!! Somehow, I'm not sure how she was brave enough to do this, she turned off the oven, so that there was no more gas to feed the fire. When she came back into the dining room, she told me that there were flames coming out of the back of the oven!! We decided that it would be a really good idea to take the dough and sauce and toppings over to her house to finish up the pizzas! The only problem with that is that she lives on the other side of town, about a 20-30 minute walk. The dough really didn't need to rise that much, so we called for a taxi and drove everything over. :) I'm sure we must have provided much amusement for the driver!! So, we (Diana and I) are still without a real fridge, or an oven. We tried the stove top again today, and it works fine, with no problems, aside from not all of the burners working, but the oven I haven't dared try again. :) Thus ends one of my first adventures in cooking in Ecuador. :)

Macas!

So my mom told me that my grandma is tired of the cats and wants me to write something else. :) I did make it to Macas a week ago yesterday and have been really busy ever since! The flight down was an adventure in and of itself, with an 11 1/2 hour layover in Houston!!! Thankfully I have a friend who graciously offered to come hang out with me for part of that, otherwise I probably would have gone a little bit more crazy than I already am! :) The flight from Houston to Quito was probably one of the most fun flights I've ever been on. I was sitting next to a young couple from Britain who were going to do mission work for a week, in Ecuador. We had fun talking during the flight down, about different cultures and languages and our experiences in Ecuador. Then the pilot made an anouncement about possible turbulence coming up, because we were flying by a storm. I was expecting it to be pretty bad, since the flight to Houston was a big rollercoasterish at times and nothing was said, so for something to be said about it, I expected a lot worse. A couple minutes later I noticed a different kind of flash out the window (MOM, DON'T READ FURTHER :)). I realized that the storm we were going by was a thunder storm and got excited because I hadn't seen one for quite awhile. It was amazing to watch the clouds light up below us, turning purple and going dark again. I love watching thunderstorms because it always reminds me of the enormity of God's power. We probably watched the storm for about 20 minutes or so, until we passed it by, with never a bump that we could feel. :) (IT'S SAFE FOR YOU TO READ AGAIN, MOM) And then a couple hours later I landed in Quito and made it through immigration with no troubles at all!!

I was able to fly to Macas a day early, because we finished up my orientation faster than was originally thought, so I landed in Macas Monday morning. Tuesday I started working at the school and had so much fun surprising people! Most people weren't expecting me until later that week, or didn't even know that I was coming so the looks on their faces was priceless. :) Overall it's been an adventure adjusting to actually living down here. I've only rarely cooked on a gas stove and here that's nearly all that there is, however, I only got my stove on Saturday, so I haven't even been able to do much of that! Slowly I'm starting to figure things out, like when to take out the trash, how to buy gas, things that I never had to think about before when I was staying with friends! :)

The teachers all started yesterday, so I'm getting to know everyone, not just those that hang around Macas during their vacations. I've heard about so many of them, but not had a chance to meet them or get to know them, but I've really enjoyed these past couple of days. I think the thing I've loved the most, though, is the way staff meetings are run. We have a devotional. That's amazing to me, having only worked in public schools in the past. What a privilege it is to be a part of a Christian school now! I'll try to write more often, but they keep us pretty busy here, so I don't know how often I'll be able to. :)

Entertainment

Aside from packing, I've been entertaining myself with my parents' new kittens. They were dropped off at church and April conned mom and dad into taking 2 of them home. They get into all sorts of trouble in the laundry room at my parents' house. Their favorite spot is under the pipes, between the sink and washing machine!

In other news, I leave Oregon in 7 1/2 hours!! :)

Almost on my way!

I just bought my ticket to Ecuador - I leave next Saturday. Well, actually Friday night at 12:30. I'll keep everyone updated with my going-ons.

:)

This is Macas, the town I'm going to be in for the next 2 years.