Nick's Birthday

Nicolas has been obsessed with Star Wars for about the past 10 months and he had never even seen the movie until right before his birthday this month.  All the presents he asked for had to do with Star Wars... light saber, movies, bedding, etc.  He was very excited on his birthday.

We had a BBQ with a couple families for his birthday dinner and the boys played Star Wars the entire time!  It was so fun to watch and listen as they made the sounds of the light sabers clashing even though the toys made the sounds themselves. 

Jordan, Tanner, Nick and Luke (4 Jedi knights)

William's, Jensen's and Bryan's Kids

Nick and his new Star Wars bedding from Grandma Rosie and Aunt Laurel

New Light Saber with light and sound!

New camera from Grandma and Grandpa Jensen which as you can see he was very excited about

Lunch with Ayano

Ayano's mom made them all bears out of towels.

Mikala has 3 best friends here in Quito.  The four of them are in the picture above.  There is Mikala, Hye Lim, Ayano and Amanda.  Amanda just moved back to the states.  Hye Lim is from Korea.  And Ayano moved here from Japan this last February.  Ayano's mom invited the girls and all of us mothers over for lunch at the end of the school year. It was a wonderful time.  I found it quite comical that none of us spoke Spanish incredibly well, but it was the only language that all four of us had in common.  There was a moment that we were talking about the differences between the Japanese and Korean languages and we were discussing this in Spanish, and I thought to myself... How crazy is this? Good times in  Quito!  

Pictures from Mother's Day

Nick's class had a special Mother's Day brunch.

Mikala made me some sweet shades for Mother's Day.

We went out to dinner for Mother's Day and Nick wanted to dress up.  He was the best dressed in the entire restaurant. 

World's Largest Avacado

Chelsea, one of our semester abroad students, came home with 5 avocados one night, one of them being the size of a papaya.  It was given to her by a woman she was helping.  I guess the woman climbed up her 80 foot avocado tree and started chucking these ginormas avocados down to her.  Since it still wasn't ripe by the time she went home, we inherited it.  It ripened and we were able to make a full bowl of guacamole with it.

Would you look at the size of this thing?

Have you ever seen an avocado this big?

It's about the same size as my head.

Guacamole, all from one avocado.

Pictures of the new house moved in.

We moved into our house on the 22nd of April.  We had a bunch of people help us move our stuff over... fortunately we are just down the street from our other house.  Rosemary, Matt's mom, thought it would take us about a month to get settled, but thanks to Elizabeth Payne and a few others, most of our stuff was put away that day and we are now pretty settled in.  We do still have some work to do in the office.  I need to find something to put all my stuff into.

I have to admit that I really struggled at the thought of moving into this house.  It was incredibly dirty and was falling apart when we first started to move stuff in.  But, now that we have been here for a couple weeks and it is starting to shape up, I think I am going to actually like it more than the other house.  It's not as big, so it's easier to clean and we can't accumulate as much junk.  I also love the back yard and the space outside!  And best of all... Nick has been sleeping in his own room ever since we have moved in!  God is so good and he knows just what we need, even if we think differently.  I'm glad we can trust Him.  I am so thankful for a God who provides.

Our Room

Nick's Bedroom

Mikala's Room

Living Room

Office

Kitchen and Dining Room

Grandma Rosie Visits!

The night before the team from Lancaster left, Matt's mom, Rosemary arrived.  The day after the team left, we packed up and headed to the beach for Easter.  There were a group of others from Youth World at the beach as well, so we all met Easter morning and spent time worshiping God together.  Two days after the beach trip, Matt and Rosemary went with the semester abroad students back to Shandia.  They helped further the work that the Lancaster team had started. When they returned from Shandia, we moved into our new home.  

We had a wonderful time with Rosemary.  It was a bummer we had to move in the middle of her trip, and we wish she had stayed longer (the kids often complained that it was way too short), but we sure enjoyed our time with her. 

Having a picnic lunch at our park down the street.

At the Market Place

At the beach.

Easter Morning at the beach

In Shandia

At Jim Eliot's house in Shandia

Canoe trip to the zoo

Church

Mikala took Grandma to the Elijido Market all by herself.  They rode in a taxi and Grandma was very impressed with Mikala's use of Spanish.

Eating lunch with the kids at school

The middle of the world

Supposedly, it is easier to balance an egg on the head of a nail on the equator.  Rosemary did it and has a certificate to prove it. 

Rosemary and I went to the Basilica and Colonial Quito.  We actually got a backstage tour of one of the Catholic Churches by accident.  We kind of joined a group, not knowing it was a special tour.  They welcomed us and we learned all about a street boys ministry that has been going on since the 1960's.  It was really interesting. 

Rosemary and I also got to go to a luncheon for the Youth World Women

At the Teleferiqo.... a gondola that takes you above the city of Quito.  Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day.  Nick and I were at home.  Nick had a 102 fever.

We went out to dinner for Grandma's birthday. It's this really cool Italian restaurant that has an outdoor patio and they have pots of hot coal to keep you warm.  It was our third choice, but the other two restaurants were closed due to the elections.  

We had cake at home.

The Group from Grace Chapel in Lancaster, Ca

Grace Chapel from Lancaster, CA brought a team to Ecuador from the 31st of March to the 10th of April.  What an incredible time we had with them!  They were such a joy to get to know and I am so excited to have even more familiar faces the next time we visit Lancaster.   We had the opportunity to go to Shandia with them to work and  build relationships with the people (especially the children) of Shandia.  On Friday we played some games with the kids and then went down to the river to swim.  On Saturday we spent most of the day shoveling dirt.  On Sunday we worshiped the Lord together singing in English, Spanish and Kichwa and Eric delivered a sermon.  Some of the group also went and did Sunday School with the children. Monday we went on a little river trip and then headed back to Quito.

I was encouraged to see many familiar faces in Shandia and actually be able to communicate a little better this time.  I also had the opportunity to taste my first chicha... can't say I enjoyed it much.  But, I did love the sugar cane. 

When we returned to Quito, we spent the remaining time at El Refugio.  The team did a lot of hard work and also participated in some team building activities.  

We sure had a wonderful time with Grace Chapel, Lancaster and we can't wait for them to come back!

At El Refugio, the team also did the ropes course and some team building activities.  Mikala and Nick participated in both and enjoyed it tremendously.

Nick and many others were painted with a dye derived from plants.  The red only lasted a day, but the black stayed on for a week!

We celebrated my 39th birthday in Tena, near Shandia.  We had an incredible downpour and thunder and lightning show.  The electricity went out.  It was a lot of fun.

Shoveling sand from one side of the river and carrying it over to the other to load in wheel-barrows to be taken down the road about a 1/4 mile to the church.

Cynthia and Halley enjoying the sugar cane.

My friend Carolina!  It was so great to see her again.

Nick and Dario playing on the Napo river with the kids from Shandia.

Mikala and Kimberly (One of the girls she met when we first came down with our youth group in 2004.)

Kayaking

At the end of March, we took our interns kayaking down the Napo River!  What a blast!  Next to Megan and Chelsea, Matt and I were the ones that tipped over the most!

On the bridge in Tena

Right before I fell in!

Criste, Hannah, Me and Chelsea.  Where's Emily? 

A New House

In March we found a house to move into!  It was a bit difficult to even think of leaving our other house, being that it was a mansion and in really great condition in comparison to this new one, but we will be saving close to $400 dollars a month!  So, along with some extra help from some of our supporters and a new church partnering with us, we are now getting really close to meeting our budget!  Thank you all for your prayers and support and thank you Lord for helping us find a house! 

The outside of our new house.  The yard to the left is our neighbors and the one in the back is ours.

This goes to our front door.

The staircase.  The lawn out the window is our backyard.

Dining room and kitchen.  We removed the cabinet that is hanging to make it more open.

Our living room.  

The window to the right looks right out into our neighbors yard and house.  

Reminders of the Soveriegn Grace of God

One of the things I really appreciate about Ecuador is the fact that we are constantly given reminders that we are not really the ones in control. So many simple freedoms we take for granted in the states can be so altered here that it takes you off guard at first, but then it is a beautiful reminder of proverbs 16:9, "The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps."
Take road work for example... a couple weeks ago they were working on a road that goes up the hill to our little neighborhood. They were repaving the road, so they blocked off the section they were working on... understandable. What we didn't quite get was how anyone was suppose to get in or out of our neighborhood. There was no warning, no information given that our neighborhood would be blocked off for a couple of hours. People would leave their houses and get sent back, leaving them to walk or go find a taxi.
Then this morning we had another great example... At 8:00 a.m. Matt went out to El Refugio (our camp about 30-45 min. outside the city) to meet with some interns. Road workers were laying some pipe in the dirt road to the camp, making it a little difficult to maneuver, but manageable. What Matt didn't know, and again there was absolutely no warning, was that in the course of the time that Matt met with the interns, the road workers had completely blocked off the road (digging a giant trench across it) making it impossible to pass. When Matt went to ask how long it would be till he could pass, they told him not until 5 p.m.
It is times like these that God reminds us that we take a lot of things for granted and it is really only through His constant gracious acts pouring out on us that we get anywhere in life.

Quito Day Festival

Each class participated in a traditional dance of Ecuador. The kids were so cute. You could definitely tell who didn't have Latino blood in them.

Nicolas was very serious about his dancing.

Mikala and her 3 best friends.

Our new dog Cooper

Pictures from Banos

Storage Building for the Orphanage in Shell.

Kyle helping put on the roof to the storage building.

Jamie working on filling in pot holes on the road at the orphanage.

Nicolas and Eric also filling in holes.

Barney, Julie, Eric, Nick and MIkala at a waterfall outside of Rio Negro. It was a beautiful hike into the falls.

Mikala and I on the path to the waterfall.

Matt and Mikala on the same path.

Some of our group at another waterfall called Pilon del diablo (the devil's cauldron).
It is huge and very beautiful.

You can crawl through this path and actually touch the waterfall.

And one more falls. This one we took a ride on the tarabita below. It was pretty fun. It goes right over the falls.

On the tarabita

Sharayah taking the machete to the grass at the orphanage

Mikala working hard

Nicolas loved the machete