Our first visitor

We had a wonderful time with our first visitor here in Shell. Jessica McMillan, fellow HCJB missionary nurse and former neighbor and colleague at Partners in Hope in Malawi. "Auntie Jessica" as the kids call her is in Ecuador getting ready to be part of a short-term medical team that is going from Ecuador to West Africa and we were lucky enough to have her come visit us here in Shell. We had lots of reminiscing to do about life in Malawi and talked a bit about the similarities and differences between life in Shell and life in Malawi.
Certainly the medical work is very different as the prevalance of HIV is so much less here in Ecuador as is malaria and tuberculosis. But whether being the lower socioeconomic status or the tropical climate or both--we still see plenty of sick patients.
The climates are comparable--although Shell is perpetually in a "rainy season". But both are definitely comfortable.
In Malawi we were in the capital city--one of the most "developed" in the country and here in Ecuador we are in the "sticks". However the level of development is pretty similar between the two cities as far as roads, restaurants, housing, etc. That's just a few of the similarities and differences that I can think of right off the bat.

Mostly we just loved seeing Auntie Jessica again!

Volquetero

I had to include some pictures of the lunch we had last weekend in Puyo. It's called the Volquetero which means dumptruck. And it sort of looks like a dumptruck just dumped a bunch of stuff on your plate. It's tuna, toasted corn nuts, beans and fried banana or platano chips. It's salty and tasty. It's sort of like the chips and salsa of the Pastaza region of Ecuador.
It is good, but personally it doesn't compare with chips and salsa. =)

Puyo River Walk

Well, after 4 days without internet--we are back on line. And now I know how to fix the problem. Flip the switch and reset the router that is located in our neighbors carport. I wish I would have known that 4 days ago. =) But at least we are back on line for the time being. We lost the internet because of some serious rain. Yes, the true Shell weather has arrived--just in time for us to host our first visitor. More on that in a future blog.










Last weekend we had a field trip, paseo in spanish, with some of the other missionaries to Puyo. The "big" city located about 6 km down the road. They have a nice river walk--along the river, obviously--that we enjoyed as a group. Then we climbed the lookout tower for a view of the river and the city. And we finished the mornings adventures with a yummy lunch--a local specialty that you can't find anywhere else in Ecuador.






The kids and Mike enjoyed swinging on the vines and contemplating some cliff jumps into the river. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the river is very shallow in most places so there wasn't much opportunity. It was a fun day and after almost 2 months of getting settled and spending the majority of our time in Shell--it was a great to get out and see just a bit more of this beautiful country and enjoy time with our new missionary friends and colleagues.

Angel

We want to introduce you to Angel (pronounced "on-hell" in spanish). He is a little boy who lives at Casa de Fe (House of Faith)--an orphanage in town. We don't really know much about him--he was left at the orphanage without a lot of information a little over a month ago. He came from one of the towns in the jungle and is somewhere between 18 months and 2 years old. But a little hard to tell because he was malnourished when he arrived.

Mike drove up to Quito with the director of the orphanage 2 weeks ago--so they had 10 hours in the car to talk about what goes on at the orphanage. At times Patty-Sue tries to find missionaries to "foster" or care for some of the kids who need a little extra attention for some reason. They have some very good caregivers, "tias" or aunties in spanish, that look after the kids the majority of the time. They have also recently started a school for the kids as well. I've added a link to their website on this blog if you want to know more. Anyways, we got to "baby-sit" Angel the last 2 Saturdays.

It's been very fun to have Angel in our house. Sydney absolutely loves being like a big sister or babysitter. Sam's not too sure still--but he enjoyed reading to him and teaching him some spanish and english. Of course our house no longer has many baby toys so we made due with laundry baskets, buckets, tupperware and balls.

So any visitors that need a baby-fix--Come On Down! There are lots of opportunities to love on kids.

Dying

Both of the kids just finished a studying seeds and plants in science. They each planted some kernels of corn (choclo in spanish) and had fun watching them germinate and grow. As they finished the subject last week, they each brought their seedlings home and now we have to find a place to plant them at home.

But these same plants were a sort of object lesson this morning at church. The preacher spoke from John. John 12:24-25 says "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

What a challenge! No one wants to die to themselves. I know I don't like it--I like to fight for my rights and for what I think I "deserve" in life. But until I am able to give that up for the sake of God--my Lord--and die, I will never be fruitful. It is a good reminder to daily die to self and surrender to our Lord who loves us. Our God who died for us when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for us.

Oh, and by the way. We had our first tarantula in the house yesterday. No, no one "died" but we were all a bit freaked out by the fuzzy spider by our front door.