… the shared birthday of C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, and Louisa May Alcott!

Thank you, Rob Quiring, for bringing this to my attention! Virtual birthday cake for all!!!

Here it is.

… been putting together some pix from the beach, but have been distracted. Pretty much as soon as we got back from our mini-vacation, I found out that my primary client has bolted on me. As it turns out, he’s been using someone else for the majority of his design work since right about the time we left the country. I really only had one other regular client, and he’s disappeared since the move as well. What all that really means is that our primary source of income has pretty much evaporated overnight. So, I guess I’ve not much been in the mood to post, either. Kinda like writing in yer journal, though, I suppose. If you only write when things are peachy, then people who read over yer shoulder will get the totally wrong idea about you.

There is a glimmer of hope, money-wise. I start tomorrow at Alliance as a substitute teacher. (I know, the idea terrifies me also!) The school has a full-time position that they’d like for me to consider, but it wouldn’t start until next year. We’ll see how it goes. Again, I know that God has a plan. I’m doin’ more praying regarding just what that looks like, and I’d appreciate it if all y’all would do likewise.

Incidentally, the beach was great. I’m glad we found out about all this after the trip, cuz we both really needed it. It was cloudy, cool, and a little rainy the entire time we were there, but that was fine with us. We did a lot of reading, eating (fresh seafood daily), sleeping, and lounging. We came home with way too many pretty rocks, shells, and pieces of driftwood. The group that we went with was a lot of fun as well. Pretty laid back. My plan is to get another sub-page set up in the next couple of days with a few of the 300+ pix I took at the beach, and a recap of our activities. (By the way, four nights lodging for two, and ten meals each came to a grand total of just over $156.) I’ve included a few of the lo-res pix to whet yer appetites.

With regard to other ministry-related news, I think I’ve mentioned before our involvement in the Peer Helper’s group at school. It’s a large group of high-schoolers that meet every other week after school for a couple of hours. Basically, the entire reason they’re there is that they all want to go into some form of ministry/service, and want to start practicing now. I’m really excited to be able to work with these kids who are there of their own volition, not because they’re fulfilling some academic requirement. We’re starting to get to know some of them better, and they’re figuring out who we are also. Rachel and I are both really looking forward to the opportunity to really engage these exceptionally bright kids on the cusp of adulthood, and help them start to wrestle with the “big, hairy questions.”

Rachel is settling into her job at the school, and already has a significant caseload of kids with a wide range of challenges. (No meth addicts yet, that I know of.) I’ll let her tell you more about what’s going on there, though.

I think we’ve finally settled on a church home here in Quito. San Marcos Presbyterian is about ten minutes or so north of us, a short cab ride. The worship team is really quite amazing, and the teaching is meaty and challenging. It “feels” more like Oak Hills than any of the other churches we’ve attended in Quito. I attended a men’s breakfast there a few weeks back. The “entertainment” for the event was a video of R.C. Sproul, overdubbed in Spanish. It was hysterical. Fortunately a friend was there to translate who spoke Spanish, English, and Sproul. The language barrier is going to be a challenge, but Rachel and I are looking forward to getting to know more people, and find ways to really engage with our church family away from home.

We’re also looking for some opportunities to get involved with English as a Second Language classes offered by various local ministries and churches. It’d be a chance to minister with a skill set that really requires very little training, as well as helping us to build relationships with Ecuadorian families.

Well, that’s really more than I intended to say starting out. I have sub assignments the next two days, so I’m not sure when I’ll get around to putting up the beach picture page. You’ll be the first to know, though.

… for a bit.

We’ll be out of the loop for most of the next four days. We’re leaving for the beach in three hours. I still have some last minute packing to do. (Of course!)

Think of us. We’ll try to work in thoughts of you amid all the fishing, wading, hammocking, reading, eating, and sleeping. I SO need this!

By tomorrow evening, we will be on the beach at Pedernales (sp?) with friends! Woot! It looks like the temperature will be in the mid-80’s with possibility of thunderstorms. I am soooo excited!

I am just as excited about the 4-6 hour drive that we’ll take to get there. I realize that parts of it will be mind-numbingly boring, but parts of it will include beautiful scenery and parts of Ecuador that we haven’t seen before. Rest assured, Rick will probably take lots of pictures!

It struck me today that, part of me still feels like I could wake up tomorrow and everything would be like it was two months ago. And part of me kinda likes that idea! Other days it feels like Ecuador will go on forever… and part of me kinda likes that idea, too. Either way, there is excitement and newness, but all sadness and … well, the Brazilians have a word… saudade (sow-da-jee)… it means ‘missing’ and ‘nostalgia’ and ‘how you feel when you are away from someone you love and wish you were with them’… Very succinct, the Brazilians! That is how I feel for Kansas and family. Ironically, for many years that is how I felt for South America… Ah, the pain of distance in a fallen world…

Well, I should quit waxing philosophical and get to work. I have to lead a seminar tomorrow for the high schoolers on “How to help a friend who is hurting themself”. It’ll be interesting to see where the topic goes…

The internal temperature of the turkey I’m roasting seems completely stalled at 141 degrees. I’m thinkin’ of cutting off the outside couple of inches and just eating that. The R.C.E. dinner is in three hours. I’m lookin’ forward to it muchly.

Check out what “giblets” includes in South America! Turkey stock is gonna be a little different this year.

Just thought I’d share.

Okay, here’s the deal. If you want to continue thinking of guinea pigs as cute, fluffy pets, then don’t click here. (Consider yerself warned, Jeannie.) Feel free to click away if you’re happy with thinking of them as a food source fit for being completely de-fluffified, slapped on a styrofoam platter, garnished with greenery and pepper slices, and saran-wrapped. They call them “cuye” here. We found this at the little grocery store we frequent. Thought we’d share.

In other culinary news, I finally got sick of the pathetic excuses for tortillas that they have here, and made some of my own. We had them with stir-fry (a la B.D.’s Mongolian BBQ). If I can say so without too much hubris, they tasted quite a bit like the ones that Liz Williams used to make for our high school class taco parties.

Here’s a couple of pictures that I’ve been sitting on, and really wanted to share. About a week ago, we were invited to a going-away party for Jeff, (the guy in the red shirt) a friend of a friend who we’ve gotten more acquainted with. He’s been down here working as an intern with Samaritan’s Purse, and was on his way back stateside. The highlight of the evening’s entertainment was a surprise visit by a mariachi band. If yer into such things, you can view a couple video clips of the craziness here and here. (Mostly I put this bit in here just to prove to my mom that we really do have friends here.)

Thanksgiving is fast upon us now. All the other folk with the mission that we’re down here with, R.C.E., are planning on getting together this coming Saturday for a Turkey Day feast. There’ll be about 25 people there, and we’re really lookin’ forward to it. I’m doing one of the turkeys, as well as dressing, gravy, and a big pot of rice and peas (red beans). I felt a little white standing at the freezer case, using the converter on my cell phone to figure out just how many pounds a 9.64 kg turkey was. (Just over 21.25, if yer counting.)

We have some green in the house now. Bought a HUGE bamboo plant for the living room the other day. It’s over 7.5″ tall, and that’s only cuz I lopped off the top few inches so it wouldn’t touch the ceiling. Rachel also picked up a basil (albahaca) plant at the same place, so we have some useful greenery in the kitchen now as well.

Well, I should sign off. Have some Spanish homework to do before class this afternoon. One prayer request, if you don’t mind. The primary client that I thought I was coming down here with has kinda dried up on me. He still owes me for work I did back in August, and last month he only gave me about a third of the work that he usually does. All that’s to say that we’re really feelin’ the pinch right now. I’m looking into employment options at the school and at HCJB, an international Christian radio company that’s just down the hill from us. I’m not sure what we’re gonna do, but I know that God has a plan. We’d appreciate your prayers, though.

Here’s a video (with commentary) that I took from the rooftop of our building yesterday. It was bright and sunny, and we thought we’d share.

We went to the immigration/police registry place (again) and got our Censo, which is a ‘drivers license - type document’… kind of like a state id. We got there at about 10:30am, were told that we would have to make an appointment for 1pm, made our appointment, and went across the street to the mall. After killing a few hours, we returned to the Censo office, only to wait another 30 minutes. The ‘oficial’ stated that he had not had lunch yet, and was obviously in a grumpy mood. He stamped our passports and paperwork in silence and, eventually, we were handed (poorly) laminated documents that we are to carry with us at all times! Mine is already starting to seperate around the edges…

After that we went to the open market, where I bought a basil plant. Now we can have fresh basil whenever we cook! From there we went to the supermarket (across the street from the open market), where we picked up the usual household items (ie shampoo, toilet paper, etc.). In the meat department, we actually saw frozen and packaged ‘cuye’ (guinea pig). Believe me, the only reason that we don’t have a picture of it is because they are pretty picky about not taking pictures in stores here! For those of you that are squeamish.. you are in luck! Rest assured, there will be a picture here eventually.

At the supermarket, I bought fresh chamomile (manzanilla) flowers, which are now drying in the kitchen. It will make a wonderful tea. Woo hoo!

Well, that is the update for our Saturday. There will be more adventures to come… I promise!