May Update

Hello! Another month has gone by & we have updates. Things here have been busy. We haven’t had any teams, we won’t have another team until mid June, so we have been experiencing life here without a team to prepare for. Gideon has been busy working on projects around campus. He was asked to preach at church last Sunday & once a week he shares a devotional with the staff and students during choza. Choza is a time of worship, devotionals, and prayer, it takes place twice a day four days a week here for the students and staff, everyone takes a rotation leading worship and sharing a devotional. I try to have an hour of Spanish lessons daily, some days are more successful than others. Josie and I eat breakfast in the home daily and spend most every morning cleaning the home. We usually eat lunch with the staff and students, where Josie gets to play with her friends, then we come back to the house for Josie to take a nap. By then it’s about time for dinner, sometimes we eat at the comedor, other times i make dinner for us. I’ve been enjoying cooking from scratch here, as they have little prepared grocery items & if they do, they’re expensive. A frozen pizza is about $10, ranch dressing is $8, spaghetti sauce is $9, just not worth it.  I’ve made spaghetti sauce and sloppy Joe sauce, homemade ranch, caramel sauce for coffee, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and I had a failed attempt of cheese crackers but will try again. The pregnancy is going well, I’m 27 weeks currently. I can feel baby move now, which I am loving. We brought a heartbeat monitor with us & Josie enjoys helping me locate baby’s “heart beep”, as she calls it. 

Gideon has been busy working around campus on various projects. He helped lay tile flooring in the Choza and re-wire the electrical. Josie got to help with the building project as well. He finished the stairs in our house & the railing. We probably won’t do any other house projects for a little, as there’s more important things around campus to be done.

Every Friday the students and staff practice fasting, the last meal they eat is dinner Thursday at 5 and they break the fast after Choza around 4. A few Friday’s ago we hosted everyone for an American style breakfast for dinner. We made waffles, homemade chicken gravy, crispy potatoes, egg scramble, and fresh berries. Josie was so excited to see blueberries and strawberries, while fresh fruit is plentiful here at the jungle, berries are more difficult to find. Some of the Ecuadorian’s were a little skeptical of us not serving rice for the meal but everyone left with full bellies and smiles on their faces. The student sitting at the table smiling, his name is Saúl. He spends a lot of time with our family, Josie likes to involve him in whatever activity she’s doing and he’s always a good sport about it. 

Two weeks ago, at church, Josie was outside playing and found herself in an ant hill. She came in crying, upset about the bites hurting. We walked back home (we walk to church every week, it’s about 10 minutes), gave her a shower and didn’t think much of it, as she gets lots of bug bites here and they only seemed to be on her chest. The next morning she woke up covered in a rash all over her body. After some research, figuring out what she did the day before, we determined she was having an allergic reaction to the ant bites. One of the other mom’s here had some allergy medicine for kids, that we gave her. After two days of rash and so much prayer, her skin was back to normal. That same Sunday, Gideon was playing basketball with the students & injured his back. After our family Sunday afternoon nap, he wasn’t able to move much. He wasn’t able to sit or walk for two days, but after much prayer and rest to allow inflammation to go down, he was back to walking as usual. A lot of things can be said here, many lessons were learned, but mostly, God is so good, prayer does work, and my faith & trust grew through that week. 

A chicken found its way into church a few weeks ago, which was bound to happen here. But of course it needed documented. Other animal encounters we’ve had lately are the neighbors cows. They’ve gotten out a few times this past week, eating clothes off lines, getting buckets stuck on their heads, being overly curious and looking for something to eat. It’s really never boring around here. 

A project Gideon has wanted to tackle is replacing the Comedor roof, it originally was tin on the outside with a wood layer inside. That created the perfect bat sanctuary, the upstairs of the building has been unusable for some time due to the bats. The materials were bought this week, so the guys started tearing the old roofing off. Josie said “they made a big mess & there’s a huge hole”. The bats all had to find a new location to hide, a few decided the upstairs of our house would suit them, that was fun. I am thankful for a bug net, to keep something between us and them flying around. They all left once day break, our upstairs is open and bright, not an ideal home for bats. Gideon is hoping to have the roof finished this coming week.