A day in the life...

A little more sharing from my summer journal. Like I've mentioned, I'm not a great writer or anything, these are just thoughts that I've had through out my time abroad.

June 24, 2005
Missions Conference.

Ministry to the Homeless - Rick Alvis. This is the session that I chose to attend today - figuring that since I am hoping to work with a lot of homeless people next year it may do me some good. I think I was wrong...this session is not exactly ministry based. Well, it is ministry 'based' its just not about the actually hands on ministry to homeless people - like how to do it perhaps!!! A little disappointing.
Most of us are having a hard time staying awake. You can look around the room and see bobbing heads and shutting eyes! Today I am exhausted! I have now been in Florida for 20 days...and cannot stop yawning.

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June 29, 2005

We have arrived!! That's right, we have made it to Ecuador safe and sound.

Time has been an adjustment, that's for sure. The people here move very slowly(and I don't mean they walk slow), so most things take a long time to finish up. Take this morning for example - it took me 1.5 hours to make pancakes for 21 people...CRAZY! Although I think that's just me not being used to cooking for a group this size!!

We arrived in Latacunga early(3am) on Tuesday morning. We slept until 9am, ate, had devotions and Greg and I left to go into town and get much needed supplies. We were in town for 6 hours!!!!!!! Shopping that would have taken me 2hrs at home took 6 here. It was nuts. But that's just the way things are done here. Everyone gets a hello and a small conversation before getting down to business. It'll take some getting used to.
Today we are all feeling the affects of the altitude(9500 ft to be exact). We've got some headaches and some stuffy noses...and our answer as a leadership to any physical woe...drink more water! lol!

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July 1, 2005 - HAPPY CANADA DAY!

We arrived at our project site yesterday. The building is already standing and the bottom half of the walls are up. The team began bringing down the remainder of the bricks to the site before breakfast - and now today they are ALL feeling the affects of the altitude. Walking up and down the hill with the bricks is tightening everyone's lungs. No complaints though...they are a great bunch(I don't say that enough).

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July 2, 2005

3 days. That's how long we've been here. In some ways it feels like an eternity. A good eternity though. The people here are very friendly, and seem happy to have us here. As I write, there are women and children staring in the kitchen window and door at me, just curious to see what I am doing. Its been this way since we arrived, and doesn't look like its going to tame down any time soon. They love to say hello and seem to have a lot of fun laughing at us when we make mistakes with the language....like yesterday I told one lady that SHE didn't understand when she was talking to me! Oh well! =) They think its funny.
We did learn this about their culture - they do not like to embarass people or see people embarassed. So, if something happens that would be embarassing to us, they will laugh at us. Their logic is that it is detering the embarassment away from us, making us feel better. My logic is that it makes me feel worse! We'll all get over it in time, I'm sure and we'll get used to the way the people here do things.