i wish i had something better to say.

Not pregnant...FYI. And really not fat either, actually.

2011-10-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Latin-American Culture,

I know you think it's cute to say exactly what you think when you think it, especially when it comes to the physical appearance of other people. But I have to tell you...it's not.

Love,
Amy

Yesterday Ismael and I bought dinner from a neighbor of his parents who he knows relatively well. She was BBQing some delicious-smelling chicken and serving it with "arroz con menestra" which is one of my favorite dinners.

Neighbor (to Ismael...about me...right in front of me): Is this fatty pregnant?!

Ismael: Uh....no....and she's not...

Neighbor: What are you waiting for? You guys are married already aren't you?

Ismael: Yeah, but that's not the only reason to...

Neighbor: She's FAT!!!

Ismael: .........k, bye.

I appreciate that I'm in a different culture where comments like those are not intended to be offensive. And I understand that as a Christian I'm not supposed to find my worth in appearances, etc.

But still.

I mean really...the pizza was truly incredible.

2011-09-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

CUENCA!

I promise I did not just insult anyone or say anything inappropriate.

Ismael and I went there...to Cuenca...to celebrate our very first anniversary! Yes, that's right...one year ago on Sunday we stood up in front of friends and family in Shafter, California, and I, Amy, took him, Ismael, to be my wife. And then after lots of laughs, took him to be my husband. It was a super fun day.

And so, to celebrate one year of good times...or whatever...we went to Cuenca! IT WAS AWESOME! I love Cuenca. Love it!

Here it is on the map. Not too far away from where we live. It was about a four-hour motion-sickness-inducing bus ride through super-high mountains. And the city was so cool! I was excited to see the Incan ruins outside the city, but there was just too much neat stuff to see inside the city and not enough time...

We got there Thursday night, ordered some delicious hamburgers to our room, watched some television and delighted in the HOT WATER!!! I miss hot water...

Friday morning we enjoyed the free buffet breakfast at the hotel and then took a bus tour of the city. It was really neat! It was one of those busses with seats on top, which we sat in.

It took us all through the city and showed us all the historic sights and the cathedrals and the river and it was beautiful!!

We went allllll the way up the road outside of town and ended up at a little lookout point looking over the whole city. It was very cool.

After the tour we enjoyed some mexican food, which was not as good as the enchiladas at the Happy Donkey, but it was still delicious...And then in the evening we took a walk through the city. The lights on the cathedrals were so beautiful that we decided we needed to take another walk the next night after the camera battery was charged again.

So we did...Saturday night we went out for pizza which was INCREDIBLE!!! Then we took a loooong walk in the drizzle and took pictures of almost all the cathedrals in the city.

We stopped in the Calderon Park where we saw a horse and carriage parked on the street and asked the driver how much for a carriage ride. $2 per person is a great deal, so we took it!!

It was super fun! Then Sunday morning we took a walk by the river and visited a museum that had lots of old stuff in it and saw a little tiny Incan ruin, and then came back to El Recreo...completely against my will. I would have stayed in Cuenca forever!

love, love, love!

Next time we'll go see the big ruins outside the city :-). Happy Anniversary to us!

Really....deportation is not an impossibility.

2011-09-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have several buenas noticias (good news..es?) to share. I’ll start with the obvious frontrunner in importance:

Our toilet works! If anyone guessed that our landlord would finally fix our toilet on August 31^st, you were wrong. If you guessed that our landlord would EVER fix our toilet, you were also wrong. He did nothing. But here’s what happened…

I will not say who left what in the toilet on the morning of August 31^st. (But it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t pretty). And as you know, our toilet has not been flushing properly since we got back to Ecuador at the end of April. It flushes…the water just doesn’t move through the pipes very quickly…so…it doesn’t take everything with it…if you know what I mean (I mean the poo). Every time we’ve needed to flush, aside from flushing with the handle, we’ve had to pour several pitchers of water (anywhere from 3 to 10, depending on what we had eaten) down the toilet and sometimes use the plunger to get the job done. So…gross, right?

Yeah, I know. This is my life.

Well, I guess I just felt mad about it all and on the morning of August 31^st, I channeled my anger into the plunging I was doing. Apparently plungers work in both directions. Not only do they push things down the tubes…they also pull things back up the tubes. So after plunging my little heart out for a couple minutes…out popped the culprit.

I don’t know how the landlord’s bro-in-law missed that. Also…that is a hearty toothbrush. It’s obviously been in the toilet for at least four and a half months, maybe longer. And for all the bleach and lye and acid we’ve been dumping down our toilet for the last four and a half months…I mean, even the bristles are still intact. So kudos to you, generic brand toothbrush. You won several rounds. But not anymore.

Anyway, the lesson to be learned here is: put the lid down. Also: don’t let our friend Jose use your bathroom. So, that is good times. No…scratch that…GREAT times.

On to the other news…

Ismael started a car washing business! He and his cousin, Raul, wash cars outside of the church Monday through Saturday. So far it’s going pretty well. They’ve made enough money to pay for all of their car-washing supplies and even earned a little profit. Ismael hopes to make enough money to buy a small pressure washer soon, in order to speed up the washing process and be able to wash more cars in a shorter amount of time. Plus, some people don’t even want you to wash their car if you don’t use a pressure washer. Snobs. I don’t see what’s wrong with using just a regular hose. But, I’m not Ecuadorian. So…wh

atever. It’s good to have goals,

I guess.

Anyway, I’m proud of him. He got tired of handing in applications for jobs and not hearing back from the companies, so he took some initiative and decided to start his own business. Please pray for his continued success.

And…in just a couple of weeks on September 25^th, Ismael and I will be celebrating our first anniversary. We’ve been saving up to take a little weekend trip. We’re going to go to Cuenca, which is a few hours southeast of El Recreo, where we live. It looks like a cool, old city which will be fun to explore, and there are some Incan ruins not far from there that we can go see. So, it will be an adventure!

Oh…that is, if I am still legally allowed to be in Ecuador on the weekend of the 25^th. My visa expires on the 22^nd and so I went at the beginning of the month to the Visa Department in the Ministry of External Relations building in Guayaquil to renew my visa. I submitted all the required paperwork with my application to renew my visa, and was told to come back on Wednesday the 14^th to find out if my application has been approved or not. What do you think the odds are of me getting deported twice from the same country?

Anyway, wish me luck! I’ll let you know what they say :-).

Today is Laundry Day...it's a long day after Baba.

2011-07-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

And the winner is…

Definitely not me. After a month and a half of having to flush our toilet with three pitchers-full of water and a plunger, our landlord decided to do something about it for us. (I wonder if it had anything to do with us letting him know we were going to hire a plumber and pay the plumber out of our rent money). The landlord’s brother-in-law came over to take a look. He removed the toilet and after weirding around with the toilet in my shower for twenty minutes, decided there was nothing stuck in the toilet, and that it must be that the inside of the toilet plumbing has got enough built-up gunk that the poo can’t get through easily. So, Aunt Julie, if that's what you meant by "toidy bowl ring" then you win the prize...which was going to be an Ecuadorian chocolate bar, but I don't know how well that will ship...so it might be something else.

Brother-in-law told the landlord that he needs to replace the whole toilet. So here’s the new contest: When will the landlord replace the toilet? The person who guesses closest to the actual toilet-replacement date wins a prize. Bonus points if you can guess how many times we’ll need to ask him to replace the toilet before he does!

In other, less complainy and much less poopy news, we have had an awesome time this past month working with the missionary groups that have come to El Recreo! The first group, from El Paso, Texas, came to give out water filtration systems to the people of El Recreo. Ismael and I were among those given the responsibility of choosing 4 of our neighbors who would receive filters for their homes. It was very cool being able to give something like that to our neighbors. Besides being a way for them to have clean water without having to spend all their money on bottled water, it was also a way for us to build friendships with them.

The group gave Ismael and I a water filter as well, which is AWESOME! I love my filter! I wasn’t convinced at first because look at it…it’s basically just a bucket, a hose, and a black thing that they say gets rid of all kinds of junk. But then we had the opportunity to go with a couple people from the group to visit a university class at ESPOL in Guayaquil where Shane Walker, a professor at the University of Texas in El Paso, gave a guest lecture on the water filtration system they were giving out. And after hearing all about what’s inside the black thing and how it works to filter out the bacteria and parasites, I’m sold.

After the group from El Paso left, another group from Newbury Park First Christian Church came for a couple of weeks to work with the Iberoamerican churches in Samborondon and Baba. Ismael and I were invited to go to Baba with the group and help them out there with construction and VBS (and translation, which I found out after we arrived to Baba).

Let me tell you something about Baba. It is dirty. The word “baba” actually means “dog drool”…so there you go. I mean, I love the people at the church in Baba. They are some of the most welcoming, hospitable, kind people you will ever meet. But they live in some of the grossest conditions imaginable. And I don’t really get it. It’s not because they have to…the grocery stores around town do sell bleach and brooms and mops and toilet bowl cleaner…for cheap! I don’t know…I think it’s just because everybody’s used to things the way they are. Yuck. So Ismael had the pleasure of sleeping with all the boys in the church building (also, the added bonus of begging one of the gringos to share his air mattress). The hard part for the boys was that they had to deflate their air mattresses and pack up all their bedding every single morning and move all their bags to another part of the building and then re-inflate their mattresses and redo their beds every night since they had to do construction work in the church building where they slept every day. So that was tough on them. Oh, also…there were fleas. All over. A lot of the guys got bit up by fleas every night. So it was definitely a tough trip to Baba. Not to mention we did that for a week. I have never seen them take a group to Baba for that long. The longest I’ve ever heard of them taking a group to work in Baba has been three days…so…it was a long time in Baba.

I had the pleasure of sleeping in the living room of the house next door to the church, which the pastor of the Baba church had rented for us ladies for the week. The living room of the house next door (along with the rest of the house) belongs to a sweet little old man whose wife had just passed away a month before. He was very kind to us and very welcoming. But I don’t think the poor guy had cleaned his house in years! The kitchen was covered (seriously) in ants, grease, chicken poo (not kidding), and whatever else had made its way into that kitchen to die in some corner in the last 20 years. The bathroom was crazy. The tile in the shower was a kind of orangey-brown color. Originally, it had been white. I think I scrubbed the tile with bleach and steel wool for two hours and got it down to a nice beige. But that’s not the worst of it. I can handle dirt and gunk. What I found most revolting was the cat-sized rat that scrounged around in the kitchen every night. Man…and here’s the kicker…the last night we were there we were all in bed with the lights off and I heard some noise in the kitchen down the hall. I shine my flashlight down the hallway into the kitchen and there’s the giant rat. I know people say that rodents are generally more scared of humans than humans are of rodents. But this rat was not so much scared as it was irritated that I was bothering it with my light. It stopped what it was doing when I shined my light at it…looked up at me, stared for a second, and then continued to rat around in the kitchen. Haha! I can laugh about it now that I’m home and can see no evidence of rodents. But at the time, that was just wrong. Oh yeah…and the next morning there was rat doo on top of the little table right next to my mattress.

Oh, Baba…

I’m not even going to tell you about the bathrooms in the church building. I won’t do it.

So, that was good times. No, but really though…it was a great time bonding with the Newbury Park crowd. We did lots of VBS programs for kids in the different schools in the area. We (the boys…not me) did a lot of construction work. We did lots of preaching and teaching. And I translated a ton of it! Even Ismael got to translate some, which was pretty cool.

After Baba, we got to go with the group to the beach in a place called Curía (pronounced like Korea) which, after several miscommunications and the terrible possibility of more construction work there, ended up being mostly relaxing. No fleas! It was a nice trip. We had a lot of fun hanging out with Geovanni too, who was our trip leader. He is one of the two men who Marcelo has been "training" to take over the church when he goes back to Chile. Geovanni is a good guy.

Now the Newbury Park group is gone and we’ve had several days of sleep which has been great! But it was sad to see them go. We made lots of great friends who we look forward to hanging out with again next time we’re in the U.S.A….which reminds me…Happy Independence Day everybody! Hope you enjoyed some great legal fireworks (and illegal firework…Burkhardts)! Man, it’s been forever since I’ve been in the U.S. for a 4^th of July! Someday…

Seriously...I will get you a prize.

2011-06-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

I messed up. I was selfish and stupid and I took you for granted. I didn’t appreciate your value and so I neglected you. I’m really sorry. Please forgive me and consider giving me another chance. Probably several more chances. Thank you.

Love,

Amy

So, God has given me this great gift. He brought me here and set me down in the middle of an entirely different country and people and culture, and allows me to experience things I never would have experienced in the U.S. And that is awesome. And silly me…half the fun of this is being able to share it with those I love back home. Oh, and I came up with a world full of excuses for not sharing like I know I can. (Imagine the following in the “Chris Luna Mocking” voice) “ooOOOoooohh, I’m Amy Morrison…I’m so busy. I don’t have time to blog. oooOOoooh, I don’t have the internet in my apartment. It’s too hard to blog. OOOOOooh, there’s nothing new going on. I don’t have anything to blog about.”

Lies!! Well…not the no internet in my apartment one. That one is true. But the rest…I’m not busy. I choose to busy myself sometimes with things that can wait. I do have time to write. I can make time to write. It’s not too hard. It’s just not as convenient. That’s not the same thing. And there’s always something to write about. Maybe there’s nothing new to me. But how do I know it’s not new to you? Maybe you’ll find things interesting that I’ve grown accustomed to.

So, there you go. I’m going to try again. I’ll start from the beginning.

I live in South America…in Ecuador, which is a small country on the west coast, right on the equator. Ecuador is divided into 21 provinces, plus the Galapagos Islands.

I live in the Guayas province which is on the coast. The Guayas province is divided into 25 “cantónes”, which I guess you could say is kind of like a county.

I live in the cantón called Durán, which is right next to Guayaquil, the largest cantón in Guayas. The cantónes each contain a big city that shares the same name as the cantón and lots of small “ciudadelas” which are the little towns surrounding the big city.

So within Durán, I live in a small ciudadela called El Recreo. The ciudadelas are divided into “etapas”, or sectors….kind of like the zip-code system in the U.S. I live in the 3^rd etapa of El Recreo. The majority of the houses here are not divided by streets…they’re really more like apartment buildings, in the sense that there are rows and rows of houses with just sidewalks in the middle, and the actual streets are few and far between.

So a row of houses is called a “manzana” and all the manzanas have numbers. And the houses in each manzana (MZ) have a villa (V) number. I live in manzana number 361, in villa number 9. So my address looks like this:

Amy Morrison

El Recreo, 3ra etapa, MZ. 361, V. 9

Durán-Guayas

Ecuador

If I wrote my address that way in the U.S. it would look like this:

Amy Morrison

Bakersfield, 93314, Hinault St. 13506

Kern-California

U.S.A.

I wonder if my letter would make it if I sent it to that address. I would try, but it costs a lot more to mail a letter there from here than it does to se

nd one from there to here.

So now you know all about provinces and cantones and ciudadelas and etapas and manzanas and villas. Congratulations! I expect you’ll be able to send me lots of letters now that you know how to address the envelopes. Just letters, tho

ugh…no packages…unless they’re under 4 pounds. Anything bigger and they will charge me a million dollars to get it out of customs. J They tax packages and boxes that come through the mail by the pound…especially if whoever send the package sent it with any kind of certification or priority. They think there’s something worth something in the box, so they make you pay extra for it. We discovered shortly after paying a lot of money to get a Christmas package out of customs a couple years ago that if you send a package that’s less than 4 pounds from the U.S., and if you just send it in the regular mail wit

h no guarantees or certifications or anything special…well they just pass that package right along to Durán…it doesn’t get stopped in customs in Guayaquil. I guess they just figure it’s not worth anything, so it’s not worth anything to the

m to keep it there. Hahaha!

Anyway, that’s how it is. I hope you’ve enjoyed

reading about addresses and corrupt customs offices. And now for an unrelated riddle:

I'm stuck in Amy and Ismael's toilet! Boiling water won't flush me down. A plunger won't plunge me. A wire coat-hanger can't fish me out. A bottle of bleach won't budge me. Lye can't liquefy me. Acid doesn't persuade me to leave. What am I?

Firs person to answer correctly wins a prize!

Every good and perfect gift is from above... James 1:17

2011-04-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

God is good.

Let me tell you.

Ismael and I helped lead worship last night for a combined service with the Kaleo Fellowship (where we go to church here in Bakersfield) and the Oildale Christian Fellowship. We got together on Thursday night last week at Andy and Stephanie's house with the rest of the band. Stephanie made dinner for us and then we played some music in their living room. Ismael played Andy's electric drums, I sang, Andy played guitar, Stephanie played percussion and Doug played harmonica. It was a fun little band practice....Ismael and I were the only representatives of Kaleo there and so it was neat to spend some time with new people. We spent some time sharing and getting to know each other a little better and it was really nice. At the end of the night I left feeling both extremely blessed and a little bit frustrated. God just put these wonderful people in our lives, and it feels really good to make new friends. But it seems like I always start to make new friends right when I'm about to leave to go somewhere else for a long time. I was wishing we could have gotten to know them months ago. But...it's always a blessing to have new friends.

We went to church last night and played worship and it was really fun. And something really amazing happened. After the service, Andy and Stephanie said to Ismael and I, "Hey guys that was awesome, thanks again for helping with worship tonight, it was really fun. Hey, listen we've been thinking and praying about this ever since you guys left our house the other night, and we really feel like this is something God is telling us to do. So, we want to give you guys the drums. We can see how much Ismael loves to play and we're just really excited about what you're doing in Ecuador and we want to bless you, so we want you to have the drums."

Wow!

Let me explain how amazing this is. I'm blown away. This is like an answer to a prayer that we didn't even pray. Ismael has been talking about wanting an electric drum kit for the last nine months. It would be such a blessing to have something like that in Ecuador. It would mean we could have band practices in our home without disturbing the neighbors. It would mean Ismael could have quality practice time on the drums. He's very good. And if he had his own drums he could really develop his talent more. It would mean he could give drum lessons out of our home as a means of earning extra income. But any kit that's decent costs a ton of money. Hey, even the low-quality kids cost a ton of money. So we just thought it was a dream...it would take years to save up enough on our income to even buy a basic kit with a limited number of drums and cymbals. And we never even went to God with the idea because it was just an idea...just a dream. Well, last night God answered the prayer that we would have prayed had we prayed. And that is cool.

And the neat part for me on a personal level is that I had just...literally, JUST been thinking about the different ways we all show and understand love. You know, like the 5 love languages concept. I got to thinking during the worship service about how I am a gifter. If someone gives me a gift, whether it's something they bought with me in mind, or if it's a gesture like buying me lunch or a cup of coffee, or writing me a card or a letter...if someone physically gives me something that makes me feel so so loved. And I got to thinking about the ways God shows us love. I was thinking, "does God love us in our own love languages?" and I started to think about what kind of gifts God has given me. I'm ashamed to say I kind of played down the way God shows me love. I thought, "God doesn't send me cards in the mail. And He doesn't bring me breakfast in bed. And He doesn't really go shopping for something to buy me. But he does give me gifts like...new friends...and he gives me moments with people I love. He gives me gifts of working out problems...things like that. But not really gifts in the traditional sense of the word." I mean I thought all that...and not 20 minutes later it was as if God said, "What do you mean I don't give you gifts? Here...open this!"

Can you imagine?

God is so good. And he gives such good gifts...even though we are so undeserving. We're so blessed, and we're so grateful for the new friends God has put in our lives and for the ways in which they have already blessed us incredibly. I hope we will be just as much of a blessing to them.

Now...to figure out how to transport an electric drum kit to Ecuador :-)

Bakersfield College or bust! Go Renegades!

2011-03-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we've kind of got things figured out. I called the number that the immigration department gave us for if we have any questions (we have several, Immigration), and I spoke with Eric. Actually, I mostly listened to Eric, who seems to have been trained to not let people with questions actually ask their questions.

Well I laid it all out there. I said "you guys said this, and then someone else said that, and what's really the story?" Only, I'm sure I sounded a little more grown-up-ish...or maybe not. Probably not. And he said, "He can be out of the country for up to one year without needing a re-entry permit." And I said, "and that won't affect his residency status at all?" And he said, "no." And I said, "will it look bad? Will someone think he is abandoning his residency if we are gone for extended periods of time?" And he said, "no, he is allowed to be out of the U.S. for up to one year without needing any special permission. So as long as you're not gone for more than a year at a time it will be fine."

Ok, Eric.

But, here's the other thing. Ecuador DOES allow dual citizenship (I had to read Ecuador's constitution to find that out. Their embassy's information is from 1998). So that means that Ismael can become a citizen of the U.S. in only three years! Why he would ever want to is beyond me...the government of this country has gone to great lengths to make it appear that they don't want him here that badly. But he can be, and if he's going to apply for citizenship in February of 2014, then one qualification is that he has to have been physically present in the U.S. for 18 months of his three years of residency.

Well...poo.

Is what I thought at first. I thought this was going to mess up all our plans of missionarying around in Ecuador. But...after listening to the counsel of Ismael's wise mother-in-law, I realize this can be a great opportunity. We spend some time in Ecuador, then come back in time for Ismael to do a semester of college here. Then back again, and back here in time for another semester, etc. This way, we're here long enough for him to qualify for citizenship after three years, we're establishing his intent to live in the U.S., and he's getting lots of units out of the way before we even live here permanently. So it's a win-win. Win.

So that's the new plan. Ecuador until January. Then some college education. Then some more Ecuadoring around. Then some more college. You get it.

Well, please pray that Eric was, in fact, correct and that our extended trips to Ecuador will not affect Ismael's residency status. Please also pray that he will excel in his classes at college. And please pray that we will be able to do something awesome for the University Project whether we're there or here.

This is not what we had in mind, USCIS.

2011-03-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well, congratulations to my wonderful husband who is now officially a Conditional Permanent Resident of the United States of America! February 25th we drove to Fresno for his residency interview. We had an 8:30 appointment so we left at about 4:45, allowing plenty of time to arrive to Fresno, find the immigration office, and more importantly, find an IHOP. (We shared a garden omelette and some pancakes. Everything was delicious!). During our breakfast I quizzed him with the example questions we had found on the internet while researching other people's experiences with residency interviews. (Questions like: Where did you live right after getting married? How many televisions/telephones were in your home? What color were the walls? What type of A/C and heating did you have? What color is your spouse's toothbrush? What did you eat for dinner last night? What did you do after dinner? Who went to bed first? Was the A/C or heater on when you went to bed?) We went to the immigration office and waited in the waiting room for about an hour and 15 minutes before we were finally called into an interview office. Ismael was approved for residency after about 15 minutes of us answering super difficult questions such as: "What is your full name? What is your address? What is your date of birth?" (not kidding). We were told Ismael would receive his green card in the mail in about 2 weeks and that we could find more information on what rights and responsibilities Ismael now has as a conditional permanent resident on the immigration website. Well, I'll tell you what. I looked at the website. The website says Ismael can travel out of the U.S. for up to a year without having to ask for a special permit to re-enter the country. But that's not actually true, now is it, USCIS?

We had planned to leave in April to go to Ecuador and continue our work on the University Project for the next 10 months. But the information that the government is holding out on us is that Ismael can't be out of the country for up to a year. He can't even be out of the country for more than 6 months out of the year without getting his residency revoked. And of those 6 months that he's actually allowed to be outside the U.S., he can only be out for 90 days consecutively at a time. Well...guess what, Immigration...90 days is actually much shorter than 365 days...or didn't you know?

sigh.

So...our ten-month trip has been chopped up into three-month segments three-months apart. Three months there, three months here, three months there, three months here...for the next three years (at which point Ismael may become a citizen). Or something like that.

They sure don't make it easy.

Vera Jane Myer 1925 - 2011

2011-01-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

My grandmother, Vera Jane Myer ("Janie") passed away on January 16th. She was a really neat lady who lived an incredible life. My brother, Kevin re-tells her story like this:

On January 25th, 1925, Walter and May Hennington brought a new baby girl to their small home in Rivera, California. Vera Jane "Janie" Hennington was born and a lifetime of love began.

Janie was an only child, but she certainly did not lack attention. She remembers fondly the
train trips with her family to visit relatives in Illinois and to visit her father's friends on the Indian reservations. He lived with the Indians for a time, and visits to the reservation with him were quite an experience. Janie loved to go with her father on the train to the race track in Del Mar. She enjoyed watching the magnificent horses as they ran.

Janie and her mother were best friends, which continued throughout their lives. Every Thursday was their day together. Whether it was hair appointments, shopping or going out to lunch, they always looked forward to their time together. Many who saw them thought Janie and her mother, May, could be sisters.

Janie often retold of the days she would visit her aunt in McFarland, California as a young girl. In McFarland, the almond orchards stretched farther than the eye could see, and Janie's favorite treat was the freshly roasted almonds her aunt would prepare. The smell of the almonds in the oven would always excite her and she counted the minutes until her aunt brought them out.

It was also in McFarland where young Janie first began her relationship with God. She watched from a distance as a local preacher gave a sermon and baptized several people in the irrigation reservoir near the house. When the preacher and the people left, Janie said, "I can do that." She walked into the reservoir, repeated the preacher's words and in ceremonious fashion, baptized herself. Then and throughout her life, when Janie saw a need of others or her own, she took care of it. She needed to be baptized, and well, she was just the right person for the job.

Little Janie began her schooling at South Ranchito School, before moving on to Lynwood Junior High and Compton Junior College. It was the "six-four-four" plan back then. Six years of grammar school were followed by Junior High (7th - 10th grade), and Junior College (11th and 12th grade, and the first two years of college). Janie was an active and leading member of her student body at Compton. She was a member of the Tartarettes, a youth chapter of the Red Cross. She participated in the "Tomorrow's Secretaries" organization, and she was president of her sorority, Alpha Tau.

Janie was quite the catch and didn't go unnoticed by the local herd of boys. Persuaded by a friend to attend a function of the Lynwood Methodist Church Youth Group, Janie found herself to be the object of attention of one particular young man named Jim. He offered her a ride home and she politely declined. She also refused to grant his request for her phone number and address. It was a successful brush off, or so she thought. Jim followed her home. In fact, he made a habit of following her home; from church, from school or from wherever he could find her. Janie finally relented and agreed to a night out with the persistent young Jim. They went out to a show and her stalker turned out to be quite a gentleman. The courtship had begun and would continue for seven years, including a brief little intermission called World War II.

Janie's father was skeptical about Jim at first, or at least played it to seem that way, saying after their first meeting, "well, he's better than that other guy at least." One evening Jim and Janie's fathers played cards together. Nobody is quite sure what was said, but after that evening, Jim was number one with Mr. Hennington.

While Jim was serving away from home in the U.S. Army, Janie was serving as personal assistant to the Commander of the Naval Fuel Annex in San Pedro, California. The NFA was responsible for keeping the entire Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy supplied with fuel.

Jim knew early on that he was going to marry Janie, and declared this fact on several occasions. Janie declared that he didn't know what he was talking about. But Jim was not about to give up. While home on leave, he told her once again that he was going to marry her. She agreed. It was unknown to Jim until much later that Janie had several suitors wishing to claim her as their own, but she always told them she was going to be marrying Jim. She just hadn't informed Jim of that. Maybe she enjoyed his continuous efforts to make her his wife, or maybe she liked to keep him on his toes. In any case, she said yes, and God surely smiled. They were married on April 17th, 1947 and were devoted to each other for sixty-three years.

On September 26th, 1949, Jim and Janie introduced Kenneth Jay Myer to the world. They lived in a duplex on Magnolia Avenue in Lynwood. The family was growing and it was time for a new house. The Myer family bought their newly built house on Muller Street in 1950 for $1,100. Shortly after, Jim was recalled to active duty with the Army and sent to Korea. After travelling with Jim to Ft. Lewis in Washington to see him off, Janie was suddenly home alone with a toddler and expecting a second child. As did many of the wives of servicemen in that day, Janie was strong and played her part well. On September 16th, 1951, Sherry Gay Myer was born. A year later, Jim returned from Korea and met her for the first time.

The Myer family continued to grow. Kenny and Sherry were introduced to Glen James Myer on November 29th, 1953 and Debra Jane Myer on January 17th, 1958. Janie was in the full bloom of motherhood and she relished every moment of it. Janie had mastered the role of "Soccer Mom" long before the term was even invented. She made sure her children were delivered to and prepared for all of their activities. Dance lessons, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, diving lessons, swim lessons, Job's Daughters, and many other activities were often on the agenda.

Janie had it all under control and made it clear to Jim early on that she was the authority on what the kids could and could not do. "Don't you tell them they can do something without talking to me first," she told him. Jim had to have things explained to him on a number of occasions. While on a family camping trip with the Boy Scouts, Jim set up an old army cot for Janie to sleep on. It must have been left over from the first world war, or so it seemed when it ripped and Janie fell right through the middle of it, with her arms and legs stuck up in the air. Jim needed an explanation that night of the appropriate levels of preparedness for such a trip. Everyone in the camp laughed about that one, though Janie reserved her laughter for a later time.

The Myer family included four children by birth, but also countless others throughout the neighborhood. Janie was a gracious host and never let her kids' friends leave hungry or unappreciated. The door was always open, there was always cake on the counter, and there were always cookies in the cookie jar. Janie sold Avon for a while, but never made any money because she sold it to Sherry's and Debbie's friends at cost. Hospitality was not her burden. It was her joy. She gave it her all.

Through the years, Janie's family has grown. She has welcomed sons and daughters-in-law. She has held six grandbabies in her arms, and then held their babies, six great-grandchildren. She always listened with excitement and pride to the stories of accomplishment. She was always comforting when listening to the painful trials. She always had the right words for both.

God's model of love and service was lived out every day in Janie's home and in her relationships. She baptized herself as a child. She was (officially) baptized on April 1st, 1956 at the First Presbyterian Church of Downey. She is now at peace and at home with God, probably telling him to have another piece of cake. I imagine they are sharing tears of wonderful pride and joy as they look back on a life well-lived, at a family well-taken care of, and a world that was left a better place.

~khm

I will miss my grandmother so much. She really was an incredible woman who made a difference in the life of everyone who knew her.

The Laptop Search

2011-01-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've narrowed down my laptop search a little bit...based on what kind of features these laptops have that I like.

1. 17inch monitor

2. number pad on keyboard

3. built-in wireless

4. built-in webcam/microphone

The problem is I don't understand all of the other specs, like...how much memory is good? Is 4GB good or do I need more? What about the hard drive? What's the difference between a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive? What kind of processor and operating system are good? These are my questions.

This one is at Costco. It's an HP dv7t and it looks like it's a deal that includes a wireless printer or something. It's got the features I like and lots of other stuff that I don't understand.

Then there's this one from Best Buy:

It's an HP with an Intel Pentium Processor...also with lots of things I like and lots of things I don't get....like what's an Intel Pentium Processor???

There are two on the HP website that look nice, the HP Pavillion dv7t and the HP G72 and I think they're like a semi-"build your own laptop" kind of deal 'cause there's all kinds of options listed for each spec category...but again...no idea.

So if anybody's got any insights, I'd be very grateful for the help with understanding this foreign language that is technology.

R.I.P. Howard

2011-01-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

My poor laptop, Howard, decided that five years was long enough. Which means before I go back to Ecuador (March 4--if the US gov decides Ismael can leave the country), I need a new lappy!

I like the 17 inch monitor and the keyboard with the number pad....other than that, I don't know what I need. I use it for video-editing, internet-browsing, video phone calls, and basic document creation/storage using Word, Excel, Publisher, the basics. Any suggestions on a good product?

Your help is greatly appreciated. :-)

Happy New Year, My Friends!

2011-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

May your 2011 be almost as awesome as this...

I'm sure mine will be. I'm going to try, anyway...

Good times...no, scratch that. Great times.

2010-11-23T16:22:00.000-08:00

So, I've been a married lady for almost two months now. Congratulations to me! We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon which was so, so fun! What a beautiful place!!

We stayed 3 and a half days on Oahu (because I wanted to see Pearl Harbor. And we never got to see Pearl Harbor) and then went to Kauai for three and a half more days. So awesome! The water is beautiful. I loved just sitting out on the beach on Kauai and watching the waves crash.

Ismael has been experiencing lots of new things here in the U.S.A. Halloween, for example. They don't celebrate Halloween in Ecuador the way we do here. So Ismael carved his very first jack-o-lantern, and dressed up like Staff Sergeant Hadley F. Morrison, and had a great time handing out candy to kids and going to the Harvest Festival at CCV. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures, but I assure you, his jack-o-lantern was awesome. Imagine the first jack-o-lantern you carved when you were a child...yeah, it looked about like that :-).

A couple weekends ago we took Ismael to Sequoia to see the redwoods. That was cool. They don't have trees like that in Ecuador. He couldn't put the camera down.

Last weekend we celebrated his 21st birthday with a party here at our house. We sang him a traditional Morrison birthday song which would have made Grandpa so proud.

And then smashed his face in the cake following Ecuadorian tradition.

So, that was great. The cake was pink because pink is his favorite color. Just kidding...I think pink scares him a little. So naturally we prey upon that fear as often as possible.

Today, on his actual birthday, I took him ice skating. It was fun (cold) and we had a great (cold) time! Happy Birthday, Ismael!

I'm getting married later today.

2010-09-25T02:07:00.000-07:00

Sure wish I could sleep...

Welcome to the U.S.A. Ismael! (Hey...don't tell your mom about this)

2010-08-13T03:08:00.000-07:00

It's a sad day. A sad, sad, sad day. A day of tears and mourning...of deep sorrow and a pain and emptiness that reaches all the way to my soul. My dear friend, my faithful companion through good times and bad, the one who was always there for me no matter what...has gone to be in a better place.

Well...

Not better. Just the storage facility where insurance companies toss totaled cars before they get scrapped.

My poor Delilah...it breaks my heart.

Last Thursday around 9:40 in the p.m. I was at home, sitting at the dining room table showing my mom some nice-looking sand ceremony vases.

Me: Look, mom...these are nice-looking sand ceremony vases.
Mom: Oh...yes, they are n...

CRASH!!!!!! SIMULTANEOUS START-UP OF AIR CONDITIONER!!!!!!!

Mom: That didn't sound good....was that the air conditioner?
Me: Weird.

high pitched voice outside

Me: Hey...is that somebody laughing or screaming?

Mom and I walk to the front door...she opens the door...sounds like a woman laughing

Mom: Sounds like a woman laughing.

Mom closes the door

15 minutes later...

knock on door:

Neighbor: Hey, do you guys know there's a truck on your front lawn?
Us: No, we do not.

we walk outside

Mom: Oh no, Ames, look...that's your car.

Indeed, my mother was correct. That was my car. Only she wasn't where I had parked her originally. She was about 20 feet further down the street, perpendicular to the curb, back end smashed in, and windows shattered.

And you should see the other guy! (There was, in fact, an other guy.) The neighbor was also correct...the truck that smashed into her was, verily, on our front lawn, tires popped, front end crumpled, and mom's poor marigolds in the grill.

Really, though...take a look at the other guy. My little Jeep is Tuff!

Anyway...we heard nothing after what sounded like our A/C unit starting up with an awkward bang. But apparently we have extremely vigilant neighbors who explained that after Blue Flame here lost control of his dumb truck (probably drug-related. both the accident and the vehicle paint choice) and ended up on our lawn, he, his lady and their child climbed out of the truck, got in a shouting match and then walked down the street a couple houses, stashed two backpacks full of stolen goods and then the woman and kid took off walking down the street in the other direction. Genius sticks around and tries to start up the truck again...no dice. Then bashes in my windows, jams his truck key in my Jeep's ignition and hopes for a miracle. When that didn't work out as planned, he took off running (stumbling? idioting?) down the street.

The vigilant neighbors did call the police, who, of course, showed up after all this happened.

My Delilah was totaled.

Farewell, my beloved friend. You were good to me.

So proud of my dog!

2010-08-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long, tearful goodbye in the Guayaquil airport, a long, long series of uncomfortable flights, and a long, terrible stop in Atlanta (terrible! awful! worse than Lima!!!!), we made it to L.A! YAY! First meal: In-N-Out...Ismael's first experience with pouring his own drink at the soda fountain ("I can put as much ice in the cup as I want?".....yeah, but first taste the different sodas to see which one you like better....."you can DO that??".....yes, and you can come back and refill the cup when it's empty if you want...."oh my"). He went with the Dr. Pepper. (First time drinking Dr. Pepper!) The double-double was incredible. He's still impressed, and that was a week ago. Zachary James (Ryan Morrison's baby) had one too.

We spent the day Thursday getting some shopping done. Ismael needed a swimsuit for the pool my parents have up in the backyard for the summer. We finished registering at Bed Bath and Beyond. He had never ever seen a pillow backrest before. He got very excited about it. Very excited. This explains the pillow backrest on our registry.

Went to meet with the videographer and then to my friend, Sally's wedding on Friday, went swimming, had a barbecue, learned how to play baseball with the nieces and nephews on Saturday, church on Sunday, and then had a fun time with Niall, Tyler and Liam who came up to visit Sunday and Monday. I beat everyone at scrabble and my dog pooped on Niall...so overall it was a really great weekend.

Niall took a ton of really awesome pictures of us which I am sooo excited about. His photography skills are very impressive! Niallmccarthy.net, people. Check him out! Check out more pictures of us on the niallmccarthy.net blog.

You can see the excitement in his face.

2010-07-21T10:09:00.001-07:00

So I'm getting married in September...you know what THAT means....

That's right...it means I need some pretty jewelry.

The good news is I found some and it's BEAUTIFUL!!!

The bad news is it's a necklace/earring set, and I can't replace the earrings with a bracelet or a dangly pearl nosering.

But the other good news is that for $5.00 and a trip into town, this is no longer an issue.

Whole new world of jewelry, here I come!

He looks super excited to start buying me lots of earrings, right??

Almost time to come home...

2010-06-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Well things have been crazy here the last couple of months. We are so lucky, you and I, my American friends. You know, if you have a passport that says United States of America on it, you can go almost anywhere you want—no questions asked—with a smile and an “enjoy your stay.” It’s just not like that for everybody else. Ismael and I are working on month #5 of the K-1 fiancé visa petition process (in order for him to be able to attend our wedding in September) and it hasn’t been simple. They really don’t make it easy to get in to our country legally and I can begin to understand the desperation that might cause someone to think taking their chances at getting in illegally is the better option. Not that I’m saying I think that’s an acceptable way of doing things...I just can understand why someone would.

This week we will be able to call the American consulate for an interview, (after five months of filling out forms and forms and more forms, gathering evidences of a legitimate relationship, getting police reports and medical exams and birth certificates, and a lot of waiting), they’ll give us an interview date and time which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, and then at the end of the interview we will have a decision (I think). We may quite possibly finally be in the last steps of this application process and would greatly appreciate any prayers offered up on our behalf for patience, for peace…and for a visa, obviously.

Once we have that visa, then comes the fun part—the travel plans, the packing, the excitement, the travel, and the arrival at LAX in the middle of the night some night during the last week of July! It’s coming up so quickly and we are both so excited!!

Please keep us in your prayers!

On a less stressful note, we went bowling the other day with our friends, Manuel and Gabriel. It was super fun! Ismael seemed really interested in the bumpers that some of the other bowlers were using in other lanes.

Hey, did any of you know that Jesus was a bowler? It was news to me.

Sneaky Peaky

2010-04-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a little preview of the University Project presentation that will happen at DFCC on Sunday...the video anyway...

The University Project is doing great. I am really excited for all the students that have been able to begin and continue studying because of their sponsors. I hope we can continue to grow this program and help as many students as possible to achieve their goals.

Heartache

2010-04-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

Part of what I love about being in another part of the world is experiencing a different culture—celebrating the same holidays in different ways, seeing the same ceremonies performed with different traditions. It’s a really interesting part of what I get to do here. When I was in Peru a few years ago I was invited to a wedding, which was such a cool experience. In December I spent my first Christmas away from home and shortly after, I got to celebrate the New Year in a surprisingly (scarily) different way. While I love new experiences like this, there’s one I would have given anything not to have. Last week I attended my first funeral in a different culture.

I met Junior Parrales the first time I came to Ecuador in the summer of 2005. Though I didn’t speak the language, a friendship began which has blessed me ever since. He was an active member of the youth group here in El Recreo for a long time—playing keyboard in the band, going on mission trips to help other communities. He set a good example for his younger siblings, who have followed his footsteps into a relationship with Christ. His brother, Pablo, is student in the University Project, and active in the music ministry at the church as well. Junior was a really neat guy.

During the first week of March this year, Junior was shot. Nobody knows for sure who shot him or why. He died of sepsis in the hospital about a month later on April 5^th after a number of unsuccessful surgical attempts to remove bullet fragments and repair the damage that was done to his body. His body was buried last Wednesday, April 7^th, in a tiny cemetery in the middle of the countryside where his family is from. It was a difficult day that I will never forget.

I know where Junior is now, and I don’t hurt for him. But I ache for his mother, Marina. Mothers shouldn’t have to bury their children. She seemed so broken…so emptied. I’ve never seen that kind of grief before. I ache for Jacinto, his father, who left for Spain almost two years ago for work and hasn’t been able to return to Ecuador. I can’t imagine the desperation he must have gone through, not being able to be there with his family…not being able to hold his son’s hand during those last moments…having to hear his wife’s cries through a long-distance telephone call...not knowing when he’ll be able to come back home. I ache for Pablo, who on top of losing his brother has just become the man of the house at 18 years old, taking care of his mother and his sister. I ache for Lily. She spent all her effort at the funeral at her mother’s side, trying to give comfort to an inconsolable, broken-hearted woman. Who will comfort Lily?

My heart breaks for them, because their family will never be the same. Though God gives abundant grace that is new every morning, and someday they may find comfort in knowing the Lord and His goodness…there will always be something missing for them. And that hurts. And I hurt for them.

I’ll miss Junior. I’ll miss the high-pitched giggle he let out when he thought something was odd. I’ll miss his smile that was so sincere and inviting. I’ll miss passing him on the sidewalk on my way to church in the evenings, him on his way home from work…always tired, but never too tired to stop and say hello and see how things were going. I praise God because it’s because of His love and grace that I can have the hope of a blessed eternity where I will certainly see Junior’s smile and hear that funny giggle again.

I’d like to tell you about the funeral. It was nuts! But…maybe another time. Please keep Junior’s family in your prayers. They will hurt for a long time. And they so need the Lord’s love and peace in their hearts. Pray that God would provide what they need physically as well as spiritually. In order to come home, Jacinto would need steady work here in Ecuador. Pray that God would provide him with a job so that he can be with his family. Pray for Marina. She now has to find a way to pay off the loan she took out in order to pay for the first operation Junior had. She’s also got to find a way to pay for the other surgeries, hospital time, and funeral costs. It’s about $3,000 that she doesn’t have, and it’s an added pressure on an already hurting woman. Pray for Lily. She and her mother have gone to live with Marina’s parents which means Lily has changed schools and is beginning her first year of high school in a new place with new people. High school was hard enough already. Pray for Pablo who is living by himself in his family’s home here in El Recreo. He begins his first year of college next month and has the added pressure of having to work part time as well as study, which was not a part of his original plan. But the family is now without Junior’s income and there aren’t many options. Pray that God would provide for this family in a spectacular way.

"I need a title." "What did you write about?" "That I beat you in air hockey" "You wrote that?"

2010-03-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

So Monday night is the music ministry’s Bible study night. I think I may have mentioned we’re studying James :-) and it’s been pretty awesome. I love spending time with these friends of mine reading James’ letter and figuring out what it means for us today. It is rewarding for me to see that my time spent preparing each lesson isn’t lost; to see that James’ message is making sense. But rewarding as it is to see other people grasp the ideas I spend time translating each week, it doesn’t compare to witnessing those people put those ideas into practice in real life.

Last week we decided to take a break from meeting in my apartment and doing the usual study. We met up at the church and then headed out to Guayaquil to hang out in the city for a couple hours. Fourteen of us climbed onto a bus on its way out of town and we made our way down the main street in El Recreo. A few stops down the street a woman got on the bus and made her way toward an empty seat. The bus driver, who I’m guessing missed the class on shifting during driving school, apparently had it out for her. Before she was able to get to an empty seat, the bus lurched forward with impressive force and then stopped suddenly and lurched forward again (as was the general pattern we had been experiencing thus far) and she went down hard. She hit her head on the back of a seat as she toppled over and landed on her left arm. Oh yeah…and she was not a little woman. The bus driver, who I highly doubt missed the scream she let out as she went down, was clearly more interested in perfecting his shifting technique which made it impossible for her to get up again.

This is where it gets awesome.

Almost immediately, Ismael jumps up out of his seat and runs to where she’s bawling and struggling to get up. He helps the woman up and into a seat, repeatedly defying inertia as the bus lurches down the road. At the same time José and Ivan jump out of their seats to help collect and return all the loose change that dropped out of her hand as she had fallen, and the rest of the band shouts for the bus driver to stop the bus. (He slowed down a little eventually, which I’m sure he thought merited some kind of medal.)

This poor woman, who is now covered in the kind of filth you can only find on the floor of a Panorama 81-line bus, is crying uncontrollably and in between sobs, you can almost make out what she’s saying. “sob I sob sob want… sob my sob sob husband…sob sob sob want sob go sob sob home…” poor thing. I give Ismael my water bottle to wash her hand which is bloody and appears broken, and then in what must have been a miracle from Heaven itself, through her sobs she speaks a sentence that rings out loud and clear all the way to the drivers’ seat. “I’m reporting this to the transit commission.” Hallelujah, the driver stopped in the middle of the road, put the bus in park, climbed over the divider and approached the woman with what I’m sure was his best attempt at “concern” and said, “Are you ok?” HA!

José called the woman’s husband for her and the driver offered to drive her back home. He stopped another bus on its way out of El Recreo for us to get on and be on our way. José, Ismael and Manuel stayed behind with the woman to make sure she got home ok and met us in Guayaquil a short while later.

I felt so proud of the band. Their reactions to help were immediate and unprompted, and, even though I heard various, unhelpful suggestions of making a citizen’s arrest shouted anonymously from the general direction of the band at the back of the bus…still, our faith was made into action through those who stood up to help.

That’s not all.

We took a stroll down the River-walk, stopped to buy ice cream cones, and enjoyed each others’ company for half an hour or so and ended up at the small food court at the end. Some people got something to eat and others spent some time shaming Ismael at a game of air hockey in the arcade.

After my victory, we walked over to the table where most of the band was eating dinner. As we got nearer I noticed there was an addition to the group. Sitting between Manuel and Jenniffer there was a girl about 10 or 11 years old with a giant plate of food in front of her. Based on the proximity of her face to the plate and the rate at which her spoon went back and forth between the two, I’m guessing she either hadn’t eaten in a while or didn’t expect to be eating again anytime soon…or maybe both. I asked José who she was and he says, “We don’t know….but she said she was hungry…so we all chipped in and bought her dinner. We figured that’s what James would say we should do.”

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! I almost cried on the spot! How awesome is that?! “We figured that’s what James would say we should do.” Oh man. It just makes my heart come alive. So…God is good. And God is working here in the lives of these friends of mine, shaping their faith—making it come alive.

Shake things up where you are. Make your faith into action.

well...not priceless, exactly...but awesome!

2010-02-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

The University Project is expanding here in Ecuador. We accepted our first non-local student into the program! Andrea lives in Babahoyo which is about an hour away from El Recreo by bus. Babahoyo is in a different province of Ecuador (El Recreo is in the Guayas province while Babahoyo is in the Los Rios province which borders Guayas). This is a new adventure for us. Andrea found out about the University Project through her boyfriend Miguel whose sister is one of our program members. Miguel heard about the project and told Andrea she should apply. Since she's from out of town and I didn't know her personally, I had to write up a pastoral reference form and have her ask her pastor to fill it out on her behalf. Her application was accepted and she is now part of the program.

I had the opportunity last week to take a bus out to Babahoyo and interview her in order to write her bio. I got to meet her family, have lunch with her in her home and spend some time in a part of the country I've never seen before. it was a cool experience and I'm looking forward to spending more time with Andrea as her project representative, and praying God will provide her with a sponsor. She wants to study to become a surgeon.

Yesterday afternoon I had the blessing of having to buy several folding chairs for my apartment, and the joy of preparing for the music ministry Bible study by moving my desk and bookcase out of the living room and into my bedroom since last Monday night there were 11 musicians squeezed into my tiny living room for our study! We're still studying James (it's a pretty detailed study...we're going on month 3 of the study and we're just beginning chapter 2) and it just keeps getting better and better. It was good I got the chairs because there were 15 of us in my tiny living room yesterday! I don't think I can fit anymore chairs in there. At least no one seems to mind being cramped in a small space.

God is doing really interesting things with this group of people. Last week after we finished our study we talked about what we were going to do during the week to put our faith into practice. We had been talking about not showing favoritism and Ismael suggested we do something to show love to a family in the church that, to be honest, not everyone gets along with. We decided that was a great idea and since they're a family of 7 we decided that maybe a food basket was the way to go. We decided we were all going to contribute something toward the food basket and started going around the room sharing what we were each going to put in the basket. It was awesome! God is changing hearts and attitudes for sure. For a lot of these guys, money is kind of hard to come by since they either don't work or if they do work, their jobs don't pay well. But I wish you could have been there to see the generosity rearing its ugly head :-). It was great...it almost sounded like some kind of auction going on in my living room last week. Jonathan said he would put in 5 pounds of rice. Someone shouted out, "Is that all? You have a job!" Jonathan's response: "Yeah...fine, and a can of tuna." And everyone laughed. Then José said he'd put in 5 pounds of potatoes after which someone shouted, "You work too!" To which he replied, "Ok, eight pounds. And five pounds of rice." Manuel said he'd put in a bag of lentils. Someone shouted, "And beans!" He said, "Yeah, and beans." Someone else shouted, "And milk!!" He said, "Yeah, ok, and milk too." Then things got more interesting. An anonymous member of the crowd in my house shouts, "Did you hear that, Jonathan?! Manuel's putting in lentils, beans AND milk! And your job pays way better than his!!"

(cultural note: apparently you can say things like that here and not offend)

In any case, Jonathan's response: "Cheese. Put me down for cheese." hahaha! It was hilarious. Everybody was trying to raise the stakes for everybody else, and nobody seemed to mind. It was actually kind of fun. And the best part, the absolute best part, was that everyone came through, not only with what they had said they would put in the basket, but with even more (Jonathan, for example, upped his own ante and made it TWO cans of tuna!)!! Our food basket was overwhelming! It didn't even all fit in the laundry basket we bought to put it all in!

Everybody gathered at my house at 7:30 last night with all their food and we put it all in the basket. We spent some time praying for the family we were about to visit and then headed to our destination. We spent some time sharing with the family, and most everyone in our little group realized that it was God's timing that we took that food basket over there last night. Their family is going through a really hard time right now that no one had known about until Sunday, and so it was good to be able to share love with a family that really, really needs to be shown love right now. We prayed for them and let them know we love them so much and they're not alone. It was really neat, and I can't wait to see what happens next time I ask what we're going to do to put our faith into practice!

1 liter of vegetable oil $2.00

1 package of cheese $2.50

2 cans of tuna $1.50

20 lbs. of rice $6.00

8 lbs. of potatoes $3.20

12 eggs $1.20

1 chicken $4.00

6 packages of pasta $3.00

35 green bananas $3.50

½ lb. of lentils $0.60

½ lb. of beans $0.60

2 liters of milk $1.40

14 packages of juice mix $5.00

5 onions $1.00

5 tomatoes $0.75

3 green peppers $0.75

12 limes $0.50

¼ pound of salt $0.30

4 lbs. of sugar $1.40

2 lbs. of margarine $3.50

1 lb. of instant coffee $5.50

1 laundry basket $7.00

taking food and love to a family who needs food and love: priceless!

My bag boots got ruined in the end.

2010-01-19T16:50:00.000-08:00

So the music ministry at the church here in El Recreo has a Monday night Bible study each week and we have been studying the book of James for the last couple months. It's going great. Not only are we getting a lot out of hanging out together for a couple hours a week outside of church services and band practices, we're also getting a lot out of studying James. It is really rewarding to see the good work that God is doing with this group of musicians. James is all about taking our faith and putting it into practice. He is all about the practical…not just professing faith but showing it. And the message is sinking in which is so awesome to see. Last week we finished up chapter one. James says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." We read it and I asked if they know any orphans or widows. And we talked about that passage for a while and what James means by it and what it means for us. And all of a sudden José’s face lights up, and his hand shoots up in the air and he says, “Magdalena is a widow!! And she needs someone to build her bridge!”

Magdalena's husband Byron died a few years ago of a heart attack and she was forced to leave her home with her children because she could no longer afford it without her husband's income. She had to find a piece of land outside of town in the marsh area called "La Invasión". She and her children live in a house made of bamboo, up on stilts because when the heavy rains come during the winter months, La Invasión is under 3 feet of water. During these months, bridges are a necessity. If you don't have a bridge that connects your house to the other bridges which lead out to the main road in the city, then you're stuck in your house for the duration of the winter...unless you have a boat. Magdalena's bridge, like everyone's, gets damaged every year during the summer, and she has to rebuild for the winter. When the first rain comes and softens the ground, everyone starts repairing old bridges and building new ones, and hopefully they finish before the next rain.

We all went to her house last Wednesday morning and dug holes for posts, cut beams for the bridge, and began putting it all together. It was fun to see the guys in the band working--serving--in a different way than what we are used to doing (leading worship during church services). And it was a blessing to see that not only Magdalena was being blessed, the band received blessing as well. And, on a who's-laughing-now note, everybody here makes fun of me for saving plastic grocery bags after I go shopping. But, they came in pretty handy after all. So...I think I've earned the Eagle Militia plastic-bag-work-boots badge for my thriftiness and quick thinking in the face of mud.

Anyway, we didn't get the bridge done, but we got about half of it done, and someone else went to finish her bridge on Sunday, so now her bridge connects to the bridge in front of her neighbor's house. But the thing is, all the neighbors' bridges connect to each other on the way into town. In other words, they all depend on each other when it comes to these bridges. If somebody doesn't get theirs build, then everyone beyond them can't get into town when it's flooded. And Magdalena lives about half a mile off the main road and there are a lot of bridges that need to be build between her and the main road. So now she's just waiting on the rest of her neighbors to build their bridges so she can have a way to get into town when it rains.

I am excited to see what other kinds of ideas we will have as we continue this study. I'm excited to be a part of what God is doing with the band here, and most of all, I am excited that we've moved the Bible study on Monday nights to my house instead of at the church because I can not handle the crickets anymore. They are monstrous and crawly and yucky and jumpy and there are thousands of them and they jump and fly and scurry all over the place and I do not like them. And by the grace of the Lord, they don't come in my apartment. I think He knew I wouldn't be able to handle it if they did. So we meet in my apartment now.

Please keep me in your prayers as I continue working with the music ministry at the church in El Recreo--that I might make a positive impact on this group of musicians. And pray for my health...it's been not that great, and I don't want it to get worse with the rainy season. Thank you for your support and encouragement!!

"Fixed the newel post!"

2010-01-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! And a happy New Year as well. My holiday season this year has been interesting, that's for sure. This is the first year that I've celebrated Christmas and New Year somewhere far away from home, and I experienced a big mix of homesickness and excitement. I really missed taking the annual family Christmas photo in front of the tree in the living room. And I am sorry to say, I was sorely disappointed when I saw the family photos this year. Just look for yourself!

It is an outrage! Not one family member made a dumb face. Everyone is looking in the general direction of the camera. It's all smiles. Dad's not even in the middle of a sentence! And I have to ask...what will become of my poor nieces and nephew without their Aunt Amy's encouragement of self-expression during the Christmas photos each year? I don't know. I just don't know. I feel I have let them down. I've let the whole family down. I know how much my mom enjoys examining the Christmas pictures each year looking for the one with the least amount of shenanigans possible so she can add it to the Christmas album. I'm sorry, Mom. I will make every effort to be present for Christmases to come.

In any case, even though I was homesick, I was still looking forward to my first Ecuadorian Christmas. I had plans to go to my future-in-laws' house for a midnight dinner followed by walking around town wishing a Feliz Navidad to the neighbors and all our friends, delivering some Christmas cookies and hanging out until the sun came up the next day. This, apparently, is how they roll down here. I spent the 23rd and 24th baking. I made fudge and butterballs and candycane cookies from the recipes (and ingredients) my mom sent me. I watched the most classic of Christmas movies to get into the spirit of things.

I arranged all the cookies on plates and wrapped them up, I took a shower, I put on some semi-new clothes. Ismael came to get me and we were about ready to walk out the door to go to dinner when all of a sudden...the stomach virus I had unknowingly caught unleashed itself. I will not say anymore about the unleashing.

About a half an hour later I thought I would be ok so we went ahead and walked to his house where everyone was starving and anxiously awaiting our arrival to eat the Christmas dinner. Well...I should have stayed home. I didn't even make it five minutes into the dinner before feeling yuckier than before. And I felt like I kind of ruined things for everybody else. I think they all envisioned their Christmas dinner a little differently. So, that was a bust.

The highlight of the holiday, however, was the gift I received from my future in-laws. They got me a shirt. It's black and it's got writing on the front. Not just any writing...it's gold, sparkly, studded...your general bling. And it says, no joke, "My boyfriend is cuter than yours" so...that is awesome. And the absolute best part was that it's written in English, so they had no idea what it said when they bought it. I opened it and they go, "what does it say? I hope it's nothing bad" hahaha. nice! They were very excited to find out what it was exactly that they bought me. So... awesome, indeed.

All this took place in a span of about 15 minutes. So...that was my Christmas. I spent the next six days suffering the symptoms of the stomach infection, followed by symptoms of an allergic reaction to the first antibiotics I was given, and pondering why, exactly, I decided so long ago not to pursue a career in North American theater. Ismael took good care of me and made sure I was well-fed. He brought me soup, which he made. He even cleaned my house for me while I was out of commission for a while. What a guy! He took me to see a doctor (my appointment was at 10:30pm December 29th...who makes appointments for 10:30pm??) and I got some antibiotics that I am not allergic to, which was great. That seemed to do the trick. More or less. And I was able to enjoy the New Year's celebration.

New Year was awesome. The "celebration" at midnight sounded more like a civil war than anything. Looked like one too. Much different than yelling "happy new year!" and playing with noise makers and party poppers for about 30 seconds after the stroke of midnight.

In Ecuador they burn the old year. Literally. They make these dolls out of wood and paper mache and then at midnight all the neighbors gather in the street and they all pile their dolls (the "old years") on top of each other and they pour on some lighter fluid and voila! New Year's celebration to the max.

Well, in other good news. The Guayaquil airport has got The Wireless. So...it seems worth it to make a weekly trip to the airport café so that I can actually upload pictures and video and that is what I will be doing. Thanks for hanging in there with me while I get this internet communication deal all figured out. Hope you're all doing well and that you had a happy Christmas and New Year.

I don't want to leave this internet café ever. It has air conditioning.

2009-11-29T08:23:00.000-08:00

"BTW - are you keeping a different blog nowadays? (i.e., not amyinanaheim)" -my dad

Oooops! No, dad, I am not keeping a different blog nowadays. Just...not keeping this one. HA!

No, but seriously, I am embarrassed that I haven't updated for a long time, and I hope your "dead blog" lists will forgive me.

First of all, IT IS HOT! It's getting to be winter time, and you know what that means...(probably you don't, if you don't live on or below the equator). It means it is gross. It is hot and yuck. And it's not a dry heat, that's for sure (whatever that means). It is a nasty, heavy, suck-the-life-out-of-you kind of heat. The kind of heat that literally destroys your will to do anything productive and forces you to submit to it. So...long story short, I have been spending my days inches away from my fan, trying to stay hydrated.

Uh...and working on the University Project...obviously.

No really, it's going great. We accepted a new student into the program and will begin looking for a sponsor for her soon. We currently have two students in need of sponsors, and are working on ideas for finding them. Also, Paddy and Gianna are working on ideas for fundraisers in order to have extra funds in our account for extra, non-sponsorship money (right, guys? RIGHT?). This month, because of the extra funds we had available in the account, we were able to help one of our sponsored students afford the two field trips he needed to go on for his major. He wouldn't have been able to go otherwise, and would have missed out (probably his grade would have suffered as well). This month we began a study with the University Project students. We are going through The Truth Project by Focus on the Family and began with session 1 this month. It was really good. We had a good discussion after watching the dvd and I think they are looking forward to the next study. I hope the students will be open to the idea of holding the study every other week instead of just once a month. We'll see.

The music ministry in the Iberoamerican church where I have been serving is going well also. We started a Bible study on James (it's my favorite :-)) and have been learning a lot about the purpose of trials and temptations. It's been neat to hear the thoughts and opinions of the rest of the group. I think this kind of study is new to them. They are accustomed to "Bible study" being a meeting in the church where they go and listen to some information and then leave. But this study is designed around them answering questions and discussing their own opinions. I felt they were a little surprised at the beginning when they realized my questions weren't rhetorical; that I was actually going to wait for a response from a few of them before moving on to the next question. But now that it's not so weird to actually talk during a Bible study (gasp!), we are having a great time. We meet Monday mornings at 9:00am (that's 6:00am to you, my friends, if you are on Pacific Standard time).

The thing is, we are in desperate need of your prayers here. My observation has been that the church here is tired and discouraged. One of the big problems I've seen being that guilt is often (always) used as a tactic for making people serve in the church. Church services are held in an atmosphere of guilt and disappointment instead of celebration, and the underlying message communicated is generally one of "you're not doing enough" which, to be honest, just makes people want to give up altogether. I have had several conversations with prominent leaders of this specific church who are seriously considering leaving it to find another. It makes me sad. I would like to ask for your prayers for wisdom, and that God will encourage his church here-give it new life; revival. And that something would be done about the message of guilt that is being communicated so frequently.

Thank you for your prayers. I hope to hear from you!

So far, so good!

2009-10-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

My parents and I arrived in Ecuador at about 3pm on Tuesday the 22nd of September and were met at the airport by Ismael and his family. Our friend, Corey drove us all to my apartment in El Recreo and we unloaded our suitcases (all nine, most of which were only ounces under the 50lb weight limit) from the truck and carried them upstairs.

And since we had the entire afternoon and evening left, we went ahead and got to work on the apartment. We went to a store about ten minutes away in Durán that’s kind of like a combination Super Wal-Mart/Home Depot sort of place. We found pretty much everything we needed-paint, brushes, rollers, light bulbs, cleaning supplies, dishes, glasses, and a little table and chairs. We went back home (aww…home J) which was easily the most uncomfortable truck-ride my mom and I have ever had. We were crammed into the cab of the truck, I was on her lap, there was only enough leg-room for probably half of one skinny leg. And there we were. My dad and Ismael rode in the bed of the truck with our purchases.

The next day we started painting, which made me soooo happy. The apartment had been painted (badly) in a lovely shade of orange and accented brilliantly with green on every pillar. (Look at my face. I am clearly disgusted by the walls.) I agreed to a rental contract on this apartment only after being assured I would be allowed to re-paint it. I am convinced that if I woke up every day in a green and orange apartment, I would be a very angry person on the inside. Anyway, needless to say…

And the painting went well. We borrowed a ladder from Gregorio’s mom (the lady I lived with from April to July) and got the whole place painted in two days. NO MORE ORANGE AND GREEN!!

Over the course of the next few days we were able to get everything I would need to live and work in my new place-furniture, food, stove, refrigerator, dresser, desk…we (my dad and Ismael)

hung shelves, curtains, and pictures, fixed my leaky sink (haha), and we taught Ismael how to play Rummikub! We had a really fun time together, and I’m really glad mom and dad got to come here and spend time in my new home, with the people I love here.

My new place is beautiful! I love cooking in my new kitchen, and I love having breakfast at my new table every morning, I love sweeping my new floors and making my new bed and washing my new dishes in my new sink. I love my furniture that’s so comfortable on which to sit and read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(which was an incredible end to an excellent series all about faith and love and friendship and sacrifice and unity and fighting for what’s good and true. Indescribable! Thanks, Paddy).

I love it here! I love that it’s not orange and green. I love that it’s really safe and that my landlords are really nice. I love that my friends can come visit me.

There is only one thing that I do not love. I do not love the other tenants. They are dirty and gross. GROSS! One of them came in my apartment last night…TOTALLY UNINVITED! It was an outrage!! He squeezed in through the crack in the cement at the bottom of my back door and hid under the bed. Ismael immediately came to my rescue when I called (what a wonderful fiancé I am blessed with!) and after about ten minutes of making lots of noise and prodding under the bed with a broomstick to scare him, my unwanted guest made for the door. But he didn’t make it in time. Ismael bashed him in the head with the broom….

Yes, I admit, it made me a little disturbed to watch him die…but anything that poops in my room has got to go-bottom line. He will bother me no more. I hope the others will be too terrified to try and invite themselves in. One can hope, right? Wish me luck with that.

In less-gross news, this week I am talking with all the University Project students who now have sponsors (thank you, sponsors), to let them know they now have financial support for their studies. I talked with Becsy this morning. She is so excited! She got a little emotional when I showed her the video we showed at DFCC a few weeks ago. She didn’t know I had used her story to share the vision of this project. She was so touched when I told her she has a sponsor now. She seemed really moved that someone from so far away who she had never met would care enough about her to help change her future. I think God is doing a great thing through this project, and I feel really privileged to be a part of it.

Please keep all the University Project students in your prayers. And please keep me in your prayers as I adjust again to life here. I think I will be all right here…after all…I am not alone….Horatio Caine, you never let me down!!

mmmm, airplane food!

2009-09-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

The University Project had a big day on Sunday-the presentation we made at DFCC seemed to go well and we got to talk to a few people after the services. And seven out of our eight students now have sponsors! It's finally starting to sink in that this is really happening. And that I have a big job to do once I get back down to Ecuador. I'm looking forward to the challenge of making this program work really well for the students in El Recreo.

My parents are going down to Ecuador with me for about two weeks! They're going to see Ecuador for the first time (not just in pictures), help me get moved in to my new place, and they're going to meet Ismael for the first time! I'm excited about that. Our flight leaves on Tuesday at 2:21 in the a.m. and we have a long, 5 hour-45 minute flight to Costa Rica, followed by a short (HA) 3 hour-40 minute flight to Guayaquil.

We've been packing our bags for the last two days. We're each allowed two checked bags, one carry-on and one personal item, and we are maxing out our allowed baggage with things I will need for my apartment. The thing I'm worried about are that we have one over-sized bag which exceeds both the size and the weight permitted for a checked bag, and the Taca website says that it will have to be checked "standby" so...hopefully A)they let us check it standby at all and don't tell us they won't allow it, and B)it will get on the flights and make it to Guayaquil. Also, two of our three carry-ons exceed the 22lb. weight limit. Hopefully they haven't started weighing carry-ons since the last time I've flown. And a few of our checked bags exceed the 50lb. weight limit as well, so we have to re-arrange some things and re-think some things, and...well...I just hope everything I want to make it down there makes it down there, and anything that doesn't...I'll just have to get over it.

I'd appreciate your prayers for our travel-that we won't have a stressful flying experience, that there is no weirdness with our bags, or with my visa, or with anything...and that we are safe. Also that visiting El Recreo will be a good experience for my parents and that they have a safe trip home in a couple weeks on the 1st of October.

I can't wait to put some pictures of my new apartment on here! :-)

The University Project

2009-09-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a little sneak peek, my friends.

This is what will be shown during the church services at Downey First Christian Church tomorrow morning. We'll be sharing the University Project with the congregation for the first time and looking for sponsors for seven different students in Ecuador. Karen, Gabriel, Becsy, Isabel, Christian, Cristina and Pablo. May God use this project to bless their lives richly, and use them to change the world they live in. May God bless their sponsors in ways they've never imagined possible. And may God bless Gianna and Paddy for taking action in the first place to make this project happen.

All it takes is $40 a month for a student in Ecuador to get a college education. I know, unbelievable, right? We thought so too a year ago when we (Paddy, Gianna and I) decided to start the University Project. Our hope is that others will be able to get behind the vision we have as well and that we can make a big difference in Ecuador by investing in the lives of these students.

Less than two weeks and I'll be on a plane!

2009-09-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Things are coming together really nicely for the University Project. We have a lot of things printed and a website almost ready to go. We have the support of Downey First Christian Church and the missions team, and we're going to be presenting the project to the church this Sunday the 13th.

We want to let people know what the ministry is about and how they can get involved, and the difference they can make in the life of a young person in Ecuador.

Ironically, this presentation is probably the most important one we have to make and the one I definitely feel least prepared for. Time is running short...and I don't know if I'll have enough of it to make a video. I hope a small lack of visual media won't deter people from being a part of what's going on.

Anyway...not too much longer after that, I head back to Ecuador to run the program on that end. Please pray for us as we get things going with this project. And for the students who are hoping we will find sponsors for them. And for me as I live in a far-away place for a longer period of time this time.

My new niece is here!

2009-08-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Giahnna MaryJane

Eight pounds and one ounce of pure awesome!

Haha! "I have to share my room with her for HOW long?!?"

Meet Cristina

2009-08-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've been working a ton on the University Project, specifically putting together bios of each of the students for whom we'll be looking for sponsors. This is what I have so far and I'd like to get some opinions since I'm new at this whole design thing. There are some things I don't think look good and some things I do, and I'm looking to find out what things I could make better and what I should leave alone.

This first one is the actual Bio Card. It will be the first thing someone sees, kind of introducing them to a student. It's a half-sheet size, with the student info on the front and a little more info on the back.

This next sheet is more of a background info page. It shares a bit about the community and the country in which the student lives. And on the back are a few maps of the area where the student is.

So, your constructive input is appreciated! What looks good, what looks wierd? What makes you interested? What is distracting? Thank you for your help!!

doober

2009-08-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

So much to do...

Organize financial details of the University Project

Design logo, website, publications, etc. and get things up and running

Present the new ministry to the DFCC congregation

Find sponsors for seven students

Get religious worker visa in order to get back into Ecuador and stay there

Purchase a plane ticket

Plan major details of a wedding (mine!)

Have a yard sale

Raise enough money to live in Ecuador until July '10

Pack bags, making about 20 suitcases worth of stuff fit into about 4 pieces of checked luggage and a carry on

Not go insane

All before September ends. It can be done, right?

HAHAHAHA!!

2009-07-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

When Ryan Morrison is your dad, you get to experience the joys of a slip 'n slide without the running start.

I'm getting married

2009-07-09T22:48:00.000-07:00

to Ismael Cortez. Because he's my best friend. And he loves the Lord, and I love him, and he loves me. And we make a really good team.

We met four years ago when I went on a mission trip to Ecuador where he lives, and over the years God has been growing a really wonderful friendship between us.

Last year when I stayed in Ecuador after the missions team went home, that friendship began to change into something else. It was a flawless transition; so perfect, in fact, that I didn't even know things were changing until they were already changed and I realized I couldn't live without him.

On September 25th (two days after my unexpected deportation) he asked me to be his girlfriend and we spent the first seven months of our official relationship writing letters and e-mails, and talking online and on the phone every day. And what a blessing it was to have all that time to get to know each other better! And what a trial it was to be so far away for so long!

And things just keep getting better and better. Last Friday afternoon Ismael asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. And after taking a few moments to weigh the pros and cons of said proposal, I decided that...haha, no I'm just kidding. There was no time to weigh any of the cons. I weighed only the pros and then accepted.

Really, I was too thrilled to think anything except for "YAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!" And that's how I feel every day with him. We're getting married next year. I'm so excited! ("Yay!" remember?)

Anyway, so now you know.

Ecuadorian health care, what can I say?

2009-05-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, two weeks ago, Jomayra stood in front of her church family and shared her testimony of deciding to go her own way instead of God’s way. It was really touching and I admire her and her courage so much. She spoke with grace and humility and her words were powerful. She shared her repentant heart in a simple, transparent way. I was moved by what she did. It took a lot of guts to get up in front of everyone and share her situation and her feelings about it. Yes, she made some decisions that she regrets (haven’t we all?), but I see a woman of character in her. I see strength and humility and courage. I see genuineness and vulnerability and honesty. I see a lot of what I want to be in her attitude and that’s such a blessing. I think it could have been a lot worse for her. She could have chosen to live in shame and embarrassment forever, shutting herself off from her friends and her church, building up a wall between herself and God, feeling like she let him down and the baby she’s now expecting is nothing more than a consequence of her actions. But that is not the decision she’s made. I think making bad choices is a part of life (an unfortunate part). And I think sometimes when we do choose foolishly, we feel like any credibility we may have had as image-bearers of God is gone. But I see firsthand in Jomayra that sometimes the best witness we have is what we do and how we respond after making a decision that caused us to stumble or fall. Jomayra made it clear that she wants to make wise choices from here on out and shared how she feels that the child she is expecting is a gift from God; a blessing, not a consequence and asked her church family to help her to raise her child in God’s love and in His ways. I thought that was really neat. Thank you for your prayers for her!

Well, I moved back to El Recreo last week, back to Gregorio’s house. I felt I accomplished all that I wanted to in Los Samanes, and it was time to come back to Recreo. I was going to post a blog last week and then BAM…strep throat.

No kidding, the two times in my adult(?) life that I have had strep throat, it has been the worst pain imaginable. Is it just me? I don’t know. It was awful. I had a 103 fever for two days that sporadically dropped down to 101 and then back up again. I had shooting pain in all the muscles in my legs, back and neck. I couldn’t sleep at all for two nights straight. Oh, plus, I’m in South America…so basically, I thought this was the end for me. It was fear, not a sudden burst of energy, that got me up out of bed on Saturday morning asking where I could find some medical attention. I was directed to the clinic here in El Recreo and Kathy (Gregorio’s niece) walked with me the six or so blocks to the clinic. We went in and there was no one waiting so the nurse asked me right away what was the trouble. I told her I had a fever and what looked and felt like an infection in my throat. She asked me where I was from and when I had arrived in Ecuador and then left the room after I answered. She came back a couple minutes later and sat down and explained to me that basically the clinic would not help me because I came from a country where there are cases of the Swine Flu, and that I came to Ecuador around the same time the outbreak happened. She said I needed to go to the hospital in Guayaquil and get tested for Swine Flu before anybody could do anything for me. So…that was great.

Ismael took me to the hospital a few hours later. We had to wear surgical masks as a precaution when we arrived. There was a free clinic trailer outside and we went there first. I walked right in, no waiting, sat down across from the doctor, told her the exact same thing I said at the first clinic—I have a fever and what looks and feels like an infection in my throat. She asked me to pull down my mask so she could look at my throat, she took one look at it for about a second and a half and said, “yeah that looks bad” and then pulled out her prescription pad, wrote three different prescriptions, strangely enough not a single one of which was for more cow bell, and told me to take them inside to the pharmacy. I went in to the pharmacy, stood in line behind three people, got up to the front of the line, handed my prescriptions to the pharmacist, and in about one minute the medicine was in my hands. The only thing was that one prescription called for one pill every six hours for seven days and the free clinic pharmacy only gave me half the amount of pills necessary to complete that. So we had to stop at a regular pharmacy on the way back home.

Total cost of my doctor visit:

Round-trip bus fare for two: $1.20

Antibiotics: $3.36

Racial discrimination: priceless

Someone thinking I had Swine Flu: also priceless

Here’s the other thing…besides being able to purchase antibiotics over the counter at any pharmacy, when prescribed four injections-one daily, you are expected to purchase your own syringes at the pharmacy as well and just go ahead and inject yourself. I did not purchase syringes or inject myself. Ismael’s mom is a nurse and she did it for me. I probably would have really screwed that up. Anyway, I’m feeling much better now. The fever is gone as is the strep throat and now I’m only a little sore in my little backside from the four consecutive shots.

So now, after such an unproductive week, I need to really get back in the swing of things. I'm meeting with Becsy on Friday to interview her. She is a candidate for the University Project. Hopefully that will go well and I can write up a really good bio of her to share based on the interview. She wants to study dentistry. I hope we will find a sponsor for her.

Please pray for me to be able to make up for the lost time, and for me to stay healthy from now on!

I took roughly three years of gen. ed. :-(

2009-05-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks now, I have been staying in Monica's house in the town of Los Samanes (about 45 minutes away from El Recreo, in the city of Guayaquil). Before coming down to Ecuador, I was put in contact with some missionaries here in Guayaquil who have been very helpful in this quest for information. They arranged with Monica (who attends a church they work with here in Los Samanes) for me to stay with her a while while I do some research.

I have been able to find out a ton about the school system here, both at the university level and the high school level. Here is some of the information I have discovered:

There are six universities in Guayaquil. The one that our students from El Recreo attend is the University of Guayaquil, the equivalent of a state college. The other schools are private universities and are much more expensive, so I have limited my research to just the University of Guayaquil since that's the one we'll be dealing with. Students who attend the other universities more than likely don't need the financial help.

Last year in September, President Rafael Correa proposed a new constitution for the country and the citizens voted a big Yes to put it into effect. One change that has come along with that constitution is that education is now supposedly "free" for all students. The University of Guayaquil is the only school so far to implement this change. All students who enroll now do not have to pay tuition, however they do still pay for all materials, transportation, books, etc. They begin by enrolling in the Pre-Universitario which is basically a two-month long entrance exam. They have to take classes for two weeks at a time on various subjects depending on their major, and then each class is followed by an exam. They must pass the Pre with a grade average of 7.0 (their grading system is a little different-their scores are all out of 10, not 100. And they don't do "grade points" like we do. Why do we do grade points anyway?). If they pass with the 7.0 or higher, they can enroll in the first year of their major. Most majors are 4-5 years long. The first two years are all lower-division and the last 2-3 years are the upper-division classes. They basically do all thier general education during the Pre-Universitario. The last year of their education (for all majors) is spent doing a thesis involving some kind of internship and huge paper. Once they finish their thesis, they will have a degree in their major.

The free education is really more like a scholarship. How it works is that they basically get one chance for the free education. If their grade average drops below 7.0, then they have to begin paying tuition. Also, if they switch majors and start over again with a different Pre-Universitario, they must pay tuition. That's what happened with our friend, Gabriel. He started off studying computer engineering and after a while he switched to basic education. He now pays $30 a month in tuition and is not sure yet if that number increases with each year of study.

From what I understand, now that there are more students taking advantage of the free education, the professors are making it more difficult to pass the Pre. This, in my opinion is good. If it's harder to pass, then the students who do pass are obviously the students who want to be there. I'd rather be in a class full of students who want to be there than a class full of students who are just wasting everybody's time. However, part of the student commitment in the University Project program is to maintain the 7.0 grade average in order to continue receiving support. I think we'll need to take into consideration the increased difficulty in the classes and take it on a case-by-case basis if students in the program should have trouble maintaining the average.

Like our system, each major (carrera) is part of a larger department (facultad). Unlike our system, each department is basically its own school. Each department has its own building and the students whose majors are in that department don’t have classes in any other building than that one. So, for example, basic education (which Gabriel studies...we will be looking for a sponsor for him soon) and kindergarten education (Karen's major...she is already sponsored), both are in the Department of Philosophy and Arts, but they are completely separate majors. Unlike our system, students here in one major will never take classes with students in a different major. So Karen and Gabriel, even though they study in the same department, will never be able to take the same classes at the same times. That's kind of a bummer because it's always fun to take classes with your friends. Also, students in the same major but in different years will never take the same classes at the same times either. That is because the school determines a student’s schedule. Unlike our schools, where we choose our classes and our schedules each semester, the only choice these students have is whether they study in the morning or in the afternoon. (And even in some departments, they don’t really have that choice either. For example, in the science, math, and physics department (where Ismael studies), in order to study in the afternoon/evening, you have to bring a note from your job (which I believe is the only acceptable excuse) that says you are unable to study in the morning. Otherwise, the department gives each student their schedule for each semester and they can either take it or leave it. Not much in the way of flexibility…but I suppose on the upside, at least it’s a guarantee that each student will graduate within the amount of time that their studies are supposed to last. Michele, how long were you in school for your bachelor's degree again? Was it six years, like me? :-)

Well, my quest for information continues. What other questions would you ask? Let me know, your questions will help me!

Thank you for your prayers for Jomayra. She and I are meeting together on Wednesdays at 11 to do a Bible study. Please keep her in your prayers!

Prayers for Jomayra

2009-05-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I went to see my friend, Jomayra. She was one of the original candidates for the University Project program. She hadn't started school yet because of some problems she was having here while I was in the U.S. but we were hoping to be able to support her in her studies next year. I kept in contact with her while I was away, and I thought I would see her in the church when I came back, but I hadn't seen her yet and on Thursday I had such a strong urge to see her and find out how she was doing. So I went across town to her house.

I knocked on the door. Her brother answered and showed me in. He let me know she was back in her room in the back and that I should go back there. I walked in and Jomayra was sitting on her bed, still in her pajamas, looking a little sick. I hugged her and asked how she was doing and where she'd been the last couple weeks. She said, "you haven't already heard?" I think I knew in that moment what she was going to tell me.

I told her no I hadn't heard anything, and asked if she was ok. "Oh Amy...you're going to kill me. I don't know how to tell you." After a long time of not wanting to say, only telling me she feels so ashamed, she said, "Amy, I'm pregnant."

Jomayra is not married, and from what I understand, the relationship she is in, on top of being a kind of "rebound" relationship, isn't the healthiest, most stable relationship out there.

I had no idea what to say. I had no idea what she needed to hear. She kept talking, telling me how wrong her decision was and how guilty she felt. She shared that she felt she could never show her face in the church again. She is afraid of what people will say, or not say. She is afraid to face her pastors and tell them what's happened. She told me she's been asking God for forgiveness and she knows that He forgives, but that she can't help but feel so guilty. She shared with me that she was reading her Bible and happened to be reading about one of the many instances in which the children of Israel rebelled against God and were unfaithful to Him. She felt like she was reading about herself. She felt that everytime God said to His people, "you've disobeyed, you have rebelled, you have turned your back on Me" it was as if the Word was speaking to her, "you've disobeyed, Jomayra. you have rebelled, Jomayra. you have turned your back on me, Jomayra." What could I say?

I didn't think it necessary to tell her the decision she had made was not ok. Pretty sure she already gets that. I prayed in that moment for God to tell me what to say to her. All that came to my head was to just tell her that yes, though she was disobedient, that does not change God's love for her. God still calls her his child, and Himself her father. God knew before she was born the choices she would make and the consequences she would face, and that never stopped him from wanting a relationship with her; from calling her His daughter. I told her I can't imagine what she is feeling, because I have not been through what she is going through, but that she is not alone; that I love her and care for her, and am here when she needs me.

Do you know what she said? She said, "Amy, I knew you were here, I knew you got here a couple weeks ago and I wanted to see you. I wanted to be with someone who would tell me the truth and make me feel loved. But I have been so sick, I haven't been able to leave my house. This morning I prayed that God would help me to feel better so that I could go out and see you. And after I prayed that, you knocked on my door."

I feel like God, even in our rebellion and moments of hurt and despair...even when that despair comes from the knowledge that we have been unfaithful to Him...is so good to us; is always working on our behalf, always giving us what we need. He is so faithful, even in our unfaithfulness. It never ceases to amaze me. I guess I'm still waiting for that moment to come when what I've done or what someone else has done is too much, and God leaves me to myself. But that moment never comes. He is always faithful to forgive and to love. It is amazing, the love of the God we serve.

Jomayra told me that she remembered me saying months ago, that I wanted to do a Bible study with her when I came back. She told me she would like to do that if I still wanted to. I know God has me here for a purpose, and I hope I can always come through for Him. I do want to spend time with Jomayra, studying God's word. I don't want satan to get in the way of that. I want to ask for your prayers-that Jomayra will feel the love of God; that from here on out, she will make wise decisions that glorify the Lord; that she will choose to raise her child in His love and in His way; that she will have the support and love of her church, and not feel abandoned or rejected there. Please pray that God will use me in whatever way He will so that she will know His love for her. Please pray that we will have plenty of opportunities to meet together and that we will make the time to spend in prayer and in the Bible together, and that we will both grow because of it.

What can I say to her? What can I do for her? Have you ever been in her position or know someone who has? What did you/they need to hear? Have you been in mine? What did you say? What do you wish you would have said? What would you say to Jomayra? What would you do for her?

I need to shower...hope I make it out alive!

2009-04-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

The good news is that I arrived safely last Monday with all my luggage present and intact, my flights went smoothly and there was no crying or sprinting from one gate to another with people yelling at me to hurry because I was late and was going to miss my flight, AND...there were no stops in Lima!! (Any trip with no stops in Lima is a breeze)

The bad news is the humidity is intense and the mosquitos bite hard and often. I'm getting accustomed to being here again, but it's a process that takes time and I find myself missing home a lot even though when I was home I was missing Ecuador. Having the opportunity to go to different places in the world is such a great blessing and it has filled my heart with so much joy. And yet, it's so difficult. I've come to have family and a home in a lot of different places and while I love being in each of those places, I long to be in the others. I look forward, with much anticipation, to the day when there will be just one place, one home, and we will all be in it together. I guess that's my way of saying I'm homesick for you.

My days here have been blessed. I live with a family in the town of El Recreo who has welcomed me into their home as if it were my own. The house is typical for this town. It's made of cinderblocks, and has no glass in the barred windows, only curtains to keep the bugs at bay. I have my own room and a big, comfortable bed, with a top-of-the-line mosquito net that was a gift from Ismael's parents. I have enough to eat each day and am genuinely enjoying my time spent in the house. There are ten people living there, not including me, and they are a really loving family. Gregorio is my old friend who extended the invitation las year for me to live in their home. I live with he and his son, his mother and father, his sister and brother-in-law, and their three children, and his niece (the daughter of his brother who does not live there). Gregorio's parents are the only people in the house who do not attend the local church, but just this morning I had an interesting conversation with his mom about the Bible and what's written in it, and I hope to be able to show his family the love of God while I'm here.

Yesterday I went with Ismael to the city of Los Samanes, about 45 minutes away by bus, to meet a missionary couple who oversee 5 different churches in different towns in that area. We went to a church service with them in the town of Torre Fuerte and afterward, they took us to see all the different churches they work with. I met a woman named Monica, who attends the church in Los Samanes and beginning next week I will have the opportunity to go stay in her home for a few weeks in Los Samanes. This is a blessing because living there, I will be able to meet people in her church who work for the university and other organizations in Guayaquil who I will be able to talk with about the University Project to get input and information about the school system and the requirements for non-profit organizations here in Ecuador.

I am hopeful that this week I will be able to spend more time catching up with old friends and less time feeling homesick and itchy.

Please pray for my stay with Gregorio's family; that my presence there will be a blessing to them as it is to me. And for the University Project so that we will be able to gather the information we need to make decisions about the program we want to set up. And for protection as there is actually warm, running water in the house for showers...

...but it's definitely wired, and in such a way that makes me think each shower could very well be my last. HA!

Thanks for checking in with me! I miss you!

One week to go

2009-04-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

This is the hard part; the scary part. This is the part where I can't sleep at night because I can't stop thinking. And all I can think is "what am I doing? How am I gonna do this?" over and over again. And it makes me nauseous.

And I don't want to go. I don't want to be away from my family. I don't want to stop going to my small group. I don't want to miss out on Meatball Mondays and Tuesday morning scrabble games and watching all the shows on the DVR with my mom and dad every week. I don't want to leave what's familiar...because doing that is risky.

And maybe I won't be able to find anyone at the university who can tell me how much it costs to study 6 years of computer programming or kindergarten education. And maybe I won't find any way to get a visa that would allow me to stay in the country longer than 90 days. And maybe I'll never be able to communicate effectively in another culture and no one will want to work with me. And maybe this is all a bust. And then what?

It happens this way every time. This week is always the hardest part. But I have hope, because so far I've chosen to get on the plane anyway, every time...and just go. And every time it's been more worth it than I could ever have imagined. Minus the mosquitoes and crickets.

And I sure do hope I can avoid the lice this time around...

Ok. Having said all that, I think I'm ready to go. This is going to be really exciting and I'm glad I can share this experience with all of you. Thanks for being here with me. Please pray that God will remove the unnecessary obstacles. And that He'll help me find a place to stay (my living arrangements are re-arranging on me). And most of all, that He'll make happen what He wants to happen and that I'll get on board with all of it.

I got my plane ticket!!!

2009-04-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I leave for Ecuador on Monday, April 20th which is approaching rapidly! Hopefully I can get everything ready in the next couple of weeks without too many obstacles.

I am so excited to go back to El Recreo! There is a lot of work to do over the next couple months and it will definitely be a challenge, but I'm really looking forward to it. There are a few specific objectives for this trip:

Find out as much information as possible on the cost of education at the University of Guayaquil

Make contacts with other pastors from other churches in the Guayaquil area

Get really good photos, video, and interviews of prospective students which will help communicate the impact this project will have on this community in Ecuador

Administer the University Project program for the students currently involved

I'm so excited! I'll be sure to keep you updated on how everything's going. I plan to be there until the group from DFCC comes down for their summer mission trip, and I'll come back home with the group.

There have already been so many obstacles with this project, but God is so good and has been faithful in helping us move forward even with the difficulties. Please keep this project and this trip in your prayers. Your prayers are really appreciated! Also, buy Terra Nova: The Search! Everybody's doing it.

Michele...do you not see the volcano over there? It's erupting.

2009-04-02T12:39:00.001-07:00

So I had this terrible nightmare last night. It started off nice and peaceful. I was up at Angeles Crest Christian Camp with Michele and Nathan...apparently, this was way back in the day when we were The Burn staff, and we had a group of jr. highers up there for a summer camp.

Then all of a sudden, we look over to a neighboring mountaintop and see that there is thick black smoke coming out of the top of the mountain, and it's really billowing out, filling up the sky. And then we realize...that mountain is a volcano. And it's going to erupt any time now. So me and Nathan are like, "Michele, let's just get in your truck and get out of here before we find ourselves being chased down the mountain by lava!" and Michele says, "Let's just wait and see what happens. Maybe we can get through the next couple days of camp before it erupts. I'd hate to leave early."

So...I'm sure that speaks volumes about my sub-conscious' concern for the safety of others. Also...will try not to read my new book right before falling asleep again.

Look what I got!!!

2009-03-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to read it! So excited, in fact, that I will put CSI: Miami "Riptide" down right in the middle and begin Terra Nova: The Search instead!

Get your copy today! Check out www.charltonbooks.com

A few reasons why CSI: Miami is better than CSI (Las Vegas)

2009-03-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

1. The colors in the opening credits of Miami are way more awesome in HD than Vegas'.
2. Horatio Caine has never dated an employee of his.
3. Bugs are not as cool as you think they are.
4. Sunglasses=Awesome
5. Grissom retired before being able to commit "the perfect crime".
6. Calleigh Duquesne.
7. If Horatio Caine did choose to date an employee, he would not date a gaptooth.
8. The possibility of a triple-pause has me on the edge of my seat every Monday night.
9. Horatio Caine followed a suspect to Chile and stabbed him.
10. Horatio Caine cannot be replaced by Lawrence Fishburne.
11. Horatio Caine doesn't need to make eye-contact to get his point across.
12. Sesame Street's parody, RSI: Rhyme Scene Investigation features a Horatio Caine muppet. Not a Gil Grissom muppet.
13. Horatio Caine inspired me to stay off Paddy's dead-friends list. Grissom could never do that.

hahahahaha!

Prayer

2009-02-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

So I have a question. Do you think prayer can work retroactively? Does God take a certain action on things based on his knowledge that we will pray in that direction, even if we haven't yet?

I was thinking about this last week when I went to the Ecuadorian consulate in LA to see about getting a visa. I was thinking about posting asking for your prayers for that, but then I didn't because it was already late at night and I was going the next morning and I thought, "they won't read it before I've gone." And then I got to asking myself if prayer can work that way. I've thought about it before, but never this much.

Here's what I mean. Let's say I make a blog post asking for prayers for something that's happening the next day. Then let's say you read that post the day after the event has happened. Or two days after or two hours after, whenever. But you still haven't heard the outcome of said event. Can you pray for things that have already happened ("God, I pray that went well" "I pray that you did this or that")? I mean obviously you can...but does it matter what we pray at that point? Or not? I wonder if in the crucial moment God thinks about all the prayers that have been lifted up on behalf of that moment, and I wonder if He considers prayers that will be lifted after the moment has occurred when He has already taken some kind of action. I wonder if those prayers that take place afterward affect his decisions. And I wonder, if those prayers that would have been prayed after the fact, never get prayed because we think it's too late...will God respond accordingly?

I like to think they do matter; that prayer can work that way. That's just my hope, I have no Biblical backing for that opinion, but I have seen evidence of the incredible power of prayer, and I believe God is capable of anything. So...why not? What do you think?

It's exciting being a founder of something...I can put my name on the letterhead.

2009-01-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

A couple things....firstly, my dad had his wisdom teeth removed last week. Don't bother asking him how the surgery went. We already asked, and he thinks he must have "slept through a good part of it" because he doesn't really remember how it went. hahaha! (They gave him some meds.) So, that was fun.

And secondly, we're making a ton of progress on The University Project, even though there have already been quite a few obstacles. Well...one obstacle really...he just keeps obstacle-ing it up over and over and over again. haha! But I think we're handling that pretty well.

You know, I knew this was going to be a big job, but it has definitely surprised me just how big it really is. I kind of feel like the more we get done, the more there is to do. But it's been an interesting process so far, and we're still really excited about what we're doing.

The first step was to determine who exactly we are as an organization and what our purpose is. So we took a stab at writing a mission statement and some fundamental belief concepts. Everything is still in a "rough draft" stage for now, but...so far so good. Basically:

The University Project exists to provide support to facilitate college education for Christians in Ecuador who want to impact the world for Christ in their chosen profession.
We believe that God needs Christians in every profession.
We believe it's an injustice that some people in the world cannot pursue the professional training they need to use what they are passionate about to make a difference in the world simply because of money.
We believe we should do something about it.

The next step was to meet with the World Wide Outreach team at Downey First Christian Church to present our idea and to ask that they consider making our organization a ministry of DFCC. That meeting (in November) went really well and the team presented our proposal to the elders who approved the idea. So...The University Project is officially a DFCC ministry, which will help us get going a lot quicker.

So, then we started figuring out everything we need to do before we can actually begin presenting this idea and finding support for students in Ecuador. The list is extensive, let me tell you.

And this is where it starts to get overwhelming....

First, we need students to sponsor. So that's just one thing, right? Nope. It's like a hundred things. It's writing an application, thinking about what kind of information we'll need in order to approve an applicant. It's figuring out what exactly we're looking for in an applicant, and what we're not. It's thinking to ourselves, "am I really even worthy of looking over someone's application and deciding if they're what we're looking for or not?" It's researching other application processes for similar organizations to determine the exact, specific wording we should use on the last page that they will sign (the legal blahdittybloo). It's deciding what kind of agreement we are making to these applicants, and communicating the commitment they are entering into if they are accepted into the program. It's figuring out what commitments are important and how we will go about holding them to that agreement. It's writing about ten drafts of the application to get the wording just right to communicate who we are as an organization. It's translating it all in to Spanish, so the applicants can actually read it and apply. It's getting a second, third, and fourth opinion on just about everything, and it's about 25 e-mails back and forth with the other people involved in the process. And that's just the very beginning.

Then we start to think about, "how in the world are we going to review these applications and determine an acceptance or rejection of an application?" So there's a whole "application review guidelines" section of what's turning out to be a novel of a University Project Info. and Procedures file handbooky type thing.

Then there's the distribution of the applications, then translating the applications we receive back into English so that WE can read them, making sure to keep the translated apps anonymous so that the review process will be as fair as possible. Then there's the actual reading through of the apps, figuring out if an applicant is a good fit for candidacy in this organization. Then, realizing there's so much more information we really would like to have in order to make that decision. So then there's calling each applicant by phone, and asking the questions we have about their applications and getting back to the other decision-makers to make the decisions. And then there's writing yet another draft of the application for future applicants that includes questions which will give us the information we realized was missing.

It's quite a bit more work than I anticipated, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There is also the field representative (that's meeee!!), and their job responsibilities, there's the management of the program here in the states and those job responsibilities, there is a huge financial aspect that we need to dive into, there are presentations that need to be prepared, and publications we need to make, a website to design (with portlets, Paddy. lots of portlets), biographies to write for each student, an acceptance letter/packet/new candidate orientation, letter-writing guidelines for students (who are committing to write to their sponsor), other organization services we will offer those students, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But even though it's a lot more than I expected, I am really really enjoying this process. It is a big challenge for me, because I've never done anything so involved. But I feel really good about what we're doing here. And I also feel the more we get done, the more I want to do, which is really encouraging, especially since there's a lot more to do with each step that's accomplished.

So...we have already received six and approved five applications besides the two students who are already "sponsored" through our organization. And that is super-exciting! We're not even present in the country yet and we've already hit the ground running. I hope we can keep up with the pace being set for us.

There is still so so so much left to do, so your prayers are greatly appreciated! (constructive, helpful, encouraging) questions, comments and input are appreciated as well. I'll be updating you with progress more frequently. Or not. I don't know yet.

Seriously...actual graphs. About Nascar.

2009-01-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking lately about this whole blogging thing, the writing part and the reading part, and I've decided that one of the reasons I like it so much is because each of our blogging friends offers something unique and helpful to this little communityish thing we have going on here.

I don't know anything about the process of writing a novel, but some of you do and when you share your personal experiences I get a little glimpse into what that's like. I don't own any guns and I don't know the first thing about which camera to buy...but if I want to know about that, I have blogging friends who can help. When I visit your blogs, I can get information about Neti Pots and mud runs...I can learn how to modify nerf guns, I can see graphs about Nascar races....I can see art and photography...I can learn about travel, beer, swing dancing, mosaic art, Christmas decorations...I can get insights on Harry Potter, 80's movies, cheerleading, zombie attacks, and parenting. Seriously, the possibilities are endless...even frightening sometimes. haha

And what makes it so great is that anything I could possibly want information on, someone is bound to have experienced it. And it's not just something somebody wrote on the internet...it's information that's coming from people I know and trust. AND...it's not just information...a lot of what you write is insight...you share what you think about what's going on in your lives, and you share your opinions on politics and faith and education and your life-experiences. And maybe some of us need to hear those opinions and insights at exactly the moment you write about them, and you've done us all a lot of good by sharing what your thoughts are. And I'm so appreciative that all of you make your unique contributions because I get to (in a way) experience things through you that I might not have experienced otherwise. So I think that's all pretty neat.

Anyway, I got to thinking about what my unique contribution is...what could I write about that you might not have experienced or that you might find interesting? Well, maybe my next post will be about trying to start a non-profit organization or moving to a foreign country....or working at Chili's. I don't know yet. Anything in particular you want my perspective on? :-)

Paddy tagged me...so I guess I had better do this!!

2008-12-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

8 TV Shows I Watch:
1) CSI Miami
2) The Office
3) CSI New York
4) Heroes
5) Law & Order SVU
6) Malcom in the Middle
7) MASH
8) Criminal Minds

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1) The Happy Donkey
2) BJ's
3) In-n-Out
4) California Pizza Kitchen
5) Ruby's
6) Olive Garden
7) Mambo Grill
8) The Brandywine Commons on Meatball Monday

8 Things that Happened to Me Today:
1) I woke up to the sound of a rooster crowing
2) I drank half a cup of coffee
3) I took a lovely nap in the afternoon
4) I put together a jigsaw puzzle with my mom
5) I ate some ice cream that my mom made
6) I went to work at Chili's
7) I made a new friend at work
8) I sneezed a lot

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1) Going back to Ecuador
2) Not having to work as a server anymore
3) Going to sleep
4) My next day off
5) Getting the visa I need
6) Living in my very own house
7) Being the field rep for The University Project
8) Sending some people to college

8 Things I Wish For:
1) That I could go back to Ecuador tomorrow
2) That I wouldn't be sick anymore
3) That I could see my friends more often
4) That new episodes of The Office would be on EVERY DAY
5) That it wouldn't get so cold in Bakersfield
6) I second Paddy's #6
7) That people would be more considerate
8) That it would be easier to wake up in the mornings

8 People I Tag:
1) The Blarg (so you won't feel like your dreams are shattered anymore)
2) Your Mom
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)

Had a couple fun conversations tonight:

2008-12-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

Mom: I'm so glad you're thankful for your awesome family!!!

Me: I take it you just read my Thanksgiving blog post.

Mom: You had me going with the Gudy blog. I thought it was him in both pictures...and I was pretty disturbed actually. So I went to his blog, and I read his blog. I was very impressed.

So...whatever that means. I got a kick out of it.

That conversation took place after the fun conversation I had with my dad earlier this evening:

Me: (looking at Padfoot's family's Christmas card picture) Awww, Paddyyyyy!!

Dad: Who's his girlfriend?

Me: He has a girlfriend?

Dad: Well, unless that's his sister in the picture with him.

Me: .......That's his sister, Dad.

Dad: Oh.........they look awfully close.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

"ta la la" paddy? what is that?

2008-12-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

Has everyone seen Gudy's blog?

Paddy makes a good point...

A list of some things I'm thankful for:

2008-11-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

In no particular order

all the love in my life
the rain
a comfortable bed
my awesome family
the time I spent in Ecuador
The Wireless
my new job at Chili's
the hilarity of The Office
The University Project
lolcats
orange juice
my good friends
hot, running water
blogging
the happy donkey
my relatively good health
the time I spent in Missouri, self-evaluating
the small group I've been going to
CSI: Miami
wordreference.com
meatball mondays
my dog, Pooper
a good night's sleep
my parents letting me live with them
theater
being home for thanksgiving this year

what are YOU thankful for?

Six-Month Trip Fail, College Education Win

2008-11-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been trying to sum it all up in my mind...and I just am not sure where to start.

I think I will start with this:

What the heck?!?!?!?!

I mean if that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does. Really, though...I spent a year of my life getting ready for this. A whole year-no kidding-dedicated to figuring out the logistics of a trip like this...finding out how to make it possible for my church to send out a short-term missionary for the first time; looking for answers to questions about bank accounts and visas (ironic, no?) and finances. I was working my butt off and living in other people's homes to save money (which I am still very grateful for). I spent all kinds of time translating Bible study materials into Spanish, preparing financially, spiritually, mentally, musically, technologically, linguistically...I spent serious time in thought and prayer and determined what, exactly, i hoped to accomplish during my time in Ecuador. I waded through all kinds of murky, mucky, muddy feelings of being incompetent and unqualified. I put my stuff in storage, quit all three of my jobs, and followed my God to another hemisphere......and after all that, I only got six blog posts in before having to follow Him right back home.

It's just a shame. Feels like a shame.

So that was my first reaction....but then, as I've thought more about it, I've begun to realize that firstly, it's not a shame. All that stuff was necessary and helpful. And just because things didn't go according to my plan, that doesn't mean they're not going according to some plan. I know it would not be in God's nature to take me on a journey and leave me hanging half-way through it, because He is not a god who leaves us. We're a team, you know? A "whether the weather be cold, whether the weather be hot, we'll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not" kind of team. (that's a little rhyme I know)

I also believe that this change-in-plans is not an obstacle being thrown our way, or some kind of bump in the road that God is having to make work for good. I'll tell you why I believe that. When I was sitting in the immigration office in Ecuador on the 22nd of September, with the imminent expiration of my visa looming over my head, I remember praying while Marcelo talked with the immigrations officer. I prayed for God to take action; to make something cool happen, you know? To act on my behalf; whatever He needed to do to help me stay in the country, that's what I was asking Him to do. And there was a very clear moment as I prayed that prayer, in which I recognized the voice of my God in my head or my heart or my ears or wherever it is we hear God from when we do hear Him....and He asked me a question. A simple one.

"Amy, do you trust Me?"

Well...I have to say, I do. It's not always easy. And interestingly enough, it's harder for me to trust Him in the little things than in the big things. But I do. Instinctively, I always want to trust Him, and since trust is a choice, and taking into consideration all the times in which I have chosen to trust and the times I have chosen not to and the respective outcomes of those decisions...well, the bottom line is, when it comes to God, trusting Him is the more logical option. So after all that went through my head, and I made my choice, I answered.

"Yes. I trust You."

And, no kidding you, almost immediately after I spoke those words in my heart to my God, I heard that immigration officer say, "no, I'm sorry there's nothing we can do, she has to leave the country tomorrow."

You know what? This...this me being here and not there...this isn't the detour. This is the plan. This is the right road and I'm on it. I think that "do you trust me" said a lot more than just what it said. It wasn't just a question. God wasn't curious. He already knew what my answer would be...you know, 'cause of that whole omniscience thing. He wasn't asking if I trust Him. He was asking if I was on board or not. He was saying, "Hey, are you with Me or not? I am about to do something you do not expect, and if it's going to work, you need to be on My team."

That's what I really think. So...here I am, being here and not there. And even though this isn't where I thought I'd be right now, I'm good with it, because I trust it's what needs to happen. And I'm not exactly sure what "the plan" is now...but who has ever really been sure of what it is? I mean, come on. We don't know. We never really know. We just keep going with what we think we should do, until God changes our course a little. Right? Sure there are some things we can be positive about. But those things are few. They include loving God, loving others, and putting our faith into action. That's about it, my friends. Those are the things we get a clear "yes!" on. But, at least in my personal experience...it's reeeeeally rare to hear a loud "yes!" when I tell God my plans. Honestly, I mostly just do the stuff I do because I never hear a "no."

So...here's what I'm currently not hearing a "no" on:

it's called the university project. it started when Paddy and Gianna e-mailed me while I was in Ecuador to say they'd been thinking a lot about it and wanted to know what the possibility was of them being able to pay for Ismael, one of the leaders of the church in El Recreo, to be able to go to college. Well, wow! right? I know! It was really a cool feeling because not only did they both e-mail me on separate occasions without having talked to each other about it, but I had also thought about how neat it would be to do something like that for him. He sat next to me on the bus on the way to the leadership retreat that our team put on for them in June. We had a conversation about school and he told me he wanted to study but couldn't yet because of the money. When I asked how much it costs to study at the University of Guayaquil, he told me, "it's about $500 a year." Can you believe that? Well, I guess Paddy and Gianna had had similar conversations with him during the course of our two-week mission trip and they decided to take action because...well, that's the shame...that someone with such a heart for God, who is already making an impact on the world for Him, would not end up serving the Lord in the place where he really should end up, just because of money. So that shouldn't happen. God needs Christians in every work environment, and Ismael really should end up in the one he's got a desire to be in (because God put that desire in him for a reason). So we decided to do our part, using what God has blessed us with to help out.

We are super excited! In January, Ismael is going to begin his studies in computer programing at the University of Guayaquil. And since there are three of us, and we were all interested in paying for his studies on our own anyway, we thought, "what the heck? let's send someone else to school too!" So we are. Jomayra will also begin her studies in January at the University of Guayaquil. Jomayra has always wanted to study languages and work in the tourism industry. She just hasn't had the opportunity to do that...because of money.

Well we got to thinking, if when we heard that the money was the only issue, and we were moved to take action...well maybe other people will feel the same way. And there are a lot of people in the church in El Recreo who want to study at the University. So we decided to work hard at it and make this into something that other people can participate in. We're beginning a non-profit organization that will help provide support to facilitate college education for Christians who want to impact the world for Christ in their chosen profession. We are hoping it will be successful. It's really not that much money, if you think about it...to change someone's life forever. It's way worth it.

The only problem is...if we're going to be a legit organization, raising money to help people go to college in Ecuador, with a representative of our organization (that's me!) living in El Recreo hopefully within the next year, making a difference, being the change we want to see in the world...bottom line, what we really need to have is a logo. And, well...we don't have one. What to do? Any ideas? Let me know what you think!

I'm in Missouri, self-evaluating.

2008-10-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Because that's all there is to do in Missouri.

Ok, I know I really should post about my experience in Ecuador and my future plans and all that...and I promise, that's coming. But I'm still a little traumatized by that trip and its abrupt end...well, really just the abrupt end part...not the trip itself. So I'm going to stall a little bit more with a post that doesn't really say a whole lot....

or does it???

What you are about to see really happened. And not as a joke. This, my friends, is cowboy church:

Where was YOUR car three years ago?

2008-10-10T23:31:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

AmyInAnaheim: OMG, I SEE MY CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AmyInAnaheim: you know how these satellite photos are super old?
AmyInAnaheim: my car is in the ruby's parking lot in fullerton on the google map
padfoot240: hahahahahaha
padfoot240: thas yo car!
padfoot240: and I believe that is the first time I have ever seen you use OMG on aim
AmyInAnaheim: it was an omg moment
padfoot240: lol
padfoot240: which ones is yours?
AmyInAnaheim: ok, let me see if i can explain this...
AmyInAnaheim: in the bottom left corner is the fullerton metro center label, yes?
padfoot240: yes

*on the larger map the metro center label shows up...but not on the tiny map that showed up on my blog. just start from the bottom left corner of the map...that's where the building is.

AmyInAnaheim: to the right of that building there is the "street" running through the parking lot
padfoot240: mmmhmm
AmyInAnaheim: on that street, just after the speed bump, there is a white car
padfoot240: yes
AmyInAnaheim: in the row directly to the right of that white car, there is another white car, five cars in, either pulling into or pulling out of the space
AmyInAnaheim: my car is the ninth car into that row, four cars after the white one pulling out of that space, just before the bright blue truck
AmyInAnaheim: do you see it??
padfoot240: OMG, I SEE YOUR CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AmyInAnaheim: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!
padfoot240: that's so cool
AmyInAnaheim: I know, right!?!?!

Satan must be feeling really threatened

2008-09-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is that Lima has got The Wireless. The bad news is that I am in Lima, (Peru). This is disappointing for various reasons...

#1. The airport in Lima has a one-hundred percent disappointment rate, with a fifty percent chance you will be harassed on your way in and out of the airport and a fifty percent chance the attendants at the check-in counter will blame you for the high winds in Cuzco which delayed your plane and made you late for the check-in on your connecting flight.

#2. I am currently in said airport, awaiting my flight home....

This was so unexpected. I am still in a state of shock. I don't know whether to cry or cry harder. I have been in Ecuador the last three months on a tourist visa (good for 90 days). The plan was to renew the visa after three months and stay for three more months on a new visa. This plan would have worked well if Ecuador actually renewed tourist visas for any foreigners besides Columbians and Peruvians, which they did up until about five days ago. This information was not made available to me when I went to the immigration office two weeks ago to ask what I needed to do to renew the visa. The information given me at that point was, "come back on the 20th and we'll renew it then." Then on the 20th, I got a "come back on Monday." and yesterday, I got a "no deal. we do not renew visas for anyone other than Columbians and Peruvians. You have to leave the country tomorrow or you will have to pay a $200 fine and you will never be allowed to enter the country again.

Then there was a scramble to try and find a flight out of Ecuador. We went all over the place to find a flight for me. Yesterday morning I found a flight out of Ecuador for 6:00 yesterday evening, and here I am in Lima awaiting my 12:00pm flight.

I don't know where to begin...I feel absolutely devastated. I feel like I was just getting started. I am really tired. It all happened so fast, there was hardly any time to think. I still have not fully processed what just happened.

It was terrible. Word spread pretty fast Monday evening about what was going on and by about 8:00 everybody from the church was at my house with tons of questions. And everybody was crying. It was too much. This is so not how I wanted things to happen. And it's really painful. And the worst was saying "see you later" to the group of close friends who went with me to the airport. Oh it hurt so much. There were a lot of tears all around. It still hurts. But...

If there is one thing I have seen and learned on this 26-year adventure it is that God is faithful. And He knows what He is doing. And I am confident that though I do not understand the reason for or know the outcome of all this, God is currently, tirelessly working in it for the good of those who love Him. I am certain of that. And so, the only thing I can do is continue to pray for my brothers and sisters in El Recreo, and do the best I can to get back as soon as possible to finish what I started.

I want to thank you so much for your prayers. I was blown away by you. I asked for prayer on Thursday afternoon for the burdens of the church and the general feeling of discouragement. Thursday night during the class Marcelo has been teaching weekly on how to prepare a sermon, there was so much laughter. It seemed like everyone felt a little bit less burdened, and there was a sense of unity in the humor of the evening. Thank you for lightening the load a bit, even if it just was for the evening. We all needed the good laugh. Please continue praying for this. And please pray for me. And for my good friends in El Recreo. This was all so sudden, and very painful. I am still in shock, and I think I am going to be realizing during the next week or two everything I forgot to take care of before leaving in the short time I had to pack my bags and get out!

Also, please pray for the rest of my trip home. If you're reading this before noon on Wednesday, I am still in Lima. From Lima I fly to El Salvador and from El Salvador to Los Angeles. And my flight lands in LA at 11:50 Wednesday night. This has been a very long, very draining couple of days.

Please pray for me as I begin the process of obtaining a missionary visa so that I can go back to Ecuador as soon as possible and not have to worry about having to leave the country after such a short time.

Man...we were just getting started.

my head itches. the special shampoo did not work well.

2008-09-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, Friends!!

Well, things are pretty difficult and discouraging here lately. it seems to me that with all the good changes that have been happening in the children´s ministry here, and all the good changes happening within the music ministry, satan is feeling pretty threatened.

firstly, a lot of the youth here have been having relationship troubles. this is something that really affects the spirit of the group in general. people are breaking up left and right and everybody seems to be really deeply hurting these days. i know, this is not something new...it happens everywhere. but i´ve never seen so many relationships suffering all at once.

also, a lot of people are having family troubles too. one of the guys in the band is in the middle of a home that is breaking apart and on top of that, he has lost the opportunity he had to study because of the financial toll his parents´ separation is taking on the family. he is really hurting.

there is still a big problem with gossip that has affected everyone (even i have been the subject of some hurtful gossip).

last week someone that everybody from the church knows stole two of the guitars that belong to the church, sold them for some quick cash and skipped town. and on saturday, when i was running around like crazy trying to get errands run and tasks accomplished before the kids bible school class began, and there were a ton of people in and out of my house all day preparing food for the event we had at the church in the evening, someone took sixty dollars from the little box on my dresser where i keep my money. though i won´t deny that the loss of the money itself does hurt (because it was all the money i had for the month and the month isn´t nearly over yet), what hurt even more was the fact that the only people who were in and out of the house all day were people from the church who we trust. this cuts me deeply. how can i get past that? i don´t know...it´s hard. when trust is broken it is difficult to move forward. especially in a situation like this where the trust is broken with everyone because i have no idea who took the money. sandra and marcelo say that this has happened before and it hurts a lot...and what can we do?

and if all that weren´t discouraging enough.....i got The Lice.

my group of friends here is a little bit....uh....oh dear, i am forgetting english words already. the only word i can think of to describe them is "pesado" which means literally "heavy"....in the sense that they like to joke around and make fun. whenever somebody seems confused/physically in pain/lost...or something like...they look at you and say, "are you lost? do you want your mommy?" and then they shout, "i´m looking for the mommy of this little girl...has anyone seen her mommy? she is crying and she needs the mommy!" it´s usually pretty funny in the moment, even for the people who are being picked on. anyway, the point is...i definitely need the mommy. and so do a lot of people here.

the general spirit is one of discouragement and hurting...and everybody seems tired. there are some people ready to throw in the towel and just go back to a life of nothingness. there are some who already have made the decision to do that.

i really feel it is an attack from the enemy who does not want us to be successful in what we do for our Lord. and i ask that you would please pray hard for all of these things...for everyone who is feeling weary and burdened and who just needs rest...that we would find rest in the Lord and that we would press on, not letting the enemy discourage us like this. please pray for restoration for the hearts that have been broken, and for restoration of the trust that has been broken. please pray for the gossippers and the subjects of their gossip. please pray that God will be victorious in all this, and that He will renew us and fill this church with joy and the desire to persevere in the face of trials. pray for me to be able to help in any way i can. your prayers are very important. please help!

thank you, thank you! i expect things will begin to change soon, because your prayers are powerful.

i hope to share some better news in my next post.

They keep me busy here!

2008-08-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well, here’s the deal…

I realized the other day that you all know what I do when there are missions groups here, and I think I have made several references to the fact that things here are “back to normal” and you probably have no idea what “normal” is, right? So I decided to give you a week in the life of AmyInAnaheim...InEcuador. It´s a little long. And by "a little long" I mean it puts Jason Parks´posts to shame. So...get comfortable. Or just don´t read it. It´s totally up to you.

Monday is a free day. There are no activities in the church, there is no work on the church property, the family sleeps in, chills out all day and rests (well, besides Sandra and Sebastian. They both go to school)…(not the same school)…(but when they come home from school they rest). Monday seems to be the Sabbath around here. And that goes not just for the church but for pretty much all the city. My friend Pablo says, “Everyone is lazy on Mondays in El Recreo” and it seems to be true. Businesses open wayyyy later, if they open at all, and people just hang out all day. I spend my mondays being lazy at the internet café or being lazy in my house or being lazy in some other place. Mondays are very similar to my everyday life in the United States.

Tuesday I wake up somewhere between 8 and 9, get dressed, brush the teeth and go downstairs to see if there is any kind of food available to eat. Breakfast here is coffee, bread with butter, jam, cheese, eggs, or some delicious combination of those things, and sometimes some sort of fruit or yogurt. After breakfast I wash the dishes (by hand, in the sink. There is no dishwasher, but there is running water in the house) and then go take a walk. I often use this time to go use the internet or make a phone call or two…or I will just take a walk and look around. Lunch happens any time between 12:30 and 3:00. There’s no real set time, it’s just whenever people are around to eat it. Lunch often consists of some kind of soup, followed by a plate of about 50 pounds of rice, some kind of meat (chicken, tuna or beef) and some kind of salad (peeled tomatoes and chopped lettuce, covered in lime juice, or peeled tomatoes and peeled cucumbers…covered in lime juice. Ah, or peeled tomatoes in oil with chopped onions.) what cracks me up is that absolutely no matter what you are eating, they will only give you a spoon to eat it with. Salad? Here’s a spoon. Soup? Here’s a spoon. Steak? Here’s a spoon. No joke. I originally thought that was some kind of mean joke they played on the missions groups who come through here. (let’s give them a side of beef and a plastic spoon and see what they do!) but I was wrong. At least the spoons I eat with on a regular basis are metal. Sometimes you get something to drink with your lunch. Sometimes not so much. After lunch on Tuesdays I wash the dishes and then I usually have some kind of music practice, whether it is teaching piano or singing, or learning to play drums, or just practicing some new songs for the worship services. Then around 6ish I make my way back to the house for some dinner, which is exactly the same as breakfast, and then at 7:30 it’s back to church for the prayer group. That usually goes until 10:00 and then it’s back home to chill and answer some e-mails. (no, I have not got The Wireless in the house, but I do have a flash drive that I take with me to the internet café and bring home any e-mails I may have received that day, and then once I have finished writing back to those, I take the flash drive back to the cyber and send the mails and repeat the process.) I go to bed between 11:30 and 12:30 usually.

Wednesday, I am up at the same time, downstairs for breakfast, wash the dishes, and then it’s the same thing…take a walk, read a book, work on a project or go see if a friend is at home to hang out a while…then lunch and dish-washing, followed by some kind of music rehearsal around 3:30 or 4:00. back home around 6 for dinner and dishes, and back to the church at 7:30 for a meeting with all the tios of the kids’ Bible school class (that word is pronoucned "tee-yohs" and it means uncle or aunt-depending on if you say tio or tia in the singular form. As a form of respect, children here refer to adults as tio or tia.) . At the meeting we discuss what the class will look like on Friday and Saturday, we decide who is going to be running the program, who is going to be giving the lesson, and what Bible story will be told. Last week, I had to give the lesson both Friday and Saturday. It was terrifying, haha! I just don’t like public speaking, even if my audience is children, and especially if I am public speaking in Spanish! But it went alright. I told the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Seems like the kids understood my story well enough and we even made up a little skit to go along with the story. It was fun in the end…I guess. But I hope I don’t have to do that again for a while. Haha! After the meeting is over around 8:30 or so we often walk to a cancha (a soccer or basketball or volleyball court, often a combination of the three) to play basketball. It is super fun! It is one of my favorite activities here. Everyone plays and everyone has a good time. Last week me and Ismael took on the other five people there and won 15 to 5. haha, i had so much fun! Home around 11 Wednesday night and off to bed.

Thursday morning, wake up, breakfast, dishes, working on whatever I need to work on until lunch time. Lunch, dishes, then visiting a lady named Chavela and another named Katty (pronounced kathy) in Chavela’s house at 4:00 to do a Bible study. Then at 5, some kind of music rehearsal at the church and back home for dinner and dishes after that. At 7:30, it’s back to the church for the youth worship service which goes until about 10:00. after that, I spend time working on whatever I need to work on for the Bible school class the next day (whether it is preparing all the crafts or working on some kind of drawing or prop for the Bible story) with a couple people. Off to bed after that’s done.

Friday morning, wake up, breakfast, dishes, finish any last-minute stuff for the Bible school class. Then a quick lunch, dish-washing and off to church at 2:00 for prayer before the Bible school. At 2:30 we head over to a place called Invasión (which, as you might be able to guess means Invasion) because it is basically a squatters’ village. It is the land that nobody really wants because it’s not good for anything to grow on. It floods during the rainy season which begins in December, and they say the water often gets up to about 4 feet deep and stays that way until the rain stops around April or so. So all the houses there are built on stilts and the majority of the people there are the poorer people. Invasión technically is not a part of El Recreo but it is a sector where Marcelo feels very strongly that we need to be ministering to. He says that when the rain comes, we are going to be faithfully ministering to the kids there every week, whether we have to wade through the flood to get there or not. I love the dedication to ministry that he has. We spend some time inviting parents to allow their kids to come to the Bible school and at 4:00 we begin the program which includes games and singing and dancing, exactly like what we do with the missions teams, followed by a Bible story often with some kind of skit and then a craft. Then we feed the kids a sandwich and some juice. Who knows if they get to eat every day? At 5:30ish we head back to the church with all our sound equipment and stuff and then it’s back home for dinner and dish-washing. And after that is fun time! Friday nights in the church there is an adult small-group and since I am not quite an adult yet :-) I don’t have to go to that. Haha! We go play basketball or we hang out and watch a movie in someone’s house or go on some kind of outing (like to Guayaquil!) and then it’s back home to bed.

Saturday morning I wake up, have breakfast, do dishes, and hang out doing whatever...often taking care of some preparations for the kids´Bible school class. We do the same Bible school class as we did on Friday but for a different group of kids. This one takes place at the church but it is more or less the same. Back home to eat and do dishes and at 2:30 it’s back to the church for the kids´stuff. Back home at around 4:30ish to take a nap or just hang out doing nothing with some friends because I am super exhausted by this time during the week, thank goodness Monday is just around the corner, and then i come home or I wake up at dinner time to eat and do some dishes. At 7:30 I go to one of the youth small-groups. There are four different groups in four different houses. I have been to all four different groups now and plan to continue rotating through each group as the weeks go on. Last week all the groups met together at the cancha to have a basketball tournament. Last week I went to Ismael´s group and our team won the tournament! It was awesome! I couldn´t believe we took the trophy! hahaha. it was super fun playing, but it was even more fun heckling in the crowd when the other teams were playing. we laughed so much! Usually, after the small groups are over, everybody seems to find each other at the church or at the house of the group that is running the latest and they all hang out together. Back home around 11 or so and off to bed.

Sunday I wake up at 7:30 to get to church at 8:00 for another band practice before the service starts at 9:30. I am the first one up in the house and so I usually just skip the breakfast (which means I also skip the dishes…I feel it’s a fair trade) The service goes until about 12 or 12:30. They are really into the singing part of the service. We will play 8 songs in the first set, then another song for communion, then another song for offering, then another song to kind of dismiss the service. What I really enjoy is that during the communion time they pass out the little cups and the crackers (ritz…mmm!) and then they read 1 Corinthians 23-26 and then they say something about what it means to take communion and then they pray and then sing a song and then all together they take the bread and all together the juice. It’s the same every time…I don’t know, I really like that. There’s something beautiful about it, and there’s something special in holding on to that cup and that bread through the Bible reading and then the prayer and then the song…I don’t know, I feel like I have a lot of time to take it all in, what I am doing exactly. I like it. After the service is over every single person there hugs every single other person there. I think that is pretty cool too. Also, the greetings here between guys and girls and between girls and other girls include a kiss on the cheek, which I just absolutely love. We don’t do that where I live, and it’s something that I think makes the greeting personal and genuine. I like it a lot. After church, we go out to eat, me and Marcelo’s family. (no dishes!) and then at 3:00 the band meets for a Bible study together. This is something new that we are just starting as a group. This was one of the goals I had before coming here: to begin a Bible study for the band. I am really excited it is working out. We will be starting our study This week on the book of James. Hopefully it will go well. After we meet, there is just some hanging out until dinner time. Then…dishes, haha. And after that, we go play some more basketball! Sundays I come home from the basketball maybe around 11:30 or 12:00 because I don’t have to wake up early in the morning and neither does Marcelo so he is usually up until around 1:00 or 1:30 watching the news.

And that, my friends is a week in the life.

If you were reading carefully, you may have noticed that it seems I do not bathe. I want to assure you that I do…every day…but it is a little different here. When I am in my country, I always shower in the morning. But if I shower in the morning here, a) the water in the cistern on the roof is still freeeeezing cold (every day, they have to hook up the electric pump and pump the water up to the cistern on the roof from...well i don´t know. i guess i prefer not to know where the water i bathe in here comes from) and b) I am gross and sweaty again by 10:30am…so it is kind of pointless. Most people here shower after the hottest part of the day passes…and that depends on the day, so often I shower in the evening before dinner. This is something I find interesting. Where I am from, you shower at night or in the morning (or both) and put on your clothes for the day in the morning. And if it is not necessary to change clothes (for going out or after work or whatever) you wear those same clothes all day and wear different clothes the next day. Here, you often see people wearing the same thing in the day that they wore the night before…that’s because in the morning, those clothes are still clean and sweat-free. They don’t get dirty until the afternoon and so the clothes-changing happens mid-day here. So, there’s a little bit of information that you may not have known before.

I will leave you with that since that was a lot. Next time, I will try to share some more of the little differences that might surprise you about the way of life here. Take care, thanks for your prayers and support!

haha, the nightlife!

2008-08-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well, Friday night, I had the most fun ever! Ismael says to me, "hey, what are you doing tonight?" and I say, "nothing." so he says, "let´s go to Guayaquil!" and I say, "yeah, that sounds fun! do you know your way around there pretty well?" ..... "uh...no, not really. i hardly ever go." hahaha, so we got a group together (so we wouldn´t get lost) and went. We left at about 8:00pm and when Marcelo asked what time we would be back, they said maybe around 10:30 or 11:00 and Marcelo says, "well that´s dumb. you´re going to get there and immediately have to come back. enjoy the city, guys." so...we did!

We walked through some plazas, took some pictures at a fountain. I went with a really fun group of good friends. (from left to right: Jennyfer, Ismael, Me, Gabriel and Esther. Not pictured here is José...because he is taking the picture. you will see him later. he is in an orange shirt.) While we were taking this picture, a man walked up to us and started passing out little booklets of poetry that he wrote. Then, right there on the spot, he made up a really funny poem about Jennyfer and we all laughed. So we bought one of his little books for a dollar.

Then we walked through the boardwalk by the river to the Malecón, which is where we always go with the missions groups during our free day. It was much prettier at night. We laughed and laughed! There were little girls selling roses and one of the little girls was so persistant. She would not leave without us buying a rose. While we were trying to take a picture together, she actually stuck the rose in Ismael´s pocket and wouldn´t take it back. He kept trying to give it back and she would not have it. She only wanted the money for it. It was hilarious. We finally had to just set the rose down on the ground and walk away. We couldn´t stop laughing at the fact that she actually shoved it in his pocket.

We went up to the lighthouse that you have to climb about 400something steps to get to. It was so beautiful up there. There is a little outdoor museum a little bit below the lighthouse that is dedicated to the Santa Ana which is a ship that something happened to at some point in Ecuador´s history apparently. I don´t know, I didnt read any of the plaques since I was too busy goofing around with everyone. We kept taking pictures in places where we weren´t supposed to be. There were these pirate statues all over the little park area and they were behind the chains that you weren´t supposed to cross. So everywhere we´d go, Gabriel would look around for the guards and then go,¨one, two, three" and we´d all run as fast as we could to where the pirate was and snap a picture and then run back. It was a blast. We were acting like kids and it was so much fun!

We climbed up this little rock-wall to a tree that was growing half way up it and took a bunch of pictures there. Ismael actually climbed the tree. I am pretty sure that wasn´t allowed. On the way back down the hill, Ismael thought it would be hilarious to push me down it. Turns out, it was hilarious.

After the museum we walked down the stairs but went around the back way this time and found a little park. We played on the swings and the teetertotter until the guard came and kicked us out of the park. She said, "hey, this park is for little kids, not for big jerks like you." and Ismael says, in complete seriousness, "maám, with all due respect, we may be big, but we are not jerks.......so....Jennyfer can still play here, right?" (because she is short. her nickname is enana which means midget. i have yet to figure out if that bothers her or not. haha) We all roared out in laughter and the guard just walked away. We left after that still laughing and went to eat a late dinner at KFC. The funny thing about restaurants here that we are familiar with in the United States is that the combos automatically come with rice. So we had fried chicken with rice and beans and it was a great time. We were so tired after all that that most everyone fell asleep in the taxi on the way home. We got home a little late (1:00am...oops) and the boys got a talking to from Marcelo for keeping the girls out so late. haha. Next time we will be a little more careful about the time.

I had a blast! You know, this is going to sound silly...one of the tiny worries I had before coming here was that I was not going to be able to laugh nearly as hard as I love to laugh because I thought I wouldn´t understand the humor here because of the language barrier. But I am glad to know I was so, so wrong.

Happy 5th Anniversary!

2008-08-05T12:38:00.001-07:00

last thursday night marcelo asked me if i would make a video for the following sunday morning. this past sunday, the church celebrated its 5th anniversary. it was pretty cool, there was lots of music and special presentations. i made a video using a lot of the pictures that sandra gave me from the last five years. i wish they had given me a little more time to work on it ...but that's how they roll here, i guess. haha. anyway, here is the video. my favorite part of it is seeing all the different baptisms they have had. you will notice that they have about three options when it comes to a baptistry. they go to the water park, they go to the river, or they set up a kiddie pool in the street. hopefully there will be more opportunities for video projects like this, and hopefully with more advance-notice (it's ok to dream, right?). enjoy...

I hope my lunch is good

2008-07-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Well the missions team from CIY came and went and it was a good time...until everybody got sick with the black plague, or whatever it was. In any case, it was gross, and if I had pictures I would not share them because if you saw them you would present with at least one of the symptoms that was running rampant on the second floor of Marcelo and Sandra´s house between Saturday night and Tuesday morning.

Besides the virus (which the team from CIY took back to the United States with them yesterday), everything else went very well with our mission trip to Baba. We sent a team of 15 people from the church in El Recreo with the CIY group to work with the church there in the town of Baba. Baba is a more rural place than El Recreo and there were banana plantations everywhere! it was kind of cool to drive through all the banana trees, especially at night on the way back from the presentations we would do in the different areas of Baba.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the house-visits that we did. Normally, I am not a fan of the house-visiting. I think it´s weird and uncomfortable, and I don´t like it. But that is a product of my culture. In the U.S. you can´t just walk up to a stranger´s house, knock on the door, and say, "can I share a little bit of the Word of God with you?" and expect to be received well. Here, you can knock on the door and ask to share, and they will invite you in, feed you, give you something to drink, and have a real conversation with you about what you are sharing. It is very very different. So, as someone from the U.S. it has taken me a few years and a few house-visits to get used to the concept that it´s ok to do that here. And during this trip to Baba, I really enjoyed it.

We went to visit one morning in the neighborhood where we had done a presentation the night before. Once we arrived the women from Baba who were leading our group realized that no one had brought the addresses of the people who had asked us to come visit them. We stood around for a minute trying to decide what to do since the car wasn´t coming back to pick us up for another two hours, and we decided to just go walk around and knock on some random doors. The first house we went to was Gloria´s house. She came out onto the porch to talk with us a little. She seemed a little quiet and so we asked if we could pray for her before we left. She said yes and we asked if there was anything specific she´d like prayer for. She told us her father was sick and asked if we would pray for him so we said yes and then she said, "he is out back, let´s go" so we followed her around to the back of the house and he was there. He was sitting in a hammock and his legs looked pretty bad. We prayed with him and then we left and went visiting to a couple other houses. The last house we visited that day was Anita´s house. She was outside sweeping her patio and we stopped by and said we were with the group who did the presentation last night. She got a big smile on her face and said, "Yeah, my kids were there, they loved playing the games with you and singing the songs" so we talked for a while about playing with the kids and how fun it was for us too, and after a few minutes she said, "well...is there anything i can do for you? what are you doing here again, do you need help with something?" and we looked around at each other and then looked back at her and said, "we were going to ask you the same thing...is there anything we can do for you or pray about for you?" we all kind of laughed and she laughed and said, "please, come in, sit down" we hung out in her house for about an hour talking and sharing with her and her mom. It was really cool, and it was really sad as well. Her mom, Lupita, shared about how her son had been killed not too long ago, in December. It was a sad, sad story and everyone was crying. We prayed with Lupita and after we prayed with her, Anita said, "you know what, I´d like to be a Christian too" so we prayed with her as well, and encouraged her to find a church where she could begin to learn more about Jesus and be surrounded by the encouragement and love of a church family. It was a really beautiful day.

A couple days later we decided to go back and visit again in the same houses. Only this time I was leading the group! It was really crazy because I was the one doing all the talking and all the praying and all the sharing of scriptures and thoughts. And I was translating back and forth for the English-speakers who also wanted to share. I felt very bold, and I felt it was a boldness that did not come from within me, but rather from God, and that was a neat feeling. We went back to Gloria´s house first and this time went back to the back to share a little encouragement from the Bible for her dad. We shared with him about prayer and how we believe we don´t need someone to talk to God for us, that we can talk directly to him whenever we will, and that God wants exactly that-to have a relationship with us. After a while, I began to talk with him one on one and asked him how he was feeling and he told me he hurts all over. I asked if he is taking medicine and he said he was but could no longer afford it. I asked Gloria how much the medicine would cost and she said it was $30, so I asked some of the gringos if they would like to help me pay for the medicine and they said yes of course. We told Gloria we´d like to buy some medicine for her father, and she was very grateful. She went and told her mom, who was inside her house, that we wanted to buy medicine for him (Luis) and her mom (Luis´s wife) came out to thank us. We prayed again for Luis, and this time, as we prayed for him, he grabbed my hand and began to cry and when we finished praying, he said, "thank you.....i hope you will come back and visit again." we assured him that the people from the church in Baba would be back the following tuesday. then we said goodbye to Gloria and her mother and when her mother hugged Katie, one of the girls from the team, she (the mother) began to cry...to sob, really, and then Katie started to cry because she was hugging a woman who was crying uncontrollably and thanking her. And then everyone started to cry. It was really beautiful. I hope that they see God´s provision in that, and that they don´t think it was anything that we did. And I hope Luis gets better.

We went to see Anita again too, but we couldn´t spend much time with her because we had stayed so long at Gloria´s, but we spent a nice time talking with Anita, encouraging her and being encouraged by her. I hope she will find a church that she can be a part of. Please keep them in your prayers. I will try to get back here soon with some pictures to add to this post. For now, it´s back to normal at the church here in El Recreo. I have to go because Roberto just came and found me in the internet cafe to tell me that his mom is inviting me to their house for lunch! MMMM Lunch!!!!! See ya!

three weeks in...

2008-07-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ll be honest, I’m exhausted. It’s a good tired, though. Our group mission trip was really great. I feel really good about the things that were accomplished while the team was here.

The first thing we did when we got here was to take some members of the church on a leadership retreat. It was awesome. The campground we went to was in the middle of a jungle. There were insects the size of giant insects everywhere! The first night we were there, I couldn’t sleep at all, I kept feeling things crawling all over me in my bed. I did not ever open my eyes to check and see if I was imagining the crawly things or if they were actually there…but I didn’t sleep, that’s for sure. Besides the bugs, it was so beautiful. I really enjoyed the time we spent there. And the retreat went so well. I was really proud of my team and everything that everyone did to help. Trevor, Trent and Paddy all spoke really great messages about prayer, solitude and stewardship, respectively (notice the trademark Smith Claw being used by Trevor). And based on the feedback I heard, their messages spoke deeply to a lot of people on the retreat. I’m really proud of how willing they were to share their experiences and how they did so with eloquence and grace. We did our drama and Solomon spoke a message of the importance of transformation which was really good. Also, the hammocks were awesome.

We got a ton of work done on the church property when we came back, including but not limited to: plastering walls, sanding walls, painting walls, building walls, stuccoing walls, digging trenches, removing giant rocks from trenches, filling in said trenches and re-digging them in a different place (this is a sore subject for some of our team haha), building fences, building rebar footing for the walls, mixing concrete, pouring concrete…the list really does go on and on. It was a lot of hard work, but the progress is pretty neat. I remember the first year we came to Ecuador, the Sunday church service took place in the street outside of Marcelo and Sandra’s house. Now they have enough space to build a larger building for church services, and they can use the existing building as a school, an internet café, and whatever other plans they come up with. They are also planning on building a cancha (soccer/basketball/volleyball court) on the back of the church lot, which I think will be pretty cool as well.

We went to visit some people in their houses, to try and get to know the parents of the church leaders a little better, we had some church services, did some skits and some dances, we did some kids programs, and we slept in cramped quarters and got lots of bug bites.

One of the neat things we got to do this year that we’ve not been able to do before was go visit children in the hospital outside of Guayaquil. Francisco and Magali, a couple in the church had a child who was sick with meningitis and he was in the hospital during our entire stay in El Recreo. A few of us had the opportunity to go see him and take some balloons to make balloon animals. There were about 20 other kids in the same wing (which was really just one big room) and so we had the chance to visit with them as well and give them some balloon animals. My favorite part of that was the moment that I said, “where’s Gianna?” and I looked around and there she was, in the far corner of the room sitting with Elsie, a girl who had been having extreme back pain, and talking and laughing with her. I loved that. I would never have been so bold my first time on this trip. I’m still not that bold. I have loved the way everyone on this trip has really tried and succeeded at communicating, even through a difficult language barrier. Everyone made friends, and I am so proud of what a great job everybody did at making an effort to talk to people they don’t know in a language that’s not their own.

My team went home on Monday, and now things are different. The house is quiet (and clean. Haha), there are only a few people working at the church during the day, and there’s a sense of calm here that’s very relaxing. I haven’t started to freak out yet. I feel comfortable so far. Sandra and Marcelo have gone way out of their way to make me feel at home. They put a mattress and a dresser in my room which was very nice…except I’m pretty sure there are bed bugs in the mattress. I woke up this morning with about 20 new bites on my back. Ann, what do I do to get rid of them? Anyway, it’s the thought that counts, right? Sandra took me with her to the grocery store which is about a 10-minute busride outside of El Recreo. You can buy things here in town, there are little corner stores all over the place…but the big supermarket is farther away. We walked down every aisle and in every aisle, without fail, she asked, “is there anything you want from here? If you see something you like to eat, just put it in the basket.”

Well, the meals are also different now that the group is gone. It’s a lot like it was in Peru. For breakfast, some toast or cereal, with some coffee or juice. Lunch is the big meal with soup, lots of rice, and some kind of meat ‘n sauce. And for dinner…bread and cheese and coffee. I like it. I went to bed feeling a little hungry last night after a couple slices of bread and cheese, but I’ll get used to it. Here’s the other difference with the group being gone…there’s always plenty of water for a shower. So, that’s excellent.

I thought that once all the missions teams left, I’d have to wait until church services and stuff to see my friends here, but I was wrong. There are people coming over to Marcelo and Sandra’s house all the time. One night, Marcelo wasn’t even home and Sandra was upstairs doing all the homework she needed to catch up on and people from the church just came over and hung out downstairs in the dining room. They asked if I brought any pictures with me of my family and my home and stuff so I brought out my photo album and they looked through it. It was fun. Some people came over the next morning too, just to hang out while I was washing dishes in the kitchen.

Ok, that’s definitely enough. Thanks for reading it all. I’ll try to keep the posts shorter. It’s just I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to get to the cyber, so I’ve got to squeeze a lot of experiences into one post. I’ll try to get there more often. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet.

My stomach’s been hurting a little. Wish me luck with that. Also, I wanted to post more pictures, but it took about 15 minutes for each of those to load, plus some time for the ones that began loading and didnt finish. I maxed out at 3. hahahaha. Hopefully I will figure out an easier way to do this.

Retreat!!!!!

2008-06-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

One of the things we're going to do as a team when we get to Ecuador in a couple weeks is take the church leaders from the churches in El Recreo (near Guayaquil, where DFCC has primarily worked in the past), Samborondon and Baba (the two other churches near Guayaquil that Marcelo Puentes oversees) on a leadership retreat. We're going away for a weekend to a camp about an hour drive outside Guayaquil to spend some in-depth time teaching on the transformation that God desires for us, for the church, for the world.

The retreat will open Friday night with a drama presented by our team, intended to show the hopelessness and deadness of life when we choose to hold on to the things that keep us from the freedom we would find in Christ if we chose him instead. That will be followed by a message that that's not the end of the story, and we can choose to participate in the transformation God has for us, but that it does require us to make that choice and play an active role in it. Then we'll have a time of worship led by the group from Newbury Park First Christian Church and call it a night. The next day will be full of sessions talking about specific spiritual disciplines we can practice which will put us in a more accessible place for transformation (reading the Word, prayer, solitude, fasting, etc.) and time set aside for actual guided practice of some of these. Then we'll close the day with a message that as leaders it's important for them not only to be consistent in these things, but also to help the other members in their churches to see the importance of transformation.

Then sunday will be spent thinking of ways in which we can support them in presenting these things to their church (we'll be bringing lessons they can teach to children with materials for crafts, we'll help them learn the drama or write a different one if they want, we'll make the messages we've taught available if they want us to teach them again, etc.) the point being that they as the leaders should be the ones to present this to their church with our support...not the other way around.

We've been busy coming up with ideas, practicing a drama to present, making examples of crafts, writing lessons and messages and praying over every detail. Pray for us as we go to Ecuador next Thursday. And pray for the retreat, that it will be a blessing.

Here's a rough idea of what the drama will look like. Only there won't be words floating in the air when we perform it. The words will be written on our shirts. And they'll be written in Spanish.

On a side note...if anyone is familiar with Vegas, I had some trouble with the audio when I captured this video to my computer. In the preview everything is fine, and as soon as I drag the clip onto the timeline the audio is gone. There's still an audio track that drags up there with the video, it's just blank. I have no idea why the audio track won't work on the video clips. It has only happened with my new camera. The audio worked fine with a clip captured off my mom's camera. I had to drag the actual mp3 file of the song we're using onto the timeline to get some sound for this video. Any ideas on how I can fix this problem before I leave?

Doober

2008-06-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out the new addition to my list of blogging friends...

This new blog comes complete with graphs and charts!

Check it out!

Time for Goodbye

2008-05-31T15:19:00.001-07:00

Well, time has flown/dragged by, it seems. And in just a short 27 days, I'll be on a plane to Ecuador. I'm not exactly sure what I expected to feel around now. Maybe some kind of combination of excitement, anticipation, and a little fear. But really, all I feel is sad. This week has been my last full week working at Ruby's Diner, and last night I said goodbye to two of my co-workers. And it was a real, actual goodbye...not just a "see you when i get back."

The truth is, I won't be going back to work at Ruby's when I come home, and while moving on to other things is an exciting idea, it's also a little painful simply because of how attached I have become to that place and those people and what it all has meant to me for the last (almost) 7 years. So I will have some more goodbye's to say tonight and a couple more each Sunday in June as my co-workers and I work our last shifts together. It's bittersweet, really. Because as much as I complain about the rude, awful, general public...I will miss it. I'll miss my friends. I'll miss the place in which I learned how to make everywhere I am into a mission field. I'll miss all the laughter and the silliness. I'll miss the free food. I'll miss having a place to belong, and a place where I am good at what I do.

So, truthfully, yesterday and today...I don't want to leave. I don't want to go to Ecuador. Because it's hard to say goodbye, even for the things you're certain will be worth it. And even though it's time to move on and I won't be going back to Ruby's when I come back from Ecuador, I know without a doubt that that place is a huge part of who I am and how I've gotten to be this way. (Maybe that's a good thing, or maybe not...I don't know). And I will always treasure the time I got to spend there.

I've been saying a lot of goodbye's lately. Thursday night was the swim banquet for Warren High and since this was my last year as a swim coach at Warren, my boss (girls' head coach Josie Cordero) had me stand up in front while she made a really nice speech and said thank you for the last 8 years of hard work. It was a real honor, and I felt really loved and appreciated. I will miss that job a lot too.

So, it seems the time for change has come...I didn't realize it would make me feel so melancholy. Maybe after all the goodbye's are said and I move on into the future, the excitement will set in more fully. I guess it's just part of the process.

typical

2008-05-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

AmyInAnaheim: padddayyy
Yup2That: Ammmyyyyy
AmyInAnaheim: what's up
Yup2That: finishing a lab
AmyInAnaheim: good job
Yup2That: it's not working
Yup2That: for some reason
Yup2That: and watching home improvment
AmyInAnaheim: haha
AmyInAnaheim: that show is so lame
Yup2That: what
Yup2That: I love it
AmyInAnaheim: you would
Yup2That: heck yes I would
Yup2That: I love it
AmyInAnaheim: hahaha
AmyInAnaheim: ok
AmyInAnaheim: i just think tim allen isn't funny at all
Yup2That: not even in home improvement?
Yup2That: it's hilarious
AmyInAnaheim: especially not in home improvement
Yup2That: whaaaaaaaat
Yup2That: that's terrible
AmyInAnaheim: it's just such a predictable show
AmyInAnaheim: that's all
Yup2That: yea
Yup2That: but alot of the old shows are
Yup2That: it's still funny
AmyInAnaheim: that's true a lot of shows from that era are
AmyInAnaheim: haha
AmyInAnaheim: but that one in particular is much less funny than some others
AmyInAnaheim: fresh prince of bel air, for example....hella funny
AmyInAnaheim: home improvement...not so much
Yup2That: fresh prince is hilarious
Yup2That: but I think I might say home improvement is more funny
AmyInAnaheim: nope
Yup2That: yes
AmyInAnaheim: no, there's absolutely no way home improvement is funnier than fresh prince
AmyInAnaheim: will smith is sooooo much funnier than tim allen
Yup2That: you just have the hots for Will Smith
AmyInAnaheim: even if i didn't have the hots for him, which i totally do....he's still funnier than tim allen
Yup2That: haha
Yup2That: you are just biased
Yup2That: i don't have the hots for either
AmyInAnaheim: you must have the hots for Al. that's why you like home improvement so much
Yup2That: Al?
AmyInAnaheim: Al Borlin
AmyInAnaheim: tim's assistant on Tool Time
Yup2That: lol
Yup2That: I know who Al is
Yup2That: that's sick
Yup2That: if anyone
Yup2That: it'd be Wilson

I haven't slept in days...

2008-04-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

And it's because I was making this video. They're playing it during offering at church today. I finished it about an hour ago. I hope it helps to get people involved. I've only had about three or four people so far give me their e-mail address and ask to receive updates while I'm in Ecuador.