Some more entertainment for July & August! It's been busy!
This is a picture of a tasty treat you can get on any given day right in the center here in Paute. We tried to order drinks but somehow gave the impression we wanted this desert instead. Yup that language issue again. O well this was tasty anyway. It is a mango shredded into strings with a sweat cream sauce, chocolate sauce & sprinkles on. Yet another entertaining different food.
Jeremy & I went to one of the restaurant's in Paute for lunch & they have an outside area & also an inside area. Here I don't know how well you can see it but right above Jeremy's head is a hummingbird feeder & there is a hummingbird at it. They have lots of hummingbird feeders & lots of hummingbird's. Jeremy actually reached up & touched it. Were not so sure how much the hummingbird liked that but it was exciting to be so close to them!
Another picture of the outside area.
This is where we ate, which is outside but you have a roof over head.
This was what we ordered. It was like an appetizer because it had so many different things in it. A bunch of seafood, steak, fries, a little salad.
Its funny to see the eyes and all still on the shrimp here!
Here is one of the flower shops in Paute, the flowers are so pretty!
Now this was a exciting day! We had come home to find all kinds of cars & people surrounding our street. You can see in this first picture that part of the cement wall is gone! So basically what we are told happened is that a guy was driving too fast down our road (which they do all the time) and lost control of the car and slammed into one of our neighbors walls, taking it down. You could see on the road that it looked like he hit the curb and just went right into the wall. What is amazing is that even though the car hit the wall parallel, everyone in the car including the man driving & his 2 small children were OK. How that is even possible, we don't know.
Here are some pictures of one of our study's & their kids. They just absolutely love the Caleb & Sophia videos. Even the baby who is not even a year old yet, leans in to see what's going on.
This was the girl's last day at the study with us, so we wanted to do a group picture.
It took us a few times to get everyone ready, looking & smiling!
& then we did a funny pose! I think everyone did pretty well!
Here we went to another High School graduation party for one of the girls in the congregation!
Mizeal & Tommy who are brothers, sang some songs while they played the guitar.
I got my haircut finally after being here for 6 months. It was a different experience. I had Alyssa go with me so she could say exactly what I wanted which was very nice of her. What I didn't realize is when it is graduation here everyone gets their hair done. Not just the person who is graduating, the mom, the other kids, it seemed like everyone. So when we got there no one else was there, but in about 10 minutes it seemed like 20 people had come in & they all wanted something. Which for a haircut they don't wash your hair or dry it. Not so sure how I felt about that but i had already asked her to use my scissors so I just went with it. Now after the fact I do believe she did a good job! So after I was done with my haircut, one of the ladies from our congregation asked me if I would cut her hair right then. So I did. No washing or drying but I sprayed her down good with the water bottle. Oh & that wasn't all. By the time I was done with cutting her hair more people had come in & the Hair dresser Cecelia had called her sister who is also a hairdresser to come help her. Well she couldn't come. So I ended up curling this little girls hair who had hair down to her butt & so thick! It took forever! Then when we were almost done the girls mother brings a book over & shows me a picture of this wedding style that she wants for her daughter. Those stinking books! I did not end up doing to updo that the mom wanted, the hairdresser did it. The funny thing is that the mom kept on looking at the time & saying they had to go by a certain time, which would have given me about 10 minutes to do this elaborate updo. Not possible! But Cecelia stuck those pins in so fast that when I turned around she was done & spraying it up with hairspray!
We had a going away party for the girls- Jaclyn & Alyssa. Janeth (the wife of the coordinator Alex)has asked me if I would like to do any games for the party. So we did 2- the first we did was musical chairs, but we just used paper so that no chairs got broken! Janeth WON!
The second one we did is he number game- where you have 2 teams & the announcer calls out a number like 43,521 and each person has to get in order from left to right of the number just called. So whichever teams gets in order first wins & I think there are like 10 numbers to be announced. They had a ball with it! It took them a little while to understand what to do but once they got it, everyone was moving quickly!
For the second round they had me play. Not a good idea because you have to move fast & I need a minute to process what was just said! But I had some help from the back row behind me!
Our Guayaquil English Convention.
So this convention is actually held at Bethel in Guayaquil. They have a outside assembly that has a roof & the stage but there are no sides on it. I took a video of the whole thing to give you an idea of what it's like. If you don't know already normally Guayaquil is pretty Hot & Humid so as you can imagine we sweated! The first day- not so bad, there was a breeze & hardly any sun but the next two days were a little brutal! But we understood much more in English than in Spanish! One of the things we did not grasp in Spanish was the new book about Jesus life, we knew it was only available in English but had no clue that it was a replacement for the greatest man book. So that was an exciting thing for us! It also made us appreciate what a privilege it is to know English because most things are published first in English & the anticipation kills you when you have to wait for things to come out in your own language! Those of us who know English don't really know what that feels like. But for those in Spanish, they still have not received the newly revised Bible. Also since they have it at bethel it seems like they have a lot of branch committee members give parts & for most of those people here their first language is spanish, so that was really encouraging for us to hear them have parts. We can relate to how they feel. One of them just got appointed as a branch committee member & has to learn English to attend school at Patterson, he said the prayer the one morning & I am pretty sure he spoke better English than I do! It was amazing! Chad has been teaching him English. That is a pretty cool thing to be able to say you are doing.
Another highlight was singing the new songs as I am sure it was for everyone! But what is amazing is that there are only around 4 congregations in English here in all of Ecuador & we had 1000 people in attendance on Saturday. So more than half of the people there have never actually sung those songs in English in a congregation before. We've all sung them in whatever language group we are in. So after the new song on Saturday afternoon everyone clapped because we had done so good!
Here are Jaclyn & Alyssa with us at the convention. They have been in our congregation in Guachapala since January & they were leaving the day after the convention to go back to their homes in Canada & Hawaii. Jaclyn is going to be returning sometime early in 2016.
Another view of the what the Assembly hall looks like from the back.
So from the parking area to the Assembly area you walk passed this area that when no one is around the Iguanas are out & about. But when they see someone they seem to retreat up in the trees. Here is one doing just that.
This is right on the other side of where that Iguana was. & a few times we saw Iguanas climbing up the fence on the right here or they go from the trees to the fence. Straight ahead you can see the roof of the Assembly hall.
After you cross over the bridge where the Iguanas are this is the walkway leading up to the Assembly hall.
So since we were so close to the beach after the convention we decided to go for a vacation! It only took us an hour to get there!
Almost every day there were groups of people fishing on the beach. They paddle out in a boat made of five big tree logs tied together with points on the ends. This boat with 4 or 5 people drag a net out about 300 yards and another group of 6 or 7 people hold a rope on the beach with the other end of the net. Then they drag the beach and it is surprising the amount they catch. We were buying the fresh seafood right from them. It was seafood heaven.
Crabs! Bought right off the beach from the guys fishing.
& they were good! You really cannot get much fresher than that!
Now these crabs gave us a run for our money --Literally! When you buy them at the market in town they look like the second picture down. They are all tied up to a stick but still alive. Well to cook them you need to untie them & that's when it got a bit crazy! We put them in the sink to rinse them off before we cooked them & they were all over the place crawling on the counter, a few dropped onto the floor! It was quite comical.
We went on a day trip to another beach about an hour away just to check it out & see what it was like. Well their seafood market was ridiculous! These shrimp were huge & they had tons of lobster!
Here is how they sell the crabs all tied up together.
Here is an example of how big the shrimp can be! This is Jeremy's hand believe it or not! We didn't buy any of these but the guy so graciously left us hold one for a picture! I'm pretty sure he was proud of how big they were!
& of course lobster!
While we were exploring around we found a Kingdom Hall!
One of the lovely sunsets in the evening!
We made some fun designs with the seashells we had found.
Here is one of the boats they use when they go out fishing! These guys have good balance! Picture 5 men standing on these logs crashing through the waves. A lot of family's in these areas make a living this way.
Back to Guachapala. And this is our news report: The mountain is falling. This area has been bad for awhile, but recently it seems to have gotten worse! As you can tell the ground underneath the road is not exactly the same way it was before, it seems to have moved!
Recently they have also added caution signs which was nice of them because part of the road is no longer attached. As one of the girls said it looks like a shark took a big bite out of the side of it because it just fell off because there is nothing underneath it to support it. This is not the only place where the road is falling off, there are a bunch of other places also.
Here is a video a little bit more close up & now what they have done is they have diverted the water so that it is not running right over top of the road, but beside the road and to a pipe under the road. Which is much better you would think. But the damage the water has done to the road is not going to improve, that is for sure.
Here Is a nice view of it all so you get a better picture.
So we have a group that the congregation supports in a town called La Union it's about 30 minutes from the congregation. It's in just a little room with bench seats, maybe 20-30 people attend. Here was a little boy giving his first talk- the Bible reading, he did so well, I asked him if he could give me lessons afterwards!
Here was a little going away party for the Cepeda Family. The Cepeda Family is a family of 5 we had posted some pictures of their sons Mizeal's graduation party before. But the dad, Paul is an elder / pioneer, his wife Ivanna is a pioneer & Mizeal the oldest son is a also a pioneer & a servant & they have 2 other sons. So the Congregation is really taking a hit! But they needed to move to somewhere where there are more work opportunities. as We are finding out Guachapala is not an easy area to find work & support a family. So they will definitely be missed! So for their party the Congregation bought a pig. One thing we have never seen before is such BIG pots like they have here! & it seems every family has like 20 of them! It was an interesting process, we were thinking we wished had seen more of the process but then after we thought about it, yeah maybe not so much! haha
Here is a short video.
I think these flowers are called fuschia.
So we feel a little like news reporters with this mountain but it very interesting to see how it keeps changing from all the rain we have been getting. This is the same mountain we posted pictures of earlier. Plus it's not everyday that you have a mountain in the road just overnight in PA!
So this was September 1, 2016, the first day of the new service year. Normally on a Tuesday we
go out all day. But this day was exceptional- we had rain pouring down, wind tearing up you umbrella's, & best of all as we like to say in Spanish- "la montana es en la calle." Which when this happens all traffic pretty much stops because this is the ONLY road to get through from one area to another. We ended up only working til 12 because we couldn't go any further in the territory. So while we were checking out the view thinking about how in the world it is possible that the road is still there & not floating down the river somewhere, we see a small bus pull up with a whole bunch of kids & their parents. & yup you guessed it- they walk across the mud pile with gushing water going across. As you can see demonstrated in the next video. We were told that probably they either live or their school is on the other side of this road block or both. So I guess if they want to get home they have to brave the conditions!
Just some things that you never thought you would ever see!
So a little later we see this big backhoe coming in to help clear it up & we thought "oh good" they will clean it up & all will be well again! But we were cautioned about this because apparently they have seen this before in action. The guy who drives the big truck on Tuesdays told us NO do not go through there because it is possible that more of the mountain will come down & you won't be able to get back through. Very good advice since we were thinking of going to our study since we were done In service & we would of had to go over this lovely road & come back again! I get the feeling that when this kind of stuff happens they clean it up in the mornings but in the evening they don't bother til the next day. & when we were standing there looking & watching & taking pictures there must have been at least 10-15 vehicles lined up on both side of the mud just waiting for them to clear it. I also have a feeling that a bunch of people just drove through it before anyone got there to start cleaning it up. We sure are hoping that they have a plan to fix the road before it does end it up floating down river. What exactly that plan will be who knows but we will keep you informed!
That is most of our excitement for these two months. Have fun back home.
