Sun. afternoon Siesta time

Well we woke up to gray skies and rain, so took advantage of the weather and stayed in bed awhile. No hurry to get up. Church is at 10:30. Klaudia came and we all walked over to the church with umbrella in hand. It only takes about 10 minutes from here. We have to cross on the suspension bridge and it is a loooong way down to the creek below which you can hardly see due to all the jungle type vegetation below.
Church was full,mostly Ecuadorians. Met alot of other missionary families there, some independent missionaries , some with MAF, some more HCJB. The pastor is Brazilian I think they said. One of the Ecuadorian nurses showed slides of her recent mission trip to the Congo. That is one change from when we were here 20 years ago....they have now come to the point where Ecuador is sending missionaries out to other parts of the world as missionaries. We tried our best to sing along in Spanish,(the words were on the overhead. Couldn't understand any of the service but could look up the Bible verses because I could decipher the references. Adam went to children's church and came out and told me the Bible story. I guess one of the missionary children interpreted for him.
Klaudia and Eckehart Wolff invited us to go to lunch with them at a Chinese restaurant here. It was delicious. The kids cleaned their plates they enjoyed it so much.

Then we took a walk down to the old hospital which they are starting to tear down this week. It was kind of awesome to think that the men who were martyred actually had started to build that before they died.
Walked back across another swinging bridge on the way home. Met alot of people that are doing some amazing things here. It makes our lives at home seem a bit mundane and useless...considering what people here are doing every day.
Alot of the families here have at least one spouse that is an MK. Some of the families will be returning to the U.S. next year, some moving on to other mission fields. Others have been here 20 - 30 years and this is home for them.
Again, as in Africa last year, I really wish that we could speak the language. Apparently, the most common language school for the Americans for Spanish is in Costa Rica. Some of them go there for 5 months or so before coming to work here.
I feel sorry for Gary in the OR as everything is in Spanish, all the paper work, the staff, supplies, etc. We have been praying for him. It can't be easy.
I really enjoy being here..part of it is the simplicity of life. The other part I think is the relationships and the time that is spent investing in other people's lives. They deal with things that really matter here. I don't get a sense of superficiality that is so common in North America. Real, genuine people with a "take us as we are" approach. (Sort of like most of the homeschoolers at home!!!!)
I enjoy watching our kids making up all sorts of games with no toys except a ball.
They really are happy with just that.
Tomorrow morning we are going to the school for chapel at 8:15. Not much else planned as far as our day goes. We have some more grocery shopping to do and want to explore around a bit. It sounds like the orphanage here is currently at about double capacity, so maybe we will have a chance to go and help out there.
Tonight we are going over to Nelson's for supper. We are really being fed very well!!
Look forward to hearing from some of you at home!!
Lori