Last Night with Bob & Elsi
After returning from the church activities, Elsi jumped in the pool and did 10 laps while the rest of us sat soaking our feet and counted them. Then we played a bit more bridge and made our last trip to the food court...eating one more delicious cheesecake at LATTE served by our new best friend, Jimme. We exchanged emails and Elsi suggested he have a flag made so his customers could travel with it. We loved his genuine smile...watching him work...and mostly his cheesecakes!!
Off to Cuenca
Tatiana & her parents arrived at 5:15, threw our bags in their truck and we piled into a taxi and all headed to a bus station. For two hours and a half hours, we rode through another side of Ecuador: poor small villages much like we've seen in other countries, passing many on horseback, avoiding cows and rocks in the road, seeing healthy crops of rice, bananas, cacao (cocoa) trees, mais (corn) and sugar cane. We climbed many switchbacks to reach a Nat'l Park that was dotted with lots of lakes and waterfalls. Then sped downhill to Cuenca--a quaint traditional town full of churches and ice cream! We ate a huge breakfast which included a most popular dish called montipillo--maiz (pronounced like mice) cooked with rice...sorry Joyce Boyce if that made you lose your appetitie! We took a city tour on a two decker bus & when we came to some of the electric wires, a man with a towel lifted the wires so we could get under them. We are far from USA standards. We also got a treat as they were celebrating the Divino Nino (Divine Child)...so we got to watch a procession of small kids dressed as kings on decorated horses with a pig head on a platter behind them , angels on floats, and what looked like Cleopatra eating grapes. Our ride back was literally, in a cloud...raining...and as soon as we got out of the cloud, sunny again.
Good bye Bob & Elsi
As soon as we got back to Sonnia's, Bob & Elsi took a quick shower and after much hugging...Tatiana took them to the airport. We're sure going to miss them...
Dinner with Sonnia's Family
While we waited for Tatiana to returned (therefore no translator), we looked at pictures. Sonnia & her husband, Rodriga showed us their pictures from their trip to Dallas for a Gideon convention. It was fun hearing the excitement in their voices even though we only understood a little of what they were telling us. After Tatian returned & we'd settled our things in Tatiana's bedroom (which she has given up while we are here), we were called to dinner. Fine china and a tablecloth, fish, rice & a salad of tomatoes & radishes & onions greeted us. We ate and visited for almost two hours. We shared stories about our famlies, learned more about a young crippled girl, Alexandra whom they adopted when she turned 13 because she could no longer stay at the Prince of Peace Foundation that Sonnia is the president of, (adoption here is rare) and shared our hopes of helping bring God's love. In the end, Sonnia told us she had been praying constantly that we would be friendly people...and her prayers were answered. We were touched.
Cutting Projects
Since the pastor doesn't work on Monday, we could not visit the private school we hope to help at...so we worked on preparing a Bible lesson for next Saturday when we'll be at the church we were at last Saturday. Our lesson will be on the storm that Jesus calmed so we cut boats out of water bottles, made mast and drew a pictures of the disciplines & Jesus that we'll photo copy. We got all that done by lunch...so after aspargas soup & ceviche (raw fish dish...we took a walk checking out what's close. When we got back, Sonnia had another project ready for us to prepare...Noah's ark. We cut out 50 of many pieces and almost finished before dinner. Again, we ate and visited over an hour learning much more about the Prince of Peace foundation and Garret, a volunteer who has comes twice a year for 17 years, stays for a month and is a work-a-holic. It was a good days work...but I'm anxious to spend time with some kids!
