from ecuador

hey all! i can hardly believe our trip is almost half way done already...it's been so, so full, but so, so fast so far. we've done a tone of painting,moving furniture, and pouring concrete...all helping to drastically improve the Wink's home. Denise and i are staying at a family's house, about 15 minutes away from here. they are an amazing family with a lot of great stories...many of which we will probably never hear because of the very frustrating language barrier. Mauricio (our "dad's" name) was a in the Colombian army and they have traveled all over the world.

yesterday was a lot of fun...the Winks have church in their house every sunday and about 30 people were here. we did a bilingual Bible study with a capella songs in three languages. it was amazing to hear people singing praises in other tongues...it just makes me so excited for all the singing in heaven one day. after the study, we ate a ton of food, and then went outside and played frisbee and "futbol" (soccer) with some other ecuadorian college-age kids. it was SO much fun! then after the crazy outside games, our group went to "our parents' house" (mauricio's) for filet mignons. that's about the quality of food we've been fed ever since we arrived!

after the filets, we (like 30 of us!) were ushered into their computer/TV room for a little karaoke session (in spanish, of course). then someone turned on "la bamba" and the karaoke quickly evolved into a freestyle dance party, and from there it morphed into a salsa dance lesson! so we all got up and laughed and tried to dance the salsa, and tried to sing in spanish...and laughed at ourselves long into the night. it was one of the coolest things ever.

two nighs ago, we hiked (probably 3 miles) down into this beautiful green jungle-y valley on the outskirts of Quito. there's this really nice restaurant in the bottom, with a river running by it and horses running freely in the wind. :) after a little jumping on the trampoline (yeah, they had a trampoline) we ate beef tenderloins, which were very dramatically served to us on hardened lava rocks....so they were smoking and sizzling when they brought them to us. it was wonderful.

tomorrow we drive to Shell. this is the town that Nate Saint, Jim Elliot & company flew out of when they first had contact with the auca indians. it's right on the edge of The Jungle and hopefully go into it each day.

much more to come, friends! i have to go now. thanks for your prayers!!