Family Chats

Yesterday we were finally able to chat a bit with family, we finally had a connection good enough to video online with Travis' family. Hopefully today we will be able to talk with mine. Lena, our niece and our kids basically laughed the first ten minutes that we talked. Must have been awhile since they have seen each other. It's been good having our own space after a year of living with Travis' parents but at the same time it is hard to be away from our families. That is the one thing that is hard about being missionaries, not only do we have to give up time with our families but they too have to sacrifice time with us so we can be here. However, now that there is internet available and online chatting places, it makes being away for so long a little easier to bear. So I am sure we will be spending enough time online with our families to keep the time apart not seem so long. I am so thankful for the time that we did get to spend with our families this past year and hopefully in the not to distant future some of them will be able to visit us here in Cuenca. So for those who do live close to their families, give them a big hug just because you can! And we'll just send our hugs through cyberspace!

Laundry and Flying!

After being here almost two weeks and even longer then that travelling, we had a ton of laundry. Luckily, we have a laundromat just down the street from our house so we were able to take it there to get cleaned. I bet it looks funny watching two adults followed by their kids and two huge suitcases walking down the street. It's not a laundry mat like back home where you actually do the washing but more like a dry cleaners where you drop it off and pick it back up. For two large suitcases we only paid $12, crazy! And that included washing, drying, and folding. So cheap but it will be nice to have a place to do our own laundry, so that I can be the one making sure the stains get out.
After taking the laundry we took the kids to a new park to play, they had lots of fun though it was still quite muddy from the rain the previous days. We got to see some cows too on our walk to the park. They are often brought to the rivers to drink the water and eat the green grass by the edges. It's funny to be walking in a residential area and see a person leading their cow to the river. We have even seen goats, chickens and many dogs. You never know what you might see when talking a walk to the park.
Once we finally made it downtown to CEDI, we did a little internet and then Bolo picked us up to take us to get our police id's for our bank accounts. Once we got there we had to wait for about an hour and then were told that we can't finalize the id's until we are officially registered in the country. So we decided to book our flights to Quito. Remember we did try to do that when we landed in Ecuador and were told we needed to do some stuff first in order to do it but didn't have time before our flight to Cuenca. So we called up Anshy (Bolo's daughter that just got married) as she works for a travel agency here in the city and she was able to book us some flights to Quito. So we will head to Quito next Monday morning and come back on Wednesday night. We hope to get it all done on the Monday but thought we better spend a bit more time there for the just in case. Hopefully, once we are officially registered in the country we will be able to get our id's and bank accounts. We'll keep you updated on that process, however we did find that we can write out cheques here and get them cashed for u.s. dollars (which is the local currency here) for a minimum fee, which for us is great since we can't really get out cash with our regular bank cards. So until we can get those bank accounts, that is a great alternative.

Church, lunch and SOCCER!

Sunday brought another day to worship with the main congregation here in the city. Calen and I joined Ceara and Travis this time and found the people very friendly and excited that we were here to work in the city. Bolo presented to the church and they prayed for us and the people that we would have an influence on. Ceara and Calen got to go to Sunday school and did well, it was good that they were able to be in the same class although Ceara acts as if she's always gone there, haha. Of course they are still learning Spanish and trying to understand what is going on but I think they both know more then they let on, especially Ceara, she remembers Portuguese enough that I think it's helping her with the Spanish.

After church we got to spend some time with Bolo, Jenny and their family. Now that the wedding plans are over and the work with LST that kept them very busy, they were able to take some time with us talking, sharing and just hanging out. Jenny hasn't been feeling well for awhile now and this past week was really struggling with her health. Finally though they saw a doctor who realized what she was being treated for wasn't really what she needed and ran some tests. She has some sort of bacteria in her body that makes it hard for her to eat and keep anything down. She's now on antibiotics and a strict diet to help with this. Hopefully this is what is really wrong and she can start feeling better (she already says she does). But please continue to pray for her as she deals with her health. But despite being sick she wanted to make us lunch, so we ate really good that day. It's always the basic rice, beans and chicken but very delicious. Travis tells Jenny every time that she should open a restaurant.

And of course no day would be complete without a game of soccer! No we did not play, however, Brazil was playing and so we sat around watching the game, the kids went out to play with the neighborhood girls and Jenny and I mostly chatted. Brazil lost the game but we say that is because Ceara and Calen were not watching, since they are really the ones who cheer for Brazil having been born there. The other day though was a harder game to watch as Brazil played Ecuador. Who do you cheer for? The place where you lived and brought kids into the world or the place you currently live? Well the kids picked their native land, I was undecided and I don't think Travis could decide either though for him, either one was good. Oh the things you end up talking about when you live in the land of soccer!

No More Stitches!

Today was a big day for Calen! He got his stitches out! Yeah, I can’t believe that only a week ago he was in my arms bleeding and needing to get stitches to mend the gash in his head. He was very brave as the same doctor came to remove the stitches ( a little leery of course when he first saw him), only crying a little thinking that the doctor was going to hurt him more. But after it all, he even gave the doctor a high five. The doctor said that Calen was healing well and that the wound just needed time to dry out by itself, so we are so grateful that nothing else was wrong and that God was watching over him even though he fell. I am glad too as it’s hard as a mom to see your child hurt and not be able to do anything to help them. But he is good and will have a great story to tell his friends and family one day about his time in Cuenca. We celebrated with some time at the mall for the kids to play and even a little ice cream!

Of course no day would be complete for Travis if he didn’t get to spend some time at CEDI listening to the riders play football over the internet, though not the outcome he really wanted! But fun none the less! However, leaving CEDI he was unable to reset the alarm and the rest of the night we all spent time up there trying to get it going again. Even after getting Bolo and the guy from the alarm company, nothing was fixed so that wasn’t great. But we have been told, this happens from time to time so just to be patient and learn who to call and what to do. I think we experienced this a few times in Brazil (Hey guys? Randy, Russ, Matt?) too! Got to have a few of these times to experience here as well. (It’s fixed now though!)

Mail Taxes and Banking!

Today was another day at CEDI, checking internet, doing banking, trying to send a few emails and do blogs, post pictures and so on. Seems like that is the only time we can get on the internet is at the CEDI or the mall, though it is much easier and faster at CEDI. We also got a package in the mail, well technically it was a letter to say that we have something but looks like we are going to have to pay taxes on our mail. So please don’t send us anything until we know for sure as it looks like it will be a lot to pay for the taxes. Unfortunately we have sent some things for our house through the mail and if we have to pay taxes, we are now a little worried about how much we will be paying for our stuff to come through the mail. Hopefully, it won’t be as much as we imagine it to be. We will find out soon though. It’s a good thing that Bolo is around to help us sort all these types of things out, it definitely wasn’t that easy in Brazil since we really didn’t know anyone to help in that way.

Speaking of Bolo, he went with us to find out if we could get a bank account here in Cuenca. In Brazil we never actually were able to open an account during the whole five years that we lived there so it was a surprise when the process here is not that hard. One thing we need is like a registration card or a type of police id to say that we are living in Cuenca, the other is money to put into the account, an address and a reference which will be Bolo. Unfortunately we won’t be able to get the account yet as we have to go back to Quito to get registered in Ecuador and then get the police ID card then off to the bank and we will have an account in Ecuador. So in a lot of ways that will help us with many types of things that we may need to do here, but just having a bank account will be great.

Portuguese or Spanish/Spanish or Portuguese?

As was planned we headed to CEDI to help the girls study Portuguese. I actually had a hard time at first as I had been trying to speak more Spanish and forget Portuguese these past few days, and the months before we came here. It was fun though being able to laugh a little bit at Travis as he tried to say things in Portuguese and not doing well at it or trying to remember a word and not knowing if that word was the Spanish or Portuguese word. Overall, I think we were able to help out the girls with their pronunciation and give them better ways to say something for their oral test. (They said to us later that they did very well on their test)

Afterwards we started to look downtown at the furniture stores (there happen to be three just on the same street as CEDI), but as we had to remember that most stores are closed between 1 and 3. So we only were able to get an idea of what we would like to get once we have a permanent home to live in. Later that night we went to a pizza place for supper that had a bunch of play structures for the kids to play on and met a really nice waitress that was excited that we were here as missionaries. She started to tell us of some Austrians that she had worked with in the past that were missionaries here about 10 years ago. It is really interesting sometimes how open people are with you, especially when they think your kids are cute. So many of the taxi drivers here are really open too, we’ve heard many stories now of their lives, their kids or vacations they have just come from. Cuenca seems to be a very open city and God definitely is working on the hearts of people here. Keep on praying, I know there are many who will come to know Him as we work here.

Meetings and Play Time

We finally got to meet today with Bolo and Jaime who are our teammates to discuss the what, how, when and why’s of us being here. It was good to reconnect and plan for the future of our work here. Of course right now most of what we are doing is settling in but after that we will be working on the continuation of those that were part of the Let’s Start Talking program just before we got here. Another thing Travis will do, probably starting in January is teaching some classes at the institute which I will start referring to as CEDI which is the new name for the school since the paperwork has been finalized. So don’t forget I will start referring to the school as CEDI. It’s a long technical name in Spanish so I won’t bother going into it all for you, so just CEDI. Another thing will be starting on the bible studies that Bolo and Jaime already have going on in the city, worshipping with the existing church right now and for me learning to speak better Spanish. It may not seem like a lot to many of you but trust me that is a brief statement of what we will end up doing. I am sure once we get more settled in, you will hear of more work that we are doing.

After meeting with the guys for quite awhile and the kids having played with the secretary of CEDi’s kids we needed to let our kids do something fun for a bit, so we hopped into a taxi and took them to play at the mall. They have a place called PlayGo, it’s like a big Chucky Cheese and Dinobouncers in one(for those who know those two places in Regina). So lots of games and rides to play on as well as those blow-up castles and slides. Those are what our kids like the best, to jump and slide down, it sure lets them wear off their exorbitant amounts of energy that they have. And it’s a good place for us as well because we can check our email while they are playing. While there we were able to stop by Coral (another grocery/all-in-one store) and picked up some heaters. Yes I know, it’s crazy but the mountains is not all that warm at night. Especially when you live in concrete buildings and have tiled floors. So when it gets to be about 5 or 6 degrees out at night it gets a little chilly in the house. Let me just say how much my toes love me now!

While the kids were taking their naps, Travis headed back to CEDI to meet with some girls who have been studying Portuguese. They were having a test in a few days and wanted to make sure that they were speaking it well enough as it was an oral test. When he got back Travis told me how he was struggling to help them enough since he’d already started switching to Spanish in his mind. So he offered me to help the next day. Yeah a great way to confuse my mind too!

Two Hour Lunch!

After almost being here a week we decided to take a little walk through our neighbourhood. Travis had already been doing a bunch of exploring but he wanted us to see everything too. It was neat to see how close we live to a grocery store we went to when we came in November 2009 and how close we are to Bolo and Jenny’s home. It was neat to see how many little stores there are, how close it is to walk to the soccer stadium and to the two main malls. There are so many stores to buy bread and the main things for your house as well as many little restaurants or barbeque places (they specialize in cuy which is guinea pig).

After our walk we went downtown to explore some more, found a good little restaurant to eat at and looked at a bunch of stores that sell appliances. We found one that seems to be able to provide us everything we may need at a great price. There are lots of things to find downtown but we have to make sure that we don’t go between 1 and 3 when most of the stores still close for lunch. Can you imagine what that would be like if we did that in Canada? Two hours for lunch for everyone? It is nice because that means a lot of families have time to eat lunch together!

That evening we went to the other mall that, get this, has a KFC. Although that might be a good thing in the months to come having a familiar restaurant, we didn’t actually eat there but let the kids play on their play structure and looked to see what there was in this mall. Afterwards we took a little walk to a taco place, it actually makes pretty decent Mexican food which is nice to see we have more options then the rice, beans and meat that is usually served at every place. And this happens not to be far from our place right now either. Which is good seeing that we don’t have much stuff right now to make a lot of food from the house. Hopefully in the next while we can find a more permanent house to live in and start setting up the things we need in order to do just that. 

Rain and a Spider!

Monday brought with it a huge rainfall. So the river that is just outside our temporary apartment was rushing by and overflowing it’s sides, in fact the day earlier the kids had stood throwing rocks into the river that was at least three feet down and now it’s up past where they were standing. It is crazy how much rain can affect the rivers but when you live in the mountains that is the only way for it to come down from the top. The benefit of the rain is that it helps power the city as they use hydro power from the rivers to keep the city with energy.

As it wasn’t a great day to be outside playing so we decided to check out a few stores for furniture and other essentials for our new home once we move in. One of the places we heard of before coming here from a blog of a couple from Nova Scotia that are now living here is a place called Su Kasa, it’s a more like a store you can find in Canada.  It has more of the brands that we are familiar with and the types of home things that we recognize but also with that comes higher prices, so although it was great to go look at that store, we most likely won’t be buying from there.

After that store we stopped at a little cafe for lunch and the four of us ate for $5 u.s. dollars a large meal. In a lot of ways things here can be cheaper, I really don’t know anywhere in Canada that four of us can eat a meal for $5, well except at Little Caesars pizza which had just opened up in Regina before we left.

Afterwards we went to the grocery store called Super Maxi and found that they had an excellent selection of foods, including many foods that we are accustomed to in Canada for not much more then the prices we would usually pay for. Some of those things were pancake mixes and syrup, Kraft dinner and Travis’ favourite Mexican foods. We picked up some of the essentials and some things just to try and headed home for the kids to take a nap. During the kids naps, Travis has usually taken walks around the neighbourhood to scope out the things that our near us.

After their naps we took a walk to the mall for supper and as we walked by one place I happened to walk through a spider web, I didn’t really think much about it until we were at the mall and I felt a sharp pain on my neck, where a spider who had gotten stuck between my jacket and neck decided to take a bite out of me. Of course being in a foreign country where I know they have poisonous spiders I was concerned about the kind of spider that had bit me. I mean first Calen gets hurt and then I am bitten by a spider. Luckily I was able to see the spider and identify what it looked like but decided that in 15-30 minutes if something started changing or I was feeling funny, that we would head to the doctors right away. Fortunately many spiders that live near people are not actually dangerous and only have a sharp bite as was the case with my spider bite because after 10 minutes I didn’t feel anything anymore and the bite was starting to disappear. Needless to say, I now will check myself over the next time I walk through a spider web. Which to those of you who want to come visit but now are extremely scared, don’t worry, there are not many spider webs out there and even less spiders. In fact I have only seen two, the one that bit me and the daddy long-legs that I saw in the shower and drowned. Otherwise, we are spider free and insect free. Which I can say I saw way more of those types of things when I lived in Brazil, so Ecuador definitely has a plus in that area.

Sunday Services

The day after Calen’s accident was Sunday services with the church congregation that has been here for many years and whom Travis knows quite a few people. With Calen still feeling groggy because of his head, he and I stayed home and tried to do as little as possible just to give him more time to heal. Travis and Ceara went ahead to classes and services where Travis was able to reconnect with friends of the past, to see the growth of the congregation and Ceara was able to start making some friends. Once they came home we went to the new mall here to eat some lunch and try to use the internet. It so far has been the only time to be able to use the internet and to inform you all of the things that have been happening here. Unfortunately we get kicked off every 30 minutes so there is not much time to do much of anything given the speed of the internet service. So please bear with us as we work to get things on our blog and until we get better internet service. Afterwards Travis took Calen to the little store by our house to get some stuff for the house. The people there were so excited to see him and know that we were going to be living here and that soon he would be speaking Spanish like them. The kids definitely allow for lots of time to communicate with others as people are curious about our kids. It’s been a great thing being able to meet with new people, please keep praying for the people that we will continue to meet.

Anshy and Chicho's Wedding! July 9th

To our surprise July 9th brought the wedding of our teammate's daughter Anshy. We had originally thought that it was on the 10th but were surprised when Bolo told us to be ready by 11am for the wedding that day.After getting ready for the wedding we took a 15 minute taxi ride out to a farm where the wedding was held. It was great being able to spend the day celebrating with our teammates family. Of course our kids seeing all of the farm things wanted to play rather then watch the wedding but there was lots of space for them to play without interrupting anything.

It was a beautiful wedding and we got to meet many people from the church and from Bolo and Jenny's family who came for the wedding. One of the great thing we were privileged to be a part of after just arriving in the city. The reception after the wedding was fun as well, the kids got to be at the kids table and were fed chicken nuggets and fries instead of the adult food and given coloring things and then all of them went to play on the playground. After awhile the girls all pretended they were getting married under the tent that Anshy and Chicho had just gotten married in and the boys found a soccer ball to play with. Calen is pretty talented at soccer and was the youngest boy by about 7 years and still could get the ball away from the older boys. After awhile the boys didn't want to play with him any more but Calen didn't seem to notice. The kids had lots of fun and so did we as we were able to talk with the adults without having to worry much about the kids.

As we were leaving, Travis went to get Bolo to call us a taxi and I took the kids to the front of the farm to wait. They had a very old tractor as a decoration there and the kids were pretending to drive it while we waited. At one point Calen climbed up further to look into the holes and pull out rocks that had been put in them. As he was getting back down he moved his foot and lost his balance and fell. I saw him falling but couldn't catch him as he went down the other side to where I was standing. Unfortunately his head hit a rock wall on his way down and caused a large gash in his head. He was bleeding lots so I couldn't tell how bad it was, although at the moment it seemed really bad as there was so much blood. A lady came to help me and took Calen and I to a room away from the wedding crowd and Ceara ran to get Travis. I of course was freaking out at that point and couldn't really get across what happened very well. Finally there happened to be a pediatrician who came to look at Calen's head and said everything was okay and that it was just a large surface wound that needed stitches and that the bleeding had already stopped. So Travis and I with Bolo and Jenny went back into the city to a emergency clinic and got Calen's head stitched up while Ceara stayed with the youngest of Bolo's daughters so that she didn't have to see and worry about Calen. Bolo and Jenny went back to the wedding and a few hours later Ceara came back to the apartment where Travis, Calen and I had just gotten back from getting his stitches. Calen is doing well now and you can't really tell anymore that anything had happened unless you know where on his head he hit the wall. We go back to the doctors on Saturday to get the stitches removed. Calen's healing well but definitely gave me a scare. What a thing to have to worry about on the second day in the city that is going to be your home. But the doctor was great and we saw someone right away. It will just take me more time to recover from it because as a Mom you hope to protect your kids from things like that and I was standing right there and couldn't catch him. But maybe that is just a reminder that God is ultimately in control and no matter what God will be the one watching over us! So please keep our family in your prayers as we let God be the one who is in control of our lives and that we allow Him to shape us and mold us as we share our lives in Him with others here in Cuenca.

July 8th

Here is the family minus Travis who is taking the picture, just outside of the temporary apartment that we have here in Cuenca. After sleeping in the day after we arrived we decided to get out in order to get a few essentials that the apartment didn't come with such as food, towels, toilet paper and some good pillows. It is pretty easy to find a taxi as we live right across the street from one of the main rivers in the city. Of course we had to check it out and the kids love the river but they have to be very careful as it is very fast and dangerous. After a quick walk around to see the stores that are around we went to one of the new malls in the city to see if we could get some of the essentials. While there the kids tried out the train that takes a tour of the bottom level of the mall and enjoyed watching the kids play on a large trampoline. After getting some essentials we headed back to our apartment. Deciding that it would be fun to eat somewhere we took a little walk to our neighborhood to find some sort of restaurant and found a pizza place so we got a giant pizza not realizing how big it would really be, but extremely delicious. There are definitely a lot of good little places near us that serve some good food and for very cheap. It was a great day to get to know what there is near us and to start getting some of the essentials for our home in Cuenca.

A New Beginning- July 7th

Well after two days of travel we finally made it to Cuenca, Ecuador. In fact we even made it with all of our luggage, all 8 of them. When does that ever happen? And only two of them were opened to be inspected and we think only a pair of my shoes and some makeup is missing. At least I hope that is all, it's so hard to remember what we actually ended up packing in the suitcases and what we had packed in boxes and shipped. Fortunately everything that was electronic or more expensive here actually arrived in the suitcases, even from those that had been opened. The kids were really good despite the lack of sleep and having to go from plane to plane, only a few minor breakdowns during the entire trip. And for us that was the best part, knowing that our kids can adjust well despite all the changes.
While in Quito waiting for the last 40 minute flight to Cuenca, we decided that we had time to register our visas with the government here which we have to do in the first 30 days of arriving. We took a taxi, which charged us more then we should have been charged to the government office and realized that we had made it ten minutes late to be seen at this office: 2:10pm! Who closes a government office at 2pm? After a few moments of talking with the people outside the office we were finally seen and told that we had to do some paperwork before we could finalize our registration and with the time that we needed to get to the airport for our flight, it was impossible. So we used the last hour to find a place to eat and get away from the airport for a bit. Unfortunately this means in the next few weeks we will have to go back to Quito in order to register but at least this time we will have all the paperwork that we need to get it done quickly. And have to make sure that we get there before the 2pm deadline!
Once we got back to the airport we ended up taking all our luggage and so on to the counter and waited for over an hour to send in our luggage because of a mix-up with some other flight. That was hard for the kids because there was absolutely nothing to do that entire time, and our flight got delayed so we really didn't get to Cuenca till late and by that time I was exhausted as I slept very little the whole trip. When we arrived in Cuenca, our team mate Bolo came to pick us up and his wife Jenny, they took us to an apartment by one of the main rivers in the city and told us that they had been able to rent it for the month with all the furniture until we can find something that suits us better. It was great to be able to relax and put our things away (even for a few weeks) until we find something else. It is nice not having to be in a hotel like we had to when we moved to Brazil, especially since there is more space for the kids to play around and we get to save money for other things. But that is not the end of our day, as I would have enjoyed it to be as there was a Let's Start Talking final party that was already in progress as we dropped off our stuff. So off we went to the school where the LST party was happening. The kids thought it was lots of fun even though they were not able to communicate with the kids that were there, but they made it work. And of course the cake and treats were great for them too. Travis and I were able to meet with the Americans that have been hosting the LST here for the last 30 days and meet a lot of the people that they read with. As well we were able to meet a few people that we had seen on our survey trip in November of 2009. Travis' Spanish came back really quick and he's been able to communicate very well with everyone. I am of course having a harder time but the Portuguese that I know has definitely helped me to understand a lot. The kids still will only say a few words here and there but once they are in school, I know they will have no problem. It was a long night but definitely worth going to the party as now Travis and I will continue to work with a lot of the people from LST and hopefully some of them will come to know God. So a great start to a new life here in Cuenca, Ecuador. Please be in prayer for those people we met that night!