Ecuador Day 14: Mitad del Mundo (again), and the Second Day of Classes

Today, we got to spend the morning going to Mitad del Mundo. The reason for going is that Cindy had some shopping she wanted to do, and there's a paila shop there I wanted to visit again. It was a win-win situation in my book. I was really only tagging along for the paila, but I figured that it would be fun to look around in some of the stores I hadn't gone to on my last visit. One store had a really great winter hat that's ridiculously long. I thought it was pretty fantastic, and the shop owner came down to $4.00 so I figured it was worth it. We looked around in several other shops and the only thing that really caught my eye was a three foot tall llama made out of real llama. It was really soft and awesome. I figured that it might fit in my suitcase and I could name it Rowdy. Then I realized that it had to be at least $200, or probably more. That nixed that idea.

We then stopped at a restaurant there to get really fantastic empanadas as a snack. The bonus is that there's a music store next door to it so I popped in there while we were waiting on our food. I realize that I have very little willpower in a music store, but I did want to see what they had. I was thrilled to see that there was nothing there that I really wanted. The reason is that I already own most of the instruments they were selling. It also made me realize just how many I've purchased on previous trips.

After empanadas, Karen and Cindy went to try to find blankets in the size Cindy really wanted. Jon and I went over to the monument to get my picture in front of it "holding" the ball that's on top. We kept hoping that Elvira and her husband would open up their shop before we left. As luck would have it, they were just opening their shop when we headed over to the paila shop. We went in and thankfully they had blankets in the size Cindy had wanted. As it turns out, they are the only shop there who still carries the smaller ones. I realized at this point how little willpower I really have. They offered the blankets at such a good price that I got one. Then Jon pointed out the really cool ponchos that they are now selling. They’re made out of llama fur and are really soft. I ended up having to get one too. Then Karen found another awesome hat that they offered to sell me for a mere $2.50. You can't say no to a deal like that. At least I can't… Thankfully I got out of there without too much damage to my wallet.

Me at the Mitad del Mundo monument

We grabbed some paila and then headed to the house to chill for a little bit before seminary later in the day. There was even enough time for me to take a short nap before heading off to teach.

I planned to spend the next two days talking about Islam. This is not something I had planned to teach on, but Jon said that Islam is starting to be talked about some in Ecuador and it would be helpful for the students to be aware of the basic beliefs and practices of Islam. I had planned to spend the lecture talking about the history of Islam saving the major beliefs and the 5 Pillars for tomorrow. I once again underestimated how quickly we could go through several pages of notes.

After talking about the history of Islam, we still had 20 minutes left. Yikes! I was still finishing up my material for tomorrow, but I had already had my notes for the 5 pillars of Islam. We spent the rest of the time talking about those. As we were talking about the daily prayers and the Hajj, it occurred to me that most of the students have never seen any pictures or videos of either of these. I asked them if they'd like me to try to find a video for tomorrow of Muslims praying. They said the would, so I hunted down a video clip later in the evening. Hopefully it will go over well.

Instead of sitting in on Cindy's class, I spent the rest of the evening in the library working on my material for the rest of the week. While I had a good idea of what I was going to talk about for the basic beliefs in Islam, I hadn't finished putting it together yet. Before I'm called a slacker, which I know I am at times, I didn't know I would be teaching on it until I'd been here several days. So really, I'd only been procrastinating for a few days. I prefer to call it ruminating…

After classes were done for the day, we headed back to the house to eat supper, prepare for the next day, and most importantly go to bed. Seminary week is much more tiring than I had expected. On the plus side, we'll get to sleep in tomorrow because we can't go anywhere until at least 9:30 because of Pico y Placa. This is something that has been started by the government in the past few months. One day a week, you cannot drive into the city 7:30-9:30AM and 4:30-7:30PM. This is based upon the last digit of your license, and serves to reduce the number of personal vehicles driving in Quito during rush hour by 20%. While annoying at times, it really does make traffic lighter during rush hour. The worse thing about it is that the paila shop near the house closes at 7:30, which means no paila on Wednesdays. As it would so happen, the day I most want paila on seems to be Wednesdays. At least I got some at Mitad today!

Ecuador Day 13: The First Day of Seminary

The first day of class started with me getting up at 10:00. My logic was that I needed to be well rested for the day. Staying up late might be part of it too. I spent the morning going through my notes and adding some material I had been planning on tossing in for my lecture the next day. Jon and Karen got home in time for lunch. They had spent the morning matriculating more students at the Seminary, buying more books for some of the classes, and shopping for sugar.

The government has decided that since sugar is produced in Ecuador, no imported sugar will be allowed. The amazing thing is that so much sugar is being produced here, people are only allowed to buy two bags of sugar at a time. Granted, these two bags can be 1 pound bags, 2.5 pound bags, or 4.5 pound bags. But you can only buy two of them. This is a problem because Rosario, who is cooking for the seminary, had figured up that she needed about 50 pounds of sugar. Karen's plan was to go see how much sugar she could buy at the grocery store she goes to when she buys food for the food program. She figured that if they wouldn't let her buy enough, us four gringos would just go through the line, each get two bags, put them in the car, and then go through the line again. Thankfully, one of the managers at the store greeted her warmly and instructed a staff member to get her more sugar than she thought she'd need. The seminary won't need sugar for quite a while. I just hope the manager doesn't get in trouble for selling her so much.

After lunch, we headed up to the seminary to set up the projector in the classroom. They had some many students sign up that we realized that there would be 38 students in my class. We started rearranging desks, adding chairs, and bringing in more tables so that we could fit all of the students. We figured that if there were that many students for my class, we'd need room for at least 50 students for Cindy's class.

I expected to be really nervous about teaching, but I actually felt pretty confidant about it. This was a surprise because I'd been pretty nervous for several weeks. Class started with Jon introducing me since many in the class had not been able to be here the night before. We then sang a song that I didn't know, and then prayed. Then it was time for lecture.

The first religion I wanted to cover was Mormonism. The reason for teaching on Mormonism is that it is growing very quickly here. As we started discussing it, I found out that several people in the class have Mormon neighbors here in Quito. I had expected to only get through the history of the religion and maybe a few of the beliefs. After all, teaching through a translator takes at least twice as much time. I was in for a surprise, we flew through everything in just over an hour. This included taking questions from the class and assigning some homework. This was cause for some concern. Material I expected to take almost two full lectures only took one. The plus side to this is that we can cover more material than I had initially expected.

The rest of the day was spent eating supper and then sitting in Cindy's class on communication. Her class runs 5-8:30, which is a pretty long stretch. We ended up having quite a few students from UCL come to the class. UCL is the only Evangelical seminary in the country that is recognized by the government. SETE (our seminary) is working on partnering with them so that we can offer some classes that will count towards a college theology degree for our pastors. Students from UCL were told that they could attend some of the classes here to get extra credit for their studies at UCL.

A student from UCL helps Jon demonstrate an exercise in Cindy's class

We expected only a couple of students to come. We were surprised when nearly 10 students showed up. That means Cyndi has one very full class. It's just about standing room only.

Two students doing a communication exercise

To demonstrate how difficult communication can be, Cindy had students pair up and do an exercise.

Two other students working on the exercise

Because it required talking, she had students spread out all over the building. This struck me as a good opportunity to walk around and get pictures of them working together. I headed up to the top floor to watch the students, and was treated to a beautiful view of Cotopaxi as the sun was setting down. I ran downstairs to grab a longer lens and snap some pictures. I suspect this is the best view of Cotopaxi I'll have all trip.

Cotopaxi as seen from the roof of the seminary

After the classes were finished, we took Jenny (who is translating for Cindy) to catch a bus, and started to head home. We were bemoaning the fact that the paila shop was already closed when the Lamberts pointed out a restaurant that has really great chocolate cake. We got it to go and enjoyed cake with Danny back at the house. It was a great way to end our first day teaching at the Seminary. There's only four days to go!

Ecuador Day 12: Church at Zabala and the Start of Seminary

Getting up early for church was certainly worth the effort! I had forgotten what a hugging and kissing church Zabala is. Everyone is greeted with hugs and kisses from their brothers and sisters. One young girl asked Jon if I was a pastor from the U.S. When he said I kind of was, her comment was that I must not know Spanish then. She went on to say the only languages I probably knew were English and Chinese. I was kind of hurt because I also happen to speak Pig Latin pretty well. At least I think so…

Jenny led worship, and did a wonderful job of it. Granted, I didn't always know what was being sung, but I knew we were worshiping! As Cindy put it, we might not understand Spanish, but we knew what Jenny was saying! When we got to the preaching part of the service, I was in for a surprise. Marta talked about her journey to Zabala, and what it had come to mean to her. She then invited several different people up to talk about how they came to Zabala and how it had impacted their lives. Marta also called Jon and Karen forward to share about their history with Zabala. Many people there did not know that Jon and Karen had helped build the original church building not only before there was a congregation there, but also before they were missionaries here.

We also saw some pictures of what had taken place in the life of the church in the past year. We saw pictures of a big baptism service that had taken place earlier in the year. They made the celebration into a weekend trip for the whole church. It looked like a great time. The youth in the church also held VBS at several of our churches outside of the city. They went to Tonsupa for one of their VBS trips. Marta said that it went so well that people in the community begged them to stay an extra week, which they did. They worked with about 70 children, many of whom do not go to that church. I'll admit that I kind of wish I could have gone with them. One reason for that, though, is that Paula and Kati are fantastic cooks. The food looked awesome! I'll admit, I really like food. But the VBS looked awesome too.

Marta also went to Amazonas. Amazonas is a church that is south of Quito and is (as the name implies) in the Amazon jungle. The church building is so cute! It was interesting to listen to Jon and Karen's comments about the church because they've never been able to visit it. They were seeing parts of it and members of the church that they have never seen before. Part way through the slide show, Marta cut it off and told us that there were some sisters working hard upstairs to prepare some finger foods for the celebration who would like to see the pictures as well. With that said, we all headed upstairs.

We all got upstairs to find Jenny finishing up a lesson with the younger children. They seemed to be having fun. There were benches around the perimeter of the room with the children's chairs in the center.

Some of the kids at Zabala

There were some tables across the front that had snacks and three cakes on them. Karen, Cindy, and I made it upstairs ahead of Jon. We tried to go sit in the back and we were quickly informed that we had to sit behind the tables at the front of the room. We were not fans of this idea, but we weren't given an option. Jon managed to sneak in and grab a seat towards the back. Then they brought the projector and computer upstairs and decided the best place to show the rest of the pictures would be at the front of the room. Since they wanted us to be able to see them, they moved us to the back. This seemed like a much better option. Or it did until they moved the tables to the back. Not only were they moved to the back, but they were placed directly in front of us again.

I was pretty excited about the snacks on the table, but then they started bringing out potato cakes. They had cooked enough for everyone in the church to have them. Even better, they had some awesome ají to put on them.

Yum! Ají!

The potato cakes had beef and vegetables in the center. They were the best ones I'd ever had. Someone also brought out a plate with several more and put them on the table in front of us. Karen told me that we might as well eat them because they wouldn’t let anyone else have them. They were for us. Well, I felt bad about it, but I figured it would be bad to let them go to waste. They also had lemonade for everyone, but they brought us a big bottle of Coke. I asked Karen about it, and she said that many work campers won't drink the lemonade in case it's unsafe to drink. I figured I'd go for the lemonade anyway because I've never had something at that church that has made me sick. They are very careful to only serve food and drinks that are safe for us.

Karen cuts the cakes

The anniversary celebration lasted for about an hour, and we didn't leave church until about noon. We headed back to the house to eat lunch, but I wasn't the least bit hungry after eating at Zabala. We knew we'd have to leave for the Seminary in a few hours to get stuff ready, attend a worship service, and matriculate students. I took them time to take a nap. After all, it's Sunday afternoon, which I think is the best time to take a nap.

Little sisters: annoying brothers all over the world

Later in the day, we mosied over to the Seminary to get everything ready to matriculate students and give them their books and other necessary items. We did that for a little while and then headed next door for the worship service. Some of the young adults at Comite led us in praise and worship and then Jon shared about changes happening in the country that are changing the way Seminary is going to have to be structured in the future.

Part of the praise band

He then preached about the importance of getting education to prepare ourselves for ministry. After the sermon, he introduced those of us who would be teaching class. Manuel, the pastor of Comite is teaching a class on evangelism in the morning, I am teaching a class on other religions in the afternoon, and Cindy is teaching classes in the even on communication, conflict resolution, and addictions. Jon prayed for us, and then it was back to the seminary to matriculate students.

I was surprised at the age of many of the students. For a student to attend they must be at least 15, be actively serving in a church, and have the signature of their pastor. Many of the students are teenagers. The youngest is actually 14, but she's one of the most mature students here. Almost every student who signed up tonight are teenagers. We were told that there would be more students registering the next evening just for Cindy's classes at night. The reason for this is that they have to work during the day, but they are available to take classes in the evening. This is one of the first times, if not the first time, that there have been night classes. The hope is that they will be popular with those who work during the day but could attend at night if classes are offered.

After we finished up at the Seminary, we headed back to the house to get a bit of food and start thinking about bed. Because my class isn't until 2:45, Cindy and I don't have to be at the Seminary until around 2:00. This means sleeping in and study are both called for in the morning.

Ecuador Day 11: Meeting and More Shoes

The past few days have been very busy. Saturday started off with the National Committee meeting at their office at the seminary. It was great to meet many of the pastors. Some of them I'd only met once or twice several years ago, and some of them I'd never even seen before. The Lamberts translated for us some, and I was able to pick up enough on my own to at least have an idea of what was going on. It was a meeting though, which means it can only stay interesting for so long.

We had planned to go back to the house to grab some food before picking up the shoes for Hands 4 Ecuador's Happy Feet program, but the National Committee had other plans. They decided to treat everyone at the meeting to lunch down the street. I'm still not sure where the money came from, but the food was very good. We went to a small restaurant that is close to the Seminary. The food was roast chicken, rice with beans (can't remember what the dish is called), french fries, and cole slaw. It was a neat experience. I'd wanted to eat at a place like that for quite a while, so it was nice to finally do that.

With lunch out of the way, we headed off to the shoe store to pick up 300 pairs of shoes. Mariano went with us to help us load and unload them as well as get a truck for us. I would say that it took longer than I expected to get the shoes, but that would be a lie. At this point, I'm getting pretty used to the concept of Ecuadorian time. While we were waiting, we found some more shoes on sail, so Karen and Cindy picked out another 14 pairs of shoes bringing the total to, I think, 344 pairs. One interesting thing we noted was that the price tag on last years shoes were $26. The same shoes this year cost $36. That's a huge increase in just one year! Because of the increased price of shoes, school has just gotten much more expensive for families, and it makes it much harder for many families to send their kids to school.

The best part of dropping the shoes off at the Seminary was that we planned to get paila afterward. Have I mentioned how much I love paila? It's pretty awesome stuff!

Jon and Cindy showing off their paila

We took Mariano with us to help thank him for all of his hard work. He said he'd only had paila once while he was in the military. I think he's as big a fan of it as I am!

Mariano and his delicious paila

We spent the rest of the day at the house working on our lessons for seminary and just relaxing a little bit. We knew that Sunday would be a long day. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we didn't need to go to Ofelia for church so we discussed where we'd like to go. We decided on Zabala once we realized that it would be their anniversary celebration. The downside was that the service starts at 8:30 so we'd need to leave by 8:00. Oh well, I figured it'd be worth it.

Ecuador Days 8, 9, and 10: Shoes, Seminary, and Ceviche

It's been several days since I posted partly because we've been somewhat busy, but I haven't had a great deal to post. Part of the reason for this is that a family that is moving from Quito to Orlando stayed with us for several days. The husband is from Ecuador and the wife is from Illinois. Their kids, while American citizens, have grown up in Quito and are essentially Ecuadorian. They owned a hair salon here catering mainly to Americans. As Americans have left the country due to the government here being less friendly to Americans and American business, their business has declined. Because of this, they've felt that moving back to the United States is a better option for them and their family. It's been interesting seeing the family saying their goodbyes to friends and family here while preparing to transition to life in another country. Their kids were asking me lots of questions about what it's like to live in America and what Orlando is like. While they've travel to the US some to visit family, they've never spent a significant amount of time there. To make matters even tougher, they are not Christians. They Lamberts have spent years developing a relationship with them, but they have not been terribly open to Christ. My prayers go out for them during this time of transition that they not only find Christ, but that they find a place to settle and jobs.

Their last night here, we all went to a restaurant called La Ronda. La Ronda is a restaurant that serves traditional Ecuadorian food. Fritada is one of their specialties as well as a very traditional Ecuadorian dish. I decided to order that and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Fritada is a dish that is made of pork that has been boiled and then fried. It was served with fried bananas, a type of corn cake, and hominy. I've had hominy multiple times, and have never been a fan until this time. It was pretty fantastic. My only complaint about it was that it had quite a bit of cilantro on it and I'm not the biggest fan of cilantro. Over all though, I was a big fan of the food. I would eat there again in a heartbeat!

The best part of the restaurant was the live music. They had a group of six men who went table to table playing traditional Andean music. They were all dressed in matching ponchos and hats, and played quite a variety of instruments. They had guys playing quenas, pan flutes, guitars, drums, and even a charango. One of the guys who played the charango played it the fastest I've ever seen. It was truly impressive. They were not the only life music though. There was also a group of three guys who played Spanish guitar and sang ballads. They were quite excellent as well. It was a truly enjoyable experience.

The next day (Wednesday) after the families departure to the airport, we headed out to run errands. Our first stop was at a shoe store to price out school shoes. Hands for Ecuador has been raising the money to buy school shoes for children in the churches here. They had hoped to raise enough money to buy 220 pairs of shoes. Cindy called a couple of days before to tell us that they had managed to raise more than $5,300. With this number in mind, we set off to see how many shoes could be bought with this money and to put a deposit down. After picking out styles for both younger and older boys and girls as well as sizes, one of the salespeople set off to see how much 200 pairs would cost. He came back 15-20 minutes later with the quote, and we realized we could buy at least another hundred pairs. The salesman went off and came back a few minutes later with his total. 305 pairs of shoes came out to just under $5000. This meant that we still had $300 left to spend. While he had been putting together the quote, we had been looking around the shoe store and found some really awesome shoes that looked like Chuck Taylors and had dinosaurs all over them. I'm still kind of wanting them… Anywho, we also found a clearance rack with some shoes from last year. All of them were 50% off. Karen told the guy to get us every pair he could find as long as the total was under $300. Several minutes later, we were walking to the register with another 30 pairs of school shoes, the most expensive of which was $10. Keep in mind that all of these shoes are made of leather and are pretty good quality. Karen paid for the shoes and then put down a deposit on the rest of the shoes. The salesman seemed pretty excited for his sale and event through in 200 plastic rulers with the Bunky logo (the shoe manufacture) on them. We'll had back tomorrow to pick up the other 305 pairs of shoes.

After that, we grabbed lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then headed to the Seminary so Jon could attend a short meeting. While he did that, I helped Karen go through all of the Children of Promise files to look up the birth dates of all of the children in the program. I enjoyed getting to see all of their pictures and hearing about some of them. Some of them, like the kids at Meridiano, have grown up a great deal since I last saw them nearly 8 years ago. It was also a good time to learn more at the Children of Promise program. I didn't realize just how little I knew about it.

After Jon's meeting, we headed back to the house. They worked in the office some and I studied some for my upcoming classes. I might have read a little bit of Harry Potter as well. Ok, I read a little bit of Harry Potter. After Danny got home from working at the hospital, we had supper. As we were finishing up, Jon was commenting about how nice it would be to have some paila for dessert. Sadly, there was no place to get paila nearby, or so we thought. Danny told us there was a place only a few minutes away that looked pretty good. That was enough for us. We grabbed our shoes, jumped in the car, and were off with Danny at the wheel. As we got there, the owners were just leaving the shop and were in the process of locking the doors. We inquired about their hours, and it turns out they close at 7:30 and we had gotten there at 7:35. They then told us we'd be welcome to still come in and get some if we'd like. They had a ton of flavors to pick from. I ended up getting a scoop of taxo and a scoop of guanábana served in a tulipan. A tulipan is an edible ice cream bowl that looks a little bit like a tulip. All I can say about the paila was that it was absolutely delicious. It wasn't as pretty as the one I had at Mitad del Mundo, and didn't have all of the extras on it, but it didn't need it. I suspect I will be getting paila there at least another couple of times before I leave Ecuador.

On Thursday, Jon and I started off the morning by heading to the Seminary to drop a hand truck off so that Mariano could go get the gas cylinders filled for the kitchen at the seminary. Mariano is the man who was stabbed, thrown off a cliff, and left to die several years ago. I've only met him briefly before now. Our next stop was Mega Kywi. Mega Kywi is the largest hardware store in the city. It may be the largest in the country (Jon isn't sure if the one in Guayaquil is bigger).

Mega Kywi is a lot like a Home Depot or a Lowes. They have just about everything you could need ranging from desk to plants to mowers to hardware. The biggest difference between Mega Kywi and hardware stores in the US is the prices. Many items such as lawnmowers are much more expensive here than they are at home. Karen pointed out to me later that while the prices may be significantly higher, at least you can get all of these things now. In the past, it was almost impossible to get much of what Mega Kywi carries. On the way back to the car, we stopped by a little stand that had really great vanilla cake donuts. Jon knows of all the best food places around!

After our trip to the store, we headed back to the Seminary to drop stuff off. We had purchased a desk and a file cabinet for the office, so we left those with Mariano to put together. Then we headed home for lunch, and what a lunch it was! Karen had cooked ceviche for lunch. Ceviche is a traditional Ecuadorian soup that is served cold. Karen made ceviche that was tomato based with shrimp and chochos in it. Chochos are a type of bean that you can only get here. It was very, very good.

After lunch, we headed back to the Seminary so that Jon could meet with some installers who are putting in internet at the Seminary. The internet they're getting is the cheapest available. It's 256K and cost $80/month! It's still cheaper than the other option which was a blazing 512K and cost a mere $175 a month. When the told me the cost of the more expensive one, I about fell over. That just seems like highway robbery to me.

Once we were done with the installers, we headed to Santa Clara to hit up the market to buy some pots and pans for the seminary. Some of the cooking utensils have a habit of walking off, and some larger pots and pans were needed so that the cooks can prepare food for more than 40 people. We went to three different shops to compare prices and ended up getting some stuff at each one. With that out of the way, we headed to Bosque, one of the malls in the area. We went to a computer store first to purchase an ethernet cable for the Seminary. I was expecting it to be really expensive, but a 10 foot cable was only $4. It turns out that the cable is imported, but is not considered a luxury item. Because of that, computer cables can be made here very cheaply. While Jon was buying the cable, Karen noticed a rack of jackets on sale for $10 a piece. She looked at all of them and mentioned that they'd make great Christmas presents for some of the older girls in Children of Promise. She ended up picking out 10 of them. It was fun helping play Santa for some of the kids. We're hoping to hit up the Christian bookstore soon to pick up presents for the rest of the children while the store still has some good stuff in. We then ate dinner at the food court in the mall.

We ate supper in front of some big windows that face out over part of Quito as well as the airport. As the sun went down, we noticed that one of the valleys out past the airport was positively glowing. Over the next 15 or so minutes, we watched the light creep up the side of the mountains. The light turned everything gold and it cast deep shadows helping to see the topography of the land. Sadly, the show was over pretty quickly. The sun sets and rises incredibly fast here on the equator. Once we were done eating, we wandered into a movie store for a few minutes. They sell DVDs for $2.50 each, and have tons of them. They also sell games for computers and many gaming systems (also for $2.50). You can guess where the DVDs come from. It seemed funny to me to see two such stores in one mall.

Once we were finished at the mall, we headed back to the house for the evening. I worked a little bit on stuff for my classes and then played on the computer some. We had hoped to get some paila, but were not able to make it to the shop before they were closed. Maybe next time…

Today, I've just hung around the house reading for school and for fun and worked on finishing up my lectures. I also did some laundry while I had the chance because life starts getting much busier tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the National Committee. We also need to run pick up the rest of the shoes, all 305 pairs of them. Sunday, we're going to church at Ofelia where Jon will preach both services. Then we have to go to the Seminary to register people for the week and then have a worship service for the seminary tomorrow night at Comite. Classes begin on Monday and run through the rest of the week. It's going to be an adventure!

Ecuador Day 5: Church at Ofelia

Yesterday, we went to church at Ofelia. Ofelia is pastored by Milton Vidal and his wife Lilly. Ofelia is a church of about 200, and they meet in a very small building. In fact the building is small enough that they now have two services on Sunday. During the sermon portion of the service, the children and youth all meet in Sunday School classes. Since there are two services, the Sunday School teachers teach twice on Sunday. Not only is the sanctuary small, but the only other room in there besides the bathroom is quite tiny. It's located behind the platform and the youngest children have Sunday School in there. The older children and youth meet either on the sidewalk or at one of the nearby houses. That's right, there's one class that has to meet on the sidewalk and street because there's not enough room anywhere else. It's incredible.

A young boy who's family is new to the church

Jon and Karen had told me that they were going to be baptizing some people at the end of the service, and that it would be quite a party. Because of the baptism, the church had decided to combine services for the day so everyone could come. I was wondering how crowded to be, but it was actually a lower attendance than I would have expected owing to the fact that it was a holiday weekend. It was still a big crowd though.

Pastor Milton greeted us as we walked into the church and Jon introduced me and explained why I was here. One of his first responses when he found out I speak virtually no Spanish is that I need to learn Spanish. This is becoming a constant refrain. I wish I'd been able to put in much more time to learning the language beyond what I already knew. I guess I know what I'll be doing when I get back. Not a day is going by that I wish I didn't know the language better. At least I can pick out important words like baño and queso!

One of the first things I noticed when I walked into the building was the large inflatable kiddy pool. Pastor Milton came up with the idea a while back. A bonus to it is that it allows them to do full immersion baptisms inside the building. Several of the kids seemed very interested in it. Who can blame them, I've always wanted to do a cannon ball into a baptistery.

Something else I noticed very quickly was the number of men there. There are typically not that many men in our other churches. Many of the pastors say that they can win the women to Christ, but the men will take a long time. Pastor Milton doesn't subscribe to this idea. He's not scared to go out after them, and it has been quite effective.

Pastor Milton standing during the service

I should also probably mention a little bit about Milton. His goal when he was younger was to be the leader of the most feared gang in Ecuador. He and his gang sold drugs and would go kill people for virtually anything. They particularly went after homosexuals and cab drivers for their money. He was caught, convicted of 14 murders, and sent to maximum security prison. He says that he has no idea how many people he killed or helped kill, but it was a large number. While in prison, he heard about a group of pretty women who would come to sing and share about Jesus. He went because of the pretty women. Through this he not only became saved, but he met his wife Lilly who was one of the women. He started leading others to Christ and was soon ministering to many in prison. A panel of 12 judges met to consider letting him out of prison early. Their vote had to be unanimous, and it was. He got out of prison and started to witness to other ex-cons. This is how the church started. Some of the men in the church today are ex-cons who came to know Christ either in prison or afterwards because of Pastor Milton. This man is fearless when it comes to witnessing. I'll talk more about it later.

The service started out with a beautiful prayer from Milton. At least that's how it seemed to me. I only caught words and phrases of it. It was certainly heartfelt though. Then the praise team kicked it off with a fairly rousing song. It's actually a praise and worship song I've sang in the States, but I don't remember the title off of the top of my head. They sang a couple of other songs were one's I've heard as well, but I didn't remember most of the lyrics. They also sang several songs I'd never heard before. For those, Karen would translate them for me so I had a good idea what was being sung. Even for the songs I didn't know, it was a very energetic and worshipful experience. The leader of the praise team was Lilly, Milton's wife.

Lilly, dressed in a green shirt, leading worship

There was a drummer from Haiti and two guys playing guitars—one acoustic and one electric. There were several other singers as well. Most of the songs were about the power of God. They talked about how He has been victorious over Satan and how we need not fear with God on our side. They also talked about how God knows our needs and sees our fears, and how He will continue to care for us. These are a poor summary of the main themes, but it gives a good idea.

During the singing part of the service, and elderly couple came in and sat beside me. The woman was very short and had trouble walking, and the man had hearing aids and seemed to get around a bit better. Karen leaned over to me and explained that they are 87 years old, and newlyweds who have been married for about a year. They live in the area, and had never gotten married. The reason for this is that to be married in a church is very expensive because tradition means that you have to have a large dinner for the families and the church. When the church found out about them, they went and witnessed to them and got them saved and coming to church. Then they raised the money so that they could have a wedding. Different people cooked food, made the wedding cake, and even bought the blushing bride a dress. Karen said it was a beautiful sight and that they were so cute during the wedding. I tried to get a picture of them together, but they switched places before I could snap one. Consequently, you can mainly see the husband. The little bit of gray hair in the background is his bride.


After a fairly lengthy praise time (which left me exhausted!), we moved to the sermon. As the children were heading to Sunday School, I realized just how many were there. There were far more than I had realized. Pastor Milton preached a dynamic sermon that covered quite a bit of ground. He talked about the power of God, and how with God nothing is impossible. A major prayer of his is to find some property where a larger church can be built so they can have more room to grow. He was praying for a building large enough for 500. Then he said God told him, "Why not 1000, or 12000!." I hear this from some pastors and just shake my head. With Pastor Milton, however, I was right behind him. I can believe it. He also said it's ridiculous that thousands will gather to hear a foreigner share about Jesus. He pointed out that everyone should be willing to witness and support their brothers and sisters. There's no reason thousands cant be lead to Christ by other Ecuadorians.

As an example of this, he talked about how he recently was able to preach to 80 people who were not Christians. I was wondering how this came about. It turns out the Lamberts wondered too, so they asked him after the service. He said that a woman in the church who lost her husband a year ago was approached by the husband's family about having a Mass for him on the anniversary of his death. His entire family is Catholic, but she and her husband are Christian. She didn't like this idea, so she talked to Pastor Milton about it. He suggested that they have a service at the church instead. She was not terribly enthusiastic about the idea at first, but she agreed in the end. They gathered pictures of her husband, and they put together a PowerPoint presentation of lots of pictures of him. They started the service with that to get everyone nice and emotional. Once that was over with, Pastor Milton started preaching to them. When he asked if there was anyone who didn't know Christ but wanted to, several raised their hand. Talk about being creative! None of these 80 had ever set foot in an Evangelical church before, and here they were listening to a sermon! This is a congregation that is certainly growing!

Danny, a four year old boy who was in Karen's VBS class

After the sermon on Sunday, we transitioned to the baptisms. Just 2-3 months ago, they baptized 11 people. The fact that they were having more people wanting to be baptized was quite exciting. Most churches here will wait for Jon and Karen to be available for them to do something like a baptism. This is not the case at Ofelia. They plan the service and notify the Lamberts that it will be taking place. They're welcome to come, but it's going to happen whether they can be there or not. Pastor Milton is willing to take initiative, and that's one of the reasons the church is growing so quickly.

Pastor Milton was particularly excited because they would be baptizing three couples. He's always excited to baptize a man or a couple because it means the men are making a major change in their life. Many men here treat their wives terribly. This is not acceptable for men in the church and it means that the family will be far better for it. Additionally, everyone who is baptized must take classes first. This is because virtually none of them have grown up in the church, and they don't fully understand the meaning of baptism. The also must be able to write and verbally give their testimony before they are baptized. They share their testimony in front of the congregation just before they are baptized.



Before the baptisms started, Pastor Milton prayed for all of the couples. He then prayed for all of those whose spouses were not yet Christians and baptized praying that they would become saved soon. Then it was onto the baptisms. He invited Jon and Karen to come up to the front so that they could pray with each individual after the were baptized. This was the first time he did not ask Jon to assist him with the baptisms. Rather, he had another man in the church assist him. It was exciting to see him utilizing leadership in the church for such a joyous occasion.


They started with the couples. Each couple was brought forward and he introduced them. Then each one shared their testimony and was baptized. Just as Pastor Milton went to dunk them, the praise band kicked it into high gear and led the congregation in yet another rousing song. The convert stood there until the end of the song at which point they stepped out of the water and hugged Pastor Milton. They then went to the Lamberts to have them pray with them. This continued until all 11 had been baptized. It was a service that was vastly different from any other I'd been too. In the U.S., we tend to treat baptisms as a very reverent event. At Ofelia, it's treated as a celebration. While it was very different, I really enjoyed the enthusiasm of it.

Pastor Milton giving the benediction

By the time the service was over, it was 1:00 (we had started at 9), and I was exhausted! I feel like I had a major workout. As I was thinking about it later, I started to realize that this is how we should be. Not in form, but in spirit. Worship at Ofelia was a celebration. There was a joy in worshiping the Lord. It was not something that was done because they have to, but because they want to. And this is not the only service of the week. They meet together every morning from 6:30 to 8:30 to pray. There's services on, I think, Wednesday and Friday nights. Saturday is a night of prayer that starts at 7:30 and continues as long as they feel led. While the service starts at 7:30 on Saturday, Pastor Milton is there at 12:00 to meet with people for counseling. He's a busy man. I'm beginning to see why they need a new location to worship. The problem is that there is very little available there that would be big enough. Milton has found one piece of property that is nearly half of a block. Currently, there is an oil and lube place there along with a four story building and 3 small houses that he has managed to locate. He even dreams of using the three houses as a type of half way house to get ex-cons back on their feet. The problem is that it's on a prime piece of property. The asking price is $500,000 USD. Pastor Milton doesn’t see this as a problem at all. He says that God will provide. I pray that He will, but the price seems insurmountable at the moment. It's my prayer that God will work a miracle and allow them to purchase the property.

Ecuador Day 4: Rumicucho and Mitad del Mundo

Today was supposed to be the monthly meeting with all of the pastors, or so we thought. It turns out that July as 31 days in it, and the meeting isn't until next week. This meant that we had more free time than expected. The Lamberts had the idea of taking me to Rumicucho, which are some Inca ruins. Because it's so dry and dusty, only Jon and I went, but I was still pretty excited. I had been here about 8 years before, but a lot of excavations and reconstruction has taken place since then. You can now see quite a few foundations and get an idea for the layout of the place.

On the way there, we drove past a Catholic church that looked like no church I had seen before. Jon explained that this is a good model of the syncretism that tends to happen here, especially in the Catholic church. As you can see in the picture, the front of the church pays honor to Jesus (observe the cross on each steeple), the sun god, mother earth, and then there's a rainbow which is from the local indigenous religion. Unfortunately, they were setting tents up outside for some big shindig so I was not able to get a picture that didn't have some glare from all of the white fabric. I found this fascinating because this is a subject I've studied a fair amount in school. It would be really interesting to observe a service there.


Our next stop was Rumicucho. This place looks very different from the first time I was there. There's now an entrance fee (very minimal), a gate house (that was not manned), a little store, sings, and marked pathways. I'm thankful I went to Israel first, because it enabled me to have a better appreciation for this site. For one thing, there were pottery shards everywhere, and I spotted many of them without any effort.


Another reason is that it was easier to spot gates, outer walls, and storage rooms. That's right, there were rooms that most people believe were for storage right beside most of the gates. The main reason, though, is that I was able to appreciate just how important it's location, the surrounding geography, and the topography are.


This site is located on a hill that allows the primary entrance to Quito to be observed from all of the approaches. Not only that, but the pass that leads to the coast can also be observed from here. It is thought that it was a garrison with 300-500 soldiers living there to protect that area. More importantly, Incas were not the first people to use that area. There is evidence that people groups before them lived there as well.



After spending a while at Rumicucho, we made our way to Mitad del Mundo. The primary reason for going there is that I could knock out most of my shopping without having to go to Otavalo. Jon took me to a shop that is owned by a Christian couple he knows. I actually went there with him on my last trip to Ecuador, but that was four years before. He introduced me to them and chatted with them for a little while. They were very friendly, and even gave us bottles of water. Besides giving my business to a Christian family that the Lamberts know, I also enjoy that shop because bargaining isn't necessary. They give us the bottom price from the get go which means that the whole process is faster. The shopping experience was a pleasure, and they had everything I had come there looking for. The only down side is that I wanted to buy more than I did. Especially the striped pants they make here. I already have at least eight pairs of them though, so I was strong. It was hard to do though, I'm not gonna lie.

When we finished up there, Jon suggested we get ice cream. We went to a shop that has ice cream and paila. Paila is kind of the Ecuadorian answer to sorbet, but it is much better. It is made primarily from fruit juice. They had little cups, so Jon asked if we could get our two scoops in those. They said sure, and we put in our order. I got one scoop of mora, and one scoop of something whose name I don't recall at the moment. They asked us to sit at a table and they'd bring it to us when it was ready. Several minutes went by, and we were wondering if they would ever bring it to us. When the paila came out, it was covered in mora and chocolate sauces, whipped cream, and topped with a strawberry and a cookie. All of this for only $2 each! It was amazing. I was ready to get another one.

Paila=awesomeness!

As we were eating ice cream, Jon asked if I'd like to see rhinoceros beetles. I'm always up to see bugs, so we mosied over to the insectarium. It turns out that it's been there for several years now, but we didn't know it was there. They had tons of mounted insects and arachnids as well as some live tarantulas, hercules beetles, and rhinoceros beetles. For a mere $2, a man will place several of the large beetles on you, snap a picture, and print it out for you. That sounded like a deal to me, so I decided to do it. These things were huge and awesome! We asked if I could hold the largest one, and he got that out too. I need to scan the picture so I can post it. It was an excellent experience. I'm ready to get one for a pet! Once that was out of the way, we wondered around the edge of the room looking at all of the fantastic mounted critters. They had plenty of mounted butterflies, but they had something more exciting than that. In the Amazon, there is a large, green bug that legend holds will kill you in 24 hours once it bites you. The only remedy is to have sex within the 24 hours. One of its nicknames is the "sex bug." I've heard stories of it here, but I'd never seen it before. They had three different ones mounted. The thing is big, but I was disappointed because it was brown, not green. It turns out that it looses its color once it dies. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but they didn't allow us to take pictures inside.

Our last stop was also in Mitad del Mundo. They have a model of the Old City of Quito that is only open at certain times during the day. We walked over to see if it would be opening any time soon, and the door swung open just as we walked in. It was interesting to see the city from that perspective. They also slowly lowered the lights as if sunset was happening, and all of the little buildings lit up. After a couple of minutes, the lights slowly came up starting in the East and we were back to daylight. It was a cool little exhibit.

Overall, it was a very eventful day. I'm really looking forward to church at Ofelia tomorrow. It should be a fun service!