TORO, TORO, TOROToday, Jeff, Jordan and Lukas went to a MAJOR cultural tradition in Quito. The first week of December the toros come to town in a BIG WAY. This afternoon there were 12,000 people around as the 3 of them watched the elaborate show in the ring. We learn much about culture by what people deem as "entertaining". All we can say is that it was quite different than a day at the ballpark. There were definitate cultural rules, and when one on-looker got rowdy at the wrong time, the entire crowd turned against him by "whistling" and yelling which is their equivalent to "booing". Another cultural note, "Panama hats" which are actually an Ecuadorian industry not Panama, are worn by everyone at the bullfights. Jeff got into the new fashion, Lukas opted for cowboy style, and Jordan, well, he was the "Americano" of the bunch.

VIVA QUITO.............

This is quite a week to be in QUITO............

All week is leading up to December 6-- the day Ecuador celebrates the Independence of Quito from the Spanish in 1534. It is a national holiday......and it is a HUGE party in downtown!

We are a little removed from it in the Tumbaco Valley, but we needed to go into the city a few times this week to get our vehicle registered; so we were able to see just how crazy it can be.

There are street vendors everywhere. They are selling all kinds of things. This is a special week for the TOROS. For just this week, there are bullfights in Quito. Outside of the bullrings, there are rows of booths selling hats- every kind of hat imaginable, for the people going to the bullfights. Jeff and Lukas each bought a hat. In Ecuador, at street vendors, you are able to negotiate for the true price of an item. Deanne can bargain with the best of them. Jeff...well he just walks away when the bartering begins. If he wants it, he buys it. If he want's it cheaper, he calls Deanne.

There is music playing in the streets. We even saw mariachis singing in a auto repair place. That is a new twist on culture for sure. We have also enjoyed all the little vendors selling Christmas decorations that have shown up everywhere. They built little shacks just for the month and live there while selling their wares. Yesterday, we found several locations to buy Christmas trees. When we got out of the car, we saw that all but two of thh trees were artificials set up on the lot. The live trees are cyprus trees quite different from the evergreens of North America. All of this is quite new to Ecuador-- as a developing country.

We are learning quite a bit about our new country and it's culture. Thank you for sharing in our journey with us.

Happy THANKSGIVING

Ps 105:1 Oh Give Thanks unto the Lord, call on His name, make known upon the nations what He has done.

Thanksgivng has long been one of our family's favorite days. Late autumn in Upstate New York with the crisp cool weather and the beautiful masterpiece of God's watercolor in front of you is a great time for a celebration. We love gathering around a great big table with our grandparents, our cousins, our aunt and uncle and remembering all that we have to be thankful for together. This year-- it was spent in a new place--Cumbaya, Ecuador, our new home. The weather was a balmy 80 degrees-- and the landscape incredible with mountains on every side.

We had a blend of old and new traditions to celebrate. We were invited to share the day with an Ecuadorian/American family who have recently returned from Miami. They were looking forward to "EL DIA de La ACCION de La GRACIA" as much as we were. It was a great time of fellowship together-- including a lively game of Monopoly. In the morning, we were able to talk to our families on the phone-- to join in a bit on their day of Thanksgiving.

There was much anticipation as we thought about the food-- We very much enjoyed having turkey again! (Last year, our family lived in Costa Rica while we attended language school and we celebrated thanksgiving with ham and chicken) This year we shared a GIANT TOM TURKEY!!!! There was enough turkey for everyone-- even our Jordan. We had homemade stuffing, sweet potato casserole ( a recipe our kids have enjoyed from their favorite elementary school teacher-- We love you Mrs. Parker) and a brand new homemade twist on Green bean casserole (no campbells soup or french's onions-- and no body missed them). Cranberries-- well, they are hard to come by-- we did see one lonely can of oceanspray sauce in the grocery store for $2.68. Ximena made an Ecuadorian equivalent out of Naranjilla. (Watch out cranberries-- you may have some competition on your hands). For dessert, we had apple pie, ice cream with yummy mix-ins, and pumpkin roll (Davoll family tradition).

We laughed too much. We ate too much.

We had a wonderful time together.

Thank you Lord for all you have done for us.

Thanksgiving may be a day--- but our year should be devoted to thanking YOU!

Electricity?? Maybe-- Maybe Not.

Everyday is a new experience in our new home. For example, today we learned that because we are in the middle of a drought and 48% of our electricity comes from hydroelectricity, there just is NOT enough water to generate electricity to power the country. So the government has restricted electricity to 20 hours a day until we receive enough rain. It will be at various times throughout the day. Yesterday, we were without power in the evening from 4-8pm. Today, it was 11-3. Each day will be different...until it rains!

35th Anniversary of La Iglesia Bautista Calvario

Our family enjoyed this great event of the Calvary Baptist Church in South Quito on October 18, 2009. The day began with praise, thanksgiving, and worship to God for what He has done in and through the church over its history. There were many visitors and past attenders which were a great testimony of God's goodness.

Jeff was asked to preach for this special day. He shared from God's Word from Acts about the purpose of the church. Following the service, we enjoyed a celebration cake. Pastor David, Ximenia and the entire Vasconez family sang together and shared testimony of the blessings of the ministry. They also remembered David's father who had planted the church many years ago.

The picnic was quite a time of festivity for all. The women were busy cooking four different kinds of meat. They grilled chicken, pork, beef, and sausages. We have Never had a church dinner like this before. The men played Ecu-volleyball while the children played soccer.

It was a tremendous day. We praise the Lord for our ABWE national partner, David Vasconez. It has been a great blessing to be a part of his ministry in our first few weeks here in Ecuador.

Building Relationships through CAFECITO!

How to you begin a new ministry in a new country. You take it to the Lord in prayer. You proceed as He leads and guides. We have sought to follow Gods' direction and timing on each and every step of the process.

As we begin, our ministry in the Tumbaco Valley. The process starts with meeting people and making relationships. Everywhere we are and everywhere we go we have the opportunity of beginning these realtionships. God has brought amazing opportunities.

Things are MOVING>...........We were invited to the home of Robalino family for cafecito. It was a fantastic time to meet their family. We are praying with this family about the next step--beginning a Bible study in their home. Please pray with us for this great opportunity.

Handsome man in black, our Lukas!

We attended a wedding in Quito at Calvary Baptist Church on Sept 26th. The church opened it's doors to the family and the community for this great event. We saw many new faces come into the church for the first time. The bride and groom were a great testimony of the love of Christ as their marriage was established as a Christian home. Pastor Vasconez gave the Gospel.

We enjoyed learning many things about the differences in culture. For example, Everyone's chairs were angled to face the bride and groom during the ceremony; so you are really participating in the ceremony with the couple. Also, the couple really enjoyed the photo time following the ceremony. It was not limited to the wedding party; everyone who attended had their photo taken with the bride and groom-- although the bride and groom did not smile in the photos. My favorite part of the wedding was when the groom sang to the bride with his guitar. (He also made the wedding cake-- not a bad touch either!)

They wanted to honor us for attending their wedding-- so they made sure to introduce us publically. However, when I presented the bride with our gift she seemed shocked and embarrased that someone who barely knew her would give her a gift. It was all a learning experience. (We did ask questions before-- and yes, we were to bring gifts. I just think we took her a little off guard. She is very shy). We are very glad to see the couple at church. They are very warm and friendly to their "Gringo" friends.

Not your ordinary Chicken Soup............

We have all heard that chicken soup is the best thing in the world to eat when you are sick. This is the time of year when Moms everywhere are cooking up their favorite recipes to keep their families healthy or to bring them back to health.

Well, it is a popular dish in Ecuador as well. Our family loves chicken, and we love soup. So, it is natural for us to have tried all sorts of Ecuadorian chicken soup. We have had all sorts of things in our chicken soup. The first day we were in Ecuador we had a wonderful soup that was thick with potatoes and it was served with cornnuts on top for a garnish. It was very good.

However, our most memorable soup to date had to be a seemingly plain chicken soup until Jordan's spoon produced a whole chicken foot. In Ecuador, nothing is wasted! We have found ALL parts of the chicken in our soup. We will just leave it at that.

Visas Acquired!

The journey -- adventure--for our visas began in San Jose several months back. We had all of our paperwork sent to us that we needed (which is a process in and of itself) and we went to the Embassy/Consulate downtown San Jose. We were told our paperwork was incomplete. So, we made contact again with the wonderful missionary who was helping us with the legal paperwork from Quito. He assured us that our paperwork was complete, but he secured one more paper and sent that to us as well. We returned to the office to hear the same bad news. We went around this merry-go-round a few more times. Finally, with two days before our departure to the United States. The Consulate contacted another office and reviewed our paperwork and said that it was INDEED correct as presented, and we would be issued our visas the very next day. We rejoiced. We began the paperwork trail including going to the bank and paying for our visas.

We returned in the morning with our entire family. We all signed our visas and took lots of photos of this great moment. Then, Jeff was called into the Consulate office where he was questioned for a lengthy amount of time. The Consulate was challenging the validity of our paperwork yet again. We are a new organization going into Ecuador, and the Consulate was taking this very seriously. There was some serious resistance to our application.

Now, we are in Quito. We are required to register our visas. The San Jose Embassy had told us to expect more resistance. However, the power of prayer was behind us. Jeff went in Wednesday and presented our visas for registration. He said that they were very helpful and welcoming. They told him to return on Friday for approval. He returned on Friday when the office opened. The visas were ready and waiting for him. Praise the Lord. We found out later that one of our supporting churches had an ALL DAY prayer meeting for their missionaries that day. We know that our needs were taken to the Lord's throne that day. We praise the Lord for the faithfulness of His people to pray for us.

Ok-- so, you want to know a little bit of the excitement. As Jeff was walking through the streets of Quito to find the government offices on Wednesday. He walked right through a school protest. Apparently, they did not care for their teachers very much; so, they took it to the streets. The riot police were there with tear gas. It was quite the welcome for Jeff!

Our First Sunday in Ecuador was a day to remember. We got up early...still a little weary from our journey on Thursday, and our bodies are still aclamating to the high altitude of Quito at 9500 feet (yes, that is nearly TWO miles in the AIR). We made our way down the mountain where we are living in two taxis; then, all of us met up again, and rode the electric trolley for about an hour to the southern part of Quito. We found two more taxis and had our directions to the church in hand, but neither of our taxis knew where we were going. Half of our family got there-- the other half had a nice scenic view of the southern part of Quito! Jeff, Bethany and Amanda all made it to Sunday School. Ximenia Vasconez, the Pastor's wife, was the girl's Sunday school teacher. She was teaching on having difficulties in your spiritual life. She wanted to make it practical to her new students. She applied it to their lives.... You will have difficulties as you adjust to your new life here in Ecuador...... like learning a new language, and losing your mother!

Well, Jeff had instructed us that if our taxis did not get us to the church-- we were to return to the trolley station where we began; we were so glad to have a back-up plan. Jeff arrived with two men from the church. We were all in attendance for service together! It was such a joy to worship the Lord as a family in Ecuador with fellow believers at the Iglesia de Bautista Calavario en Quito. Dios es bueno.

Following the service, we had lunch with Pastor David, Ximenia and their six children. It was a great time together. We praise the Lord for what He has done to bring us to this place. We know how wonderful it is to be a part of the FAMILY of GOD.