My daughter wants to learn how to pray.....

This past week the Lord gave me an opportunity to lead a mom and her daughter to Christ. I volunteer at a childrens gov't hospital every Wed. We go and give them coloring pages, cookies, balloons and share a bible story. At the end of doing this with one little girl I was getting ready to pack my stuff and walk away when her mom calls me back and says "my daughter want to learn how to pray" as I walked over I am thinking "wow she's ready" this little 10yr old is hungry for more. So I shared the gospel with her and mom and they both said they wanted to give their life to Christ. At the end she said she was rejoicing and I said so is God! Praise God!! If you remember pray for Lizzette that the Lord will heal her little body soon.

Your kids work -at work in Quito, Ecuador!

The school coordinated a day for the teachers to help us with Operaton Brown Bag in making 150 lunches (thanks to all of you kiddos who sent us your art work and $1 to fill the bags) and passing them out. We also had a group of students from a club called Peer Helpers making the sandwiches. The day we gathered to make the lunches was a beautiful sunny day but the day we planned on passing them out it was raining horribly so Mari and the kids ended up staying at home but Ben and about 8 other teachers went out in the rain to pass out the bags in Historic Quito (which has a lot of street kids).

They loaded the lunches in plastic bags and went out in the rain. The 2nd picture is a little boy shoe shining. This is a very common job for little boys to do all over the city to make money. The group stopped and gave him some lunch. The 3rd picture is a guy just sleeping on the sidewalk and the girls put a lunch by him so he could have it when he wakes up. One of the teachers shared that when they handed someone a lunch they said "if you only knew the depth of our hunger and he took the lunch and said a very typical phrase that people say instead of thank you "Dios te page" God pay you. Ben came home and said he didn't know what that meant but just nodded and smiled. We were very thankful as a family that we could pass out so many lunches out at one time. We normally do it by ourselves so we don't get as many passed out so this was a blessing.

Avenue Naciones Unidas Street Video

These are 3 videos of a major street a couple of blocks from our school. I wanted to give you all an idea of the area around our home. The name of the street is Naciones Unidas (United Nations). The videos were taken at about 5:30 p.m., so there was a lot of traffic and noise. We walk down this street very frequently to go to the grocery store or one of the many malls along the way.

This video is at the intersection of Naciones Unidas and Los Shyris (pronounced Shitty's). The park at the corner is Carolina Park, the largest park in Quito. It's easy to find on any map of Quito. We have enjoyed many picnics and jogs in this park.

This is the intersection of the street that goes in front of our school, 10 de Agosto (pronounced Dee-Ace Day A-ghost-o for those of you trying to learn Spanish), and Naciones Unidas. Many major streets here are named after important dates. I think the August 10th is Ecaudor's independence day, but don't quote me on that. You can't see our school in this video, but it's really close. Again, lots of traffic. It has taken Ethan a while to get used to us pulling him across the street so that he doesn't get run over. At first he would pitch a fit because we were making him run across the street. Thankfully, he's gotten much better, although it is still sometimes a struggle. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the sidewalks are not stroller-friendly. We originally brought our double stroller, but quickly realized it is useless here. Thankfully, this little umbrella stroller has been perfect for all of the curbs and bumps. Thank you Reeves for the stroller!