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!

Pledge of Allegiance to the Ecuadorian Flag Ceremony

All over the country of Ecuador 6th graders and 12th graders are required to pledge allegiance to the Ecuadorian flag. If you're not an Ecuadorian but are in this country, you have the option to grab the flag and put a rose in a vase as a sign of respect.

Here's a non- Ecuadorian showing respect.
Ethan was asked to escort some important people to their seat during the ceremony This is a very serious and important event in the lives of Ecuadorian students. They have been practicing for this event for months.

Bens 6th graders after the ceremony

FEBRUARYS HIGHLIGHT: MINISTRY TO THE STREET CHILDREN

Thanks to God we have received about 150 bags for Operation Brown Bag that were colored and decorated from kids in Claxton, GA, Columbia, SC and Ft. Worth, TX. Thanks to all of you kids and adults who made sure these bags made it from your little corner of the world to ours! We got these at the beginning of January so we have lots of work ahead of us in passing these out.

Our family goes out and passes the lunch bags out on our walks to the park or grocery store. I can't explain in words the joy I get from seeing these kids appease their hunger and to see my kids, your kids being used by God. Isn't it awesome that God can use us no matter how small we are!

Ministry Highlight Video

See below for pictures and blog of this month's ministry highlight

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHT: BEN'S 6TH GRADE CLASS

As many of you know, Ben's main student ministry here is teaching Math, Science and Bible to 6th graders.

One of the things Ben loves about teaching is seeing the look on the kids face when they finally get it, when the light comes on. Doing hands-on activities to get them to grasp things is the best way to see that light come on. Here is his class working on their Bubble Project. Another thing that Ben loves about teaching here at Alliance is the freedom he gets to share Christ throughout his classes, in his curriculum, in the hall, at recess, etc..... He has some students who are atheists, come from buddhist homes, catholic and christian. This is such a freedom because he oftens gets challenging questions from these little curious minds as they try to put together what they believe.

Missions is not just for the poor

When you hear the word missions or missionary you may think of a person who leaves to a third world country/overseas to go serve the poor, needy, hurting and unsaved people. But that is not always the case. The heart and driving force behind a missionary is to give people the opportunity to hear about Gods salvation, His love, His forgiveness and their need for a Savior.
As missionaries we are able to share this love and salvation through providing a direct need and being Jesus in the flesh. Which than can look like a person in Tanzania helping bring a water to a village for the first time, or a person in China teaching English, or a person in Kansas leading a small bible study with moms, or a person in Guatemala working in an orphanage helping street children. We missionaries come in many colors, shapes, skills, giftedness and geographic location. So if your reading this and you have Gods salvation, His love, His forgiveness and you believe in Him than we are missionaries.
Our family has the priviledge of being missionaries in Ecuador working with the spiritually and emotionally needy. We have the opportunity to serve international, missionary and Ecuadorian students. A lot of these students need to see Jesus lived out, hear about Jesus and His salvation and His freedom. We also have the opportunity to work with the physically needy at a government hospital for low income families and to work with street children by providing lunches for them. Before this we were missionaries in Ft. Worth being Jesus in the flesh to those around us at school, at work and at home. Discipling and teaching as the opportunities arose.

Please don't let the misconception that to be a missionary you need to be in another country, working with the poor keep you from doing missions right where your at. The opportunities are boundless, really! Pray with me that we may see them and arise to the occasion.

desires of our heart

We spent the last couple of weeks meeting up with friends and family. And also, speaking in churches. Having to share with so many people our ministry it made me think of how gracious the Lord has been to give us the desires of our heart. We had no idea what this school was going to be like and if we would like it. We just knew that this was where the Lord was leading us. Having been here 6mos. I can say that our whole famiy is very happy here.

This little piggy went to the market

This little piggy never made it home.

This is a typical Ecuadorian meal that was served for our Christmas meal

Getting ready for the big night

Here we are getting ready for our big Christmas Party at the Hospital.
As I have shared before I have the joy of visiting a government hospital here in Ecuador that is for children who are low income. Today we got to be Santa Claus. We did a very simple role play of the story of Christmas and then we would sing (we sounded horrible) and finally we passed out gifts to the children w/ homemade cookies and left tracts with them. It was so much fun to see them light up when they opened up their gifts. Some of them weren't to excited about their gifts b/c some of the gifts weren't that great but we had no say in that. Either way many kids were happy to recieve a little something.

Here's a happy camper!

How do you pack for xmas when your moving to another country you have never been to?

We had no idea what Ecuador was going to be like so when we were packing in the states to come Christmas stuff was not a priority so we packed lightly. I manage to squeeze in a small fiber optic Christmas tree b/c I thought it would be very sad if we didn't have one at all. No ornaments though I figured I could make them. I also packed 3 toys and 1 gift for Ben that we could give to each other for Christmas. That was it. We had no idea if they would have toy stores nearby. They do have toy stores but they are triple the price so I was glad I brought gifts for them. And we packed our family tradition Interactive Nativity set that we do with the boys to tell the story of Christmas. Well we were delightfully surprise to find out that they sell real Christmas trees. That was a real treat b/c our tradition is to go to a farm and cut our own tree. We didn't get to cut our own tree this year but the guy swore that he just cut it that morning. So if you remember we don't have a car but were out buying this huge tree. We got a van to go get this and it was the 2nd time I was out driving. The parking here was horrible it took me 30min to park my car not b/c I didn't have a spot but b/c they try to squeeze in 75 cars into a parking lot that was made for 25 cars. After much sweating and backing in and backing out I was ready to get our tree. This has been our prettiest fresh tree ever. Last years tree was a disaster (that story made it to our blog). If you look closely you will see that Ethan is digging into his Xmas mitten not stocking. That was interesting to discover that they do mittens here. We did our own little xmas celebration here yesterday morning, it was sweet. Notice our kids don't match thats b/c Ben dressed them!

Quito Days

I am still not totally positive on why we have Quito days but I think it has to do with the independence of Quito??? Well it's a month long celebration and there are festivities through out the city. We were able to go to a parade and they are great fun here. They have dance shows and everything. They don't just walk by and wave they stop and do performances. They last for at least 3hrs.

Our school does a little celebration where all the Ecuadorian staff run typical Ecuadorian games for the students and at the end you get to ride a Chiva (just secondary). You may be asking what is a CHIVA! Chivas are very popular here during this time of the year. They are packed with people and they ride around town dancing, singing and some drinking. Our schools chivas were the same minus the alcohol. They gave us whistles(very annoying) and flags instead of alcohol. It was a blast I got to ride with the Seniors. We had tons of fun. Here's brief video footage, its really loud.