Our First Week in Shell

by sara

It is hard to believe that we have been in Shell for almost a week now. The time has flown by, filled mostly with planning and admin work. We are getting everything in place for the summer schedule, and also helping prepare for the group that is here to take the kids to the beach (more about that later).

Since we have not had much time to work with the kids during the day, we decided to start taking them to our house for one-on-one time. On Sunday afternoon we took Tatiana and Boris to our house. We had a blast!

First we hung out at our house. We played games, braided hair, colored pictures, and watched a movie.

Then we walked to the park to play

Afterwards we went home and cooked dinner. As soon as Tatiana heard that they got to help cook dinner, she practically pulled me home in her excitement.

Their favorite part was probably washing the dishes. I told them to put the cutting board in the sink, and I turn around to see them giggling and splashing water everywhere.

Yumm, pancakes with strawberries!

We’re Here!

by sara

For the last few days we have been amazed at how smoothly everything went (well…all except for the bouncy bus ride). Thank you so much for all your prayers. On Tuesday we got through the airports without a problem, all of our bags made it too :0) In Quito we hopped in a taxi with a driver who knew exactly where our guesthouse was (even though we realized we did not have the exact address), a beautiful clean room was waiting for us, and we got almost eight hours of sleep!

Yesterday we spent the day in the park with three of the children that my sister Emily and I sponsor through Compassion International. We had so much fun running and playing and spending time together. As it approached evening we all said our goodbyes (and hello to some sunburn). Erin and I headed back to the Compassion office to drop off a present for a friend’s sponsored child, then went to the guest house to collect our bags.

Once again everything worked out perfectly. We got everything packed up, used the internet to send a email home for our brother’s birthday, and climbed in the guesthouse shuttle and rode to the bus station. Once there we got someone to help us with our bags, got seats on a bus leaving 5 minutes later, and had a jostling but cool ride to Shell. Right after we arrived in Shell we hailed a taxi and we arrived at our house in Shell a little earlier than we had planned. –It was an exhausting but great day.

Today we spent some time unpacking and getting our room set up, then we went to the Casa (Casa de Fe) to say hi to the kids and work on some preparations for this summer’s activities. In the afternoon we did some shopping – food is always a good thing – and then went out to dinner with some of the teachers and other staff.

It was amazing to see the kids again and see for ourselves how much they have grown and changed. While some things at the Casa have changed, so much is still the same. After three summers with the kids it kind of feels like coming home.

(No pictures today because I realized we forgot to take any! More will be coming soon)

Less Than Four Weeks to Go!

by Sara

I can hardly believe that our trip is coming up so soon! Erin and I are busy getting ready for this summer, trying to make sure that we have communicated with everyone who will be joining us, as well as gathering everything we want to bring with us to use with the children.

A few weeks ago Erin and I breathed a sigh of relief when the credit card was confirmed and we had bought our plane tickets to Ecuador.

The ticket prices had been running so high and with the scare about gas prices Erin and I had been concerned that we would end-up paying way more than we budgeted on tickets. So when we casually checked the prices and noticed they had dropped by over $200, we jumped on it.

Big praises:

• We only have ONE layover this year! This is a huge deal for us because it means a faster trip with less chance for our luggage to get left behind or for us to miss a connection.
• We actually ended up getting the tickets for LESS than we did last year.
• We are so excited because this year we will be traveling there and back together

We also wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has committed to partner with through prayer and through financial support. We have raised about half the funds so far, and that is just enough to cover our plane tickets.

As we get ever closer to our departure day we are focusing on  helping arrange arrival dates for the other Summer Staff, planning training meetings, brainstorming ministry ideas, and putting together a summer schedule. God has pulled together a group of adults from all over the world to minister to the children this summer and we can’t wait to see what God has in store.

Chau! (bye!)

We’re Heading Back!

Dear Friends and Family,

¡Buenos Dias! We pray that this letter finds you and your family doing well in this New Year of 2012! The Lord is faithful and we continue to praise him for the daily blessings that he provides. Erin and her ballet company just returned from a tour to Michigan and Minnesota where they performed and held workshops in many local communities. Sara continues to work as a sign language interpreter, enjoying meeting new people and learning new things every day.

As we have been considering our plans for the summer we both feel called to return to Ecuador to continue our ministry at Casa de Fe. This year we will not only be working with the kids, but we will also be serving as summer-staff coordinators. We are so excited to be returning to Ecuador.

Will you consider partnering with us once again to make this trip a reality?

This year we will be flying to Ecuador on June 5thand returning on July 24th. In order to cover all of the expenses for this trip we are looking to raise $1500 each, for a total of $3000. This amount, (equivalent $30 per person, per trip day) will cover flights, lodging, food, and transportation. Would you prayerfully consider sponsoring us for a portion of the cost of this trip? If you would like to make a donation, please see the side bar for more information --------->

In addition to financial partnership, we deeply long for your prayers. Please pray that we will be open to God’s direction both now as we plan, and later as we come face to face with the precious little ones. Your partnership will have a huge impact on our ministry to the children.

In the past year Casa de Fe has gone through many changes. A number of children were reunited with their families, and several new babies and toddlers have come to stay. We are looking forward to meeting the new children, and deepening the relationships with those whom we already love. While we are with the children we will be focusing on giving each of them individual attention and communicating the deep love of their heavenly Father. Through simple actions like playing games, teaching lessons, and even changing diapers we will be communicating our love for them, and helping them to develop physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Our new role as Summer Staff coordinators will allow us to help guide the daily activities, and provide support and training to the other workers. Our goal is to make sure that everyone is empowered to use the talents and gifts that God has given them as they love on the children every day.

We will be updating our blog frequently with stories and photos of our experiences in Ecuador. We hope to give you an idea of the day to day happenings as well as let you know about prayer requests and praises.

If you type your email into the box on the upper right of this page, and follow the prompts, you will receive our posts in your email inbox.

Thank you!

Sara and Erin

Movie Monday: Walking the Kids Home

by sara

Every day while we were in Shell we walked down the hill, across a rickety bridge, and up the jungle road to the casa. Whenever we took the kids out to do something in town, like a trip to the park, to get ice cream, or a visit to our house, we had to make the trek.  On this day we were taking a few of the kids home after they had spent the afternoon at our house. Jhonny, the little boy I am holding, had a checkup at the hospital that day and he was still pretty upset. He does not like people in scrubs…

Movie Monday: Double Header!

 

Since we didn’t have a chance to post a movie last week we thought we would post two today! These movies are from the boy-craft day that Luke did with the kids. The boys (and Ana) made propellers and catapults then had a blast throwing and shooting them all over the play area upstairs.

Movie Monday: Date Night

I found this video of Luke and two of the little girls (Nila and Sheyla) walking through the streets on their way to dinner. (Erin wrote about that dinner HERE) They both look so tiny compared to him!!

I love it how Nila starts scolding the dog when it barks at them. She is always large and in charge, yet she never did let go of “Mister Luke’s” hand.