Los Naranjos!

Well. Here I am in Banos, Ecuador. It’s a cute little tourist town in the mountains—very cold, and today it’s very wet. Awesome. No, it’s pretty great! It’s our Independent Student Travel (IST) weekend, and we all heard great things about Banos, so everyone’s here except for 5 people from our group (including leaders!).

We’re all in different hotels though, and I’m at a hotel with Kasha, Mckinley, and Jon. We’re going to walk around town some and then get a massage later (at least the girls are). Because I’ve been planting trees for 3 weeks, and I can!

So it’s been what? Two weeks since Bahia? They have flown by! I am enjoying Los Naranjos more every day—from the bugs tearing my feet to bits (I’ve been rockin the socks and flops look to keep them safe) to taking TONS of pictures with my host siblings to staying up late watching Mexican soap operas (so dramatic. Really quality TV there.) (Oh and late being like…9:30 or 10 haha)…I really love it here. Mainly because I absolutely love my host family. My kids (I call them my kids, haha—my host siblings!) give me hugs every time I come home from anywhere. They love to take pictures and draw things and show them to me. Andy is 3 and can be rather annoying at times (praise God that I had “practice” with Joshua!!), but then he comes up to you and gives you a HUGE hug and won’t let go. Nayely loves to sit with me and just watch me read or write. She holds my hand when we walk and asks questions (in very fast Spanish!). My mom is so sweet. She does everything around the house. She laughs really loud (makes me miss you a lot Mom!) and laughs at EVERYTHING. She’s fantastic. My dad is really nice—he’s pretty quiet though. But our family has a great sense of humor, so we laugh a lot together.

A typical day for me in Los Naranjos:
Wake up at least 3 times at night. Two potential reasons: Alex is rolling into me or the rooster decides to hate us and wake us up at 3:30. Stupid rooster. I wake up at 6 to my mom working—making coffee, cleaning and such. At 6:30 my sister is usually up watching TV (SO different from Caitlin—never mind the age difference!). I’m usually up at about 10 til 7 so that I can have my face washed by the time breakfast is ready. Usually that’s at 7. We walk 30 minutes to work (unless by God’s grace, we meet at our house—favorite days!). Then we meet up with everyone and get to work late—not just Ecuadorian time, but Tsa’chilan time.We usually work til 11:30 or 12 (it’s been ending earlier). We’ve gotten much more efficient with the way we do things? Then we head home, shower, eat lunch, cram in seminar reading, and at 2:30 we walk back to the Cultural Center for seminar. I usually go home right after, journal, hang out with the kids, eat dinner, and hang out some more, watching TV and stuff. Then bed time!

I’m learning so much here. The seminars have been really challenging for me—it’s just interesting seeing how responsible I am for adding to environmental destruction…just through the clothes and things I buy. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to change my lifestyle when I come back…and it’s hard.

But God is also just teaching me so much. I have been really struggling with the lack of fellowship—I miss the Church!! And it’s honestly been quite exhausting and very difficult. I mean everyone here is so awesome, and I love them, but it’s just hard not being at church. But by God’s grace, the lack of fellowship has made me read and study more Scripture and meditate on the gospel. I’m reading 2 Corinthians now and it’s just so encouraging. I’m going to try to memorize chapter 4. It will take a while, but I’m super excited about it.

I’ve had a lot of opportunity here among my friends, which I am so grateful for. Keep praying for everyone here—we’re tired! Emotionally, physically, mentally…
But it’s so awesome to see how faithful and gracious God is to me daily.
I need to go, but thanks again for all the prayers—ya’ll are the best, and I am constantly reminded of how blessed I am to have friends like you!
Much love—and read 2 Corinthians 4 sometime this week.

(ps--mom posted this for Hannah and took the liberty to put in the two pictures---they are from Jess Elisberg's facebook page. Hannah still hasn't been able to upload photos---These are pictures where they are planting trees....obviously!)