Adventures with Friends
Hi everyone! Sorry for the long overdue blog post. Here's what I've been up to the last two months.
The end of January was our mid-year retreat in Otavalo. We spent several days with other MMN participants who are also serving in Latin America. There was the three of us and Peter's family from Quito, the Ross Richer family who serves in the jungle, Eric and Kelly from Colombia, and Elena, Bryli, Aaron, and Liseth from Peru. MMN representatives, Linda and Tania, also came from the U.S. We heard about each other's experiences and challenges, cooked, played games. It was a time to reflect on our work so far and set goals for our remaining time. We also had fun enjoying Ecuador's beautiful flora hiking mountains and from horseback.
My friend, Christina, came to visit me in February for two weeks. It was so great to see her and show her around Ecuador! We also spent time with our friend, Cris, whom we know from Hesston College in Otavalo. We tried to pack as much as we could into two weeks: La Mitad del Mundo, an art museum of GuaysamÃn, going to church, helping at the project, el Centro Historico. We also planned a last-minute trip to Baeza, which is kind of like the entrance to the jungle. Baeza isn't a very tourist-y town such as Tena or Baños, but it seems like these "off-the-grid" places is a more exciting way to travel. We stayed at a cheap Airbnb where our host was so friendly. He gave us advice on what to do around the area and even offered to take us to a waterfall near Baeza where we could rappel down it. We traveled to two other waterfalls before rappelling down the third; the first was San Rafael, the longest in Ecuador, and la Cascada del Rio Malo, where we could walk right up to it. On the way back to Quito, Christina and I stopped for a night in Papallacta. There, we swam in the thermal baths that are heated by volcanoes. It was so beautiful and relaxing! The air is cold because of being in the mountains, but the water is so warm.
This week, I went to a Spanish Literature conference. I found out one of my former Spanish teachers from EMU, Adriana, was in Quito visiting family and presenting at the conference. Adriana came to visit the project, and then I went to her presentation with Ingrid, my current Spanish teacher. I loved catching up with Adriana and having two of my Spanish teachers meet. How neat to run into people in a different part of the world.
Karina, Shannon, and I leave tomorrow for the jungle for two weeks with the Ross Richer family and another group from the states. Please pray for open minds, safe travels, and times for good community.