I suppose I really SHOULD do this again before another month and a half goes by with little chance to update. Camp season is upon us! It feels incredibly surreal to think that in something like six hours, the first team of Canadians will be arriving for 8 days of camp and experiencing a bit of Guayaquil.

This particular year more than any other, for some reason, I've had several flashbacks of my first trips here back in what feels like a lifetime ago. I've even caught myself feeling a little jealous of all of these youth that are just about to have their first experience, where everything is new and a little overwhelming. Where they're just along for the ride, free to just take it all in. To wrestle with things that feel 'normal' to me now.

But, that said, today I got to go spend time with a family I've grown quite close to, and make banana muffins, while having an actual conversation that didn't require constant dictionary checks (and THAT part I DON'T miss:P). I got to go check in with all the families from my Ecuadorian "Home(despite not living there anymore)" of Block 10 that will be hosting these Canadian youth for a night, and firm up the last details about what Canadians shouldn't eat here. I get to be on the end that goes to tell sponsored kids from our school that their sponsors (or sponsors' kids or siblings) are coming, and to share that joy with them over getting to meet or have a short visit with people that they have equated in their mind as valuing them from all the way in Canada (or elsewhere). I really am blessed to get to live this life; to be a part of this thing that God is doing here.

So thanks again for your prayers, and they would once again be greatly appreciated for this 2011 camp season:) Tuesday, February 15 marks the beginning of camp, and throughout the 5 weeks of camp i'll be doing some counselling (one week of junior high camp and one week of kids camp), some full-time Canadian-helping for one week, directing one week of kids camp (with an as-yet-to-be-determined co-director), and along for the ride for a long-weekend retreat for our youth leaders and other older youth our church community is invested in in some way or another.

It's sure to be an exhausting, draining time, but it always feels SO worth it by the end:)

Pray for God's work in the campers and in the staff over these weeks of camp:)

peace

***I'll try to devote a blog entry to pictures one of these days:)

Moving, among other changes...

After quite a lengthy blogging hiatus, I reckon it's time to start up again.

I've now been back in Ecuador for nearly a month, after spending a phenomenal month home in Nova Scotia (and a weekend in Ontario)

One of the things I was praying about and considering during my time home was the possibility that it was time to move out of Block 10. There were a lot of reasons for it, and I was feeling that the direction my ministry/life seems to be going this year supported a small move. I wasn't necessarily prepared to up and leave a house that I was already settled into just because the living conditions weren't great, so I certainly wasn't planning on making any snap decisions.

I was hugely blessed by the opportunity to pray with my church family while home, and I am constantly blessed by all of your prayers and support throughout the year.

It turns out that God quickly answered that prayer for direction, as the night I arrived back in Ecuador I was informed that my landlady wants her house back by December 15th.

This also coincided with my second experience being robbed, while waiting for a bus at my usual bus stop. I did NOT want to leave Block 10 out of fear, and I don't know what decision I would have made if I were ABLE to stay in this house, but I'm feeling peace about the timing and the decision.

So, I began to look, and found a house to rent fairly quickly in Caracol, the gated community where the rest of our team in Guayaquil lives. It means i'm closer to the school, and it will be geographically easier to invest in the lives of kids that I already have relationships with, as well as taking on some more responsibility with the sponsorship program at the school. My roommate, Daniel, is also making the move with me.

It'll take a little bit of work to get it ready to move into, and it definitely means an increase in my cost of living, but again, i'm confident about the decision, and I trust God to continue to meet my needs; He has never let me down. So for all you praying folk, I'd definitely appreciate your prayers for what remains of my time living in Block 10; that i'd take advantage of it and spend time with the friends and neighbours and random kids I've become close to and that it will sharpen my resolve to be more intentional about COMING to block 10 to spend time when i'm no longer living here. Also, for the move itself, and the last things that need to come together in the new place, and for a good relationship with my landlord this time around.

Anyway, I'm going to run now, to get to school in time for class. more to come soon

peace

Christmas already...

I must say, there have been things going on here these past months that I've thought worthy of sharing, but it just never happened.

In the 3 1/2 months since i've been back in Ecuador after a wonderful visit home, teaching in the school became fun for the first time ever, and I got to experience kids excited about learning English for the first time since I started teaching here. We're now almost done another school year, with our Christmas party happening in the school on Tuesday, and our teacher's dinner on Wednesday.

We celebrated the end of our year of youth group tonight, with a fun, but chaotic time playing games, eating, and watching a movie projected onto the wall of my living room, courtesy of a projector borrowed from a friend's work. We decorated shortbread cookies, thus allowing me to bring a little bit of my Christmas traditions here to Ecuador, although it's interesting to see the designs people come up with for Christmas cookies when you don't grow up with snowflakes, snowmen, angels and stars everywhere at Christmastime. I wish i'd taken pictures of the snails, butterflies, frogs, and snakes that people drew on their Christmas cookies, alongside my very North American looking ones:P

Anyway, I'm still alive, and an update IS on the way. God's been doing some neat things here these past few months, and I'm encouraged and excited by it. Please, those of you who still stumble onto my blog every once in a while in (usually vain) hopes of finding something new here, pray for me; For a real sense of purpose here, that I would BE light here in the way i live my life and interact with neighbours and kids and church, etc. and that I would continue to constantly seek to know Jesus more, and that He would lead and guide His church here and give us wisdom and empower us to follow.

Merry Christmas, everyone. peace

I promised myself i wouldn't sleep before blogging tonight

It is now 10 minutes to 11. I have to teach tomorrow, but not too early, and i'm taking advantage of what I believe is the last of my 7 days of internet, until I buy more time.

I've missed all the opportunities to write about camp, and all the other activities as they were happening, and so It appears that I took the entire Ecuadorian "summer vacation" off communicating. However, I don't want this blog to be taken up with constant apologies for not updating more often every time I do actually write something, so I won't apologize. I'll just try for something fairly general here and resolve to do better in the future.

This camp season, my first ever here in Ecuador, was a huge, stretching, challenging, and crazy time. It started with a training weekend retreat for all the people who would be working over the space of the camp season. That was a weekend of sleep deprivation(I still have no idea how Ecuadorians can consistently function on so little sleep) and fellowship as we focused on Jesus' love for us being the motivation for our service. The retreat helped prepare for the busyness of camp in some ways, but in many others, simply kept me from being at all well-rested in time for our first week of camp; Junior High.

It was my first time at junior high camp in Ecuador.
It was my first time counseling at camp, period.
And certainly it was my first time counseling in Spanish. And added to those hurdles, was the lack of sleep. So now, with all of my excuses covered in that disclaimer, it was a challenging week, for me, and for others, but God was so Good. I let people down in more ways than I thought I would, and God certainly taught me a lot about what it means to work as a team, spending way more time getting under one another's skin than normal life allows. I learned about expectations, and trusting that God knows what He's doing, even when I get disappointed because something isn't what i'd hoped. I had a cabin of very different boys than I'm used to. In the end, it was a really good, stretching experience, and two of the tougher guys from my cabin trusted Jesus that week.

And, I'm just now realizing that it WAS in fact a bit too ambitious to try to write about 3 months in one entry. SO, I shall continue this later. thanks again to everyone who's been praying for me, for our camp season, and for this work here in general. peace

Oof.

I´m sorry folks. I had planned to write a nice little update here and FINALLY introduce you to my house via pictures, but this computer is super slow and I´m not sure I´ve got the patience to write much. here goes though.
This is the view from the street. It used to have a very strongly worded sign out front, not-so-politely requesting people not to throw garbage in front.

This is my bedroom, and the last stop on our tour for the day. Blogger doesn´t want to work too well.

Anyway, I´m alive and well. Christmas Eve was full of loud parties, loud kids lighting firecrackers, and just noise in general. The Gringos stuck together and had a great meal and time hanging out with the Lucas Family in Block 10, and we even tried to have Youth Group on Christmas Eve. Now all that remains is the even louder night (So I´m told) Of the 31st.

Looking forward to a new year, with new challenges and new ways to see God working here in Ecuador. thanks, and keep praying:)

peace! I WILL write more soon.

I suppose I'm due for another one...

hey all, I just noticed that it had been more than a month since I'd updated this. so here's somewhat of a play-by-play of my month, with a few tangents added in.

Well, shortly after my last entry, Angela, a good friend from Ontario graced us with her presence for a few weeks. We traveled to Cuenca to visit Daniel Lucas, which was great. She also stayed in Block 10 with the Vera's for a good chunk of her stay, and it was a really good visit for me and for all the youth in Block 10.

In that time I also had the opportunity to see my second concert ever in Ecuador. Now I have to say that I really don't like concerts much. I don't get terribly excited by being in a crowd, and even worse when it's a crowd of Ecuadorians. I'd just as soon sit in my room with headphones on. But, when am I ever going to get another chance to see Alex Campos in concert? So, we canceled youth group that Saturday, or rather, we invited the youth group kids to the concert (it was a free concert) and piled into the bus to take us on the long voyage to the south of the city. It being a free concert with space for only 18,000 people, we rushed to get there, get into line, and make our way in. Well, it was ridiculous. I don't like crowds at the best of times, and this was standing in a crowd for well over 5 hours, with latecomers constantly shoving their way through hoping to find a better vantage point. The concert started late, and first there was the typical banter and making the crowd cheer about how they want to be "crazy" for Jesus for half an hour. Then the opening act came out and did your typical cookie-cutter Christian songs with mini sermons in the middle of every song. I must confess that my attitude began to slide shortly after arriving, and after the 8th song by this opening act I was just about ready to lose it. Finally, after over an hour of that, a Pastor came out and announced that the offering garbage bags were going around, so everyone should put in lots of money (those poor guys fighting through a crowd of 22,000 to give people the opportunity to give). And then Alex Campos came out and the rest of the concert was brilliant. Anyway, that's my incredibly cynical review of that night. It was still definitely worthwhile and a really good time spent with a lot of youth and youth leaders from Block 6 as well.

Ok, and more seriously... I mentioned in my last entry that I was hitting nothing but dead ends in the house hunt. well, around mid-August the sister of the owner of the house I was looking at before came by to tell me that there was good news; her sister had decided to rent me the house. She came by and we looked it over and discussed it and it seemed good to me. The only issue was having to put money into the fix-ups required to make it livable. And here's where I learned another thing about Ecuador; nothing is easy. simple paperwork is a nightmare, and there are processes for everything. Well, this family who owns the house had bought it off of another sister of hers, with the intention of finishing the fix-ups and selling it. They ran out of money, though, so it was just sitting there. They had bought ceramic for the floors and bathroom and they said that all it needed was the installation of the floors and the bathroom, and they would give me a discount on my monthly rent until we were squared up. I was given a rough estimate of $400 to get it ready to move in. Well, not long into my commitment to fix it up and rent it, dozens of other small fixes became evident. Almost every day I would come home and be greeted with, "Well, Luke, they did a bad job on the floor so we can't lay the ceramic. We need to buy a bunch more cement to fix the floor", or "Well, Luke, when they were throwing down cement for the bathroom floor, they weren't careful, and they filled all the drains and pipes with cement, so now we need to hire someone else to come in and tear up the floor and put in new pipes."
And then they ran out of ceramic. So, i'm committed now, and I still believe that this is the house God planned for me, but man alive i'm up to nearly $800 spent already, with an estimated $400 to go. Had I known it would be this ridiculous a month ago, I wouldn't have considered it, but I'm trusting that it's where God has me, and the location and layout of the house is just brilliant, so I'm excited for it to be finished. Lord willing, soon.

And on the plus side, I'll be paying only $40 a month for rent for 2 years before they're done reimbursing me for the fix-ups.

School continues to be a headache, but I think I'm learning through it all. It's a blessing for me to be able to be in the school building relationships with these kids, and even though it means I have to suffer through the classroom time and discipline problems, it's well worth it.

Well... I think that's it. Please don't think things are going negatively. I hope I haven't painted a bad picture of life here. I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I'm content and learning lots.

If you think of me and are praying, please pray for wisdom and guidance for really settling into the church here in Bastion. I'm loving work with the youth and with kids club and i'm encouraged, but I'm sensing something more coming... not too sure, but just please pray that I'll trust God to prepare me for whatever He has. if you could pray that God would provide a fridge and stove for my house once it's done, that'd be swell, too, and just for His eyes to see people the way He does and to love unconditionally and for more relationships and opportunities to love people.

thanks again for your prayers. I don't know when I'll write again; I'm on borrowed internet right now and trying to take advantage of it. anyway, peace!

And here comes the novel

Ok, I realize that this is way overdue, but it’s been pretty crazy here, and the internet is so unbelievably slow EVERYWHERE in Bastion. Anyway, I guess I’ll try to bring you all up to date on my first three weeks in Ecuador

So I got here after a ridiculous long day of flying (although otherwise uneventful), showed up in Guayaquil to find out that Janna was indeed leaving a few hours after I got here, and had a nice little surprise welcome to Ecuador party at the Vera’s. I didn’t get anything near enough sleep, and then woke up early the next morning to go check out the school and say hi to folks. I distinctly remember that it was nice.

It was good timing in the sense that I made it just as they were writing their first trimester exams, so I had that week off since they’d written English already. I spent that week mostly just goofing off, following the Vera family (where I’m currently staying) around, and adjusting.
Then that first weekend that I was there, Tim Horne arrived (his first time back in Ecuador in a year and a half) and he brought a team of Canadians to do some work in Bastion and to take some kids from the school to camp for a few days. We had six young Canadian folk in Block 10, and we were originally expecting two guys to live here, so the plan was for me to share my room with them. However, we ended up having two girls, and I was relieved of my room for four nights. It was a lot of fun though, and we got some painting done at the church in Block 10, as well as a bit of cement-splatting on the wall to smooth it all out.

My highlight was probably out last day of “work” since we had to hose down the inside of the church to wash the floor. (It’s fairly common to hose the floor down and sweep out the water with the debris instead of just dry-sweeping) SO we had a nice little water fight in the church, which ended with a big bag of laundry detergent being dumped in the floor to make an indoor slip and slide. I reckon it was pretty memorable for all involved, though the few Ecuadorians brave enough to venture it said the cold water made them sick after.

Then it was off to camp with the grade five and six students from the school, as well as about half of last year’s grade six class. It was a good few days, despite the cold (a few evenings even Canadians donned sweaters) and it was overall a great trip with a great group of folks from Ontario, building relationships with Ecuadorians, living and working and serving alongside one another.

Then they left and I simply crashed; I had quite a lot of sleep to catch up on. The following week brought on a major cold, a few upset stomach days, and a few other random health annoyances, on top of being my first week of English classes which I was ill-prepared for. It was great having Tim around for that extra week as well, since it gave me a few chances to chat with him about my plans and get his advice and perspective on some things as well.

Now I’m just trying to adjust and figure out the English teaching thing, since it turns out that teaching 18 hyperactive kids who don’t REALLY care about learning English is a fair bit different from the faithful little groups of roughly eight adults who would come to learn from the trainee students while I was taking my English Teaching course in Canada.

We’re preparing to start up our Kids Club at the Block 10 church this coming Saturday, which I’ll be involved with somehow. I’m also beginning to get involved with the youth group meetings on Saturday nights. I’m really very encouraged by the youth here in Block 10, who have taken on a lot of responsibilities and are dedicated to the Lord and want to serve Him.

Finally, my hunt for a place to live has thus far not yielded anything. I still feel strongly about living in Block 10, but apartments on safe streets and nearby enough are not terribly numerous. There is one unfinished house in a great location that was supposed to be for rent, but apparently she´s decided to sell instead of renting...

SO, for those who are praying; I’d dearly LOVE to get into my own place as soon as possible. I’m content here where I am, but it’s not my own. I don’t have the freedom to simply invite youth over to hang out, and I’d like to get to begin to actually settle in. Just pray that God will provide a place, or indicate where He would have me go. Thy will be done, and help me to see it. Also, as I begin to settle, for wisdom and a vision for my time here. I’m content to be working at the school and involved in ministries here and there, but I’d love to know my purpose.

Anyway, thanks again, and sorry it took so long to write, AND that you had to practically read a novel to get caught up. Blessings!
Peace