Get Your Passport for Your Next Doctor Visit

Tate...hoping she didn't just hear the word for "shot" or "blood work" in Spanish.

2 Patients

2 Emergency Room Visits

7 Doctors

1 Urine Test

1 set of labs on blood

Motrin

Tylenol

Antihistamine

2 hours

and all for only $33.00!  

So, in the future, if you need to go to the emergency room it would be cheaper for you to fly to Shell, Ecuador and visit the VozAndes Hospital!  Just so you know, the girls looked good; nothing some Motrin and rest won't fix in time.  Thanks for all of the prayers.  Now, go get your passport just in case you have to go to the doctor in the future!

Steve Saint

Skype session with Steve Saint (Nate Saint's son)

We had the privilege of Skyping Steve Saint (Nate Saint's son) from Florida where he is recovering from a severe accident he had a few months ago.  GRN Ecuador is beginning to work alongside Steve's new ministry called I-TEC (Indigenous People's Technology and Education Center).  Steve has spent many years living with the same Woarani men who killed his father.  They have become his family.  While living with them he was able to see the effects of missions on their community.  The people were becoming dependent on the foreigners and didn't realize they were capable of helping their own people and spreading the Word to others around them.  The goal of I-TEC is to give very basic training to indigenous people in the areas of dental, medical, optometry, fixing mechanical equipment and flying planes.  These skills, combined with the recordings made through GRN, allow the native people to meet the basic needs of others while sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Steve Saint was kind enough to skype with us and welcome us to Ecuador and his facility.  He was encouraged by the work the Lord was doing and the future of these ministries.
He has recently released a new book called The Great Omission and a DVD training series called Missions Dilemma.  Both are focused on what does and does not work in missions and is aimed at changing our perspective on the way we do missions both short and long term.  I've read the book and loved it and Emil and I are currently going through the DVD series.  Our hope is to be able to share it with you at home in the near future. 

Praying Parents

Stacy, Graci, Tati, Fernanda, Becca and Emil.

This is Graci and Fernanda and they are GRN recordists in Brazil.  We have had the privilege of building a friendship with them over the past five weeks.  One of the blessings of us being here is hearing the testimonies of those on our team.

Graci, at the age of five, heard a missionary share at church and ask the children if anyone wanted to grow up to become a missionary and serve God.  Graci raised her hand and they prayed for the Lord's leading on her life.  Her family continued to pray and as a teen she began her mission adventure.  She's only in her early 30s, but has already lived with a tribe for five years, learned their language, developed an alphabet for them and taught them to read!   While with the tribe she had a GRN recordist come to make a recording of the gospel message for these people.  When she saw the impact it had she decided to join the organization and become a recordist.  She works in hard to reach jungle areas alongside Fernanda (also in the picture).

Fernanda is only 29 years old.  Her mother prayed before she was born that she would be a missionary.  She too was called in her teens, went to school to become a nurse and joined the GRN team.  She serves the Lord in ways most of us only read about in books.  These young women are truly godly humble servants of the Lord.  They are also great examples of what happens when parents pray!  The Bible says that it is our responsibility to train our children in the way of the Lord.  Let's pray for our children!

Becca's Big Day

Here is Becca sharing what the Lord has done in her life.  This is the room where the training takes place each day.  You can see the picture better by clicking on it.

Today was Becca's big day.  She shared her testimony with the Ecuador team.  She was offered the opportunity and took it with shaking knees.  She spent time in the Word and then wrote out her story.  She did an outstanding job speaking and we couldn't be more proud of her taking this challenge.  Not only did she have to make sure her words were well thought out, she also had to learn to stop, while speaking,  at appropriate places to have her story translated (by Gerry) into Spanish.   As a parent you think about the plans the Lord has for your children in the future, but the Lord has made it obvious that he is already using Becca for his glory now!  We are thankful that she was kind enough to not list all the ways we've messed her up!  We praise God for his work in our daughter's life (despite us)!  If you want to read her testimony visit her website and click on "my testimony."  Her blog link is on the right hand side of this page.

Cuy

Guinea Pig on the grill.  They look a bit frightened.

This is all part of the adventure!

We did it!  We ate Cuy today!  Cuy is guinea pig and is a delicacy here.  $3.00 got us a thigh and a leg (with claw).  Tate, Becca and I each got a few bites while Emil watched.
You'll never guess what it tasted like.....Chicken!

Who doesn't like guinea pig in between bites of their chocolate covered banana?

Exotic Foods (By Tati)

This is what we would normally eat for breakfast.  Frosted Flakes and milk (which comes in a box).

This is really good  yogurt  that is also drinkable.

It is strawberry.

Everyday for lunch we have soup.  

One day the lady who makes our lunch showed me how to make maduro (a fried yellow plantain) because I love them.  They are sweet.

This is a quail egg next to a normal one.

We tried to cook it, but it was really hard to crack because it was so small.

This is one day's lunch.  It is shrimp, platacones (fried green plaintain) and tomatoes.

On Sunday the team went for lunch.  This is a traditional Ecuadorian dish.  In it is has beans, crunchy corn (like corn nuts), tomatoes, onions, banana chips and a hunk of tuna on top.  It was pretty good.  This is Jorge and he is from Colombia.

This is a fried banana with cheese.  A lady makes them in a little booth on the side of the road.  They are $1.00 each.  I did not really like them.

This is corn with cheese.  They call it choclo.  I did not like it very much.  None of my family did.

This is good chicken with a green sauce.  They are called pinchos.  They are also made in the booth on the street with the corn and bananas.

This is a lady cooking Cuy (guinea pig).  I did not eat it.  My family wants to try it soon.  NOT  ME!

Don't Be a Chicken!

 

Is this you?  Do you feel like a chicken with its head cut off?  Have you lost your sense of direction, your focus, or the Lord's vision and purpose for your life?  Well, I know why...

... You've lost your connection with the Head!

Colossians 2:19 says,
"He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow."

If you have lost connection with the Head, the Lord, you better reconnect.  Get in the word daily.  Pray continuously.  Be obedient to what the Lord wants you to do.  You need the head to grow.

If you don't hurry up and reconnect there are always consequences.  I mean really, we all know what happens to the chicken in the end!

Don't be a chicken!

A Non-Spanish, Spanish Lesson

As many of you know, I(Stacy)  have been slowly practicing Spanish over the past year.  I've been attending a Spanish Bible study and working on Rosetta Stone.  Now that I'm here, in Ecuador, a Spanish speaking country, I've been dunked into the language at full speed.  I've learned a lot more vocabulary and phrases and it's been a safe place to practice (by safe, I mean, safe for my ego), as people here have helped me tremendously.  The past four weeks have been an awesome Spanish class with many lessons, but the biggest lesson I've learned has been while speaking Spanish, but has nothing to do with the specific language...

The biggest lesson that I've learned is to THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK!  I've had brief lessons in this at home that have ended with me and a mouthful of foot, but this is different.  To speak Spanish I have to actually stop and think about what I am about to say.  It's been a difficult lesson for me to learn.  When I don't think before speaking I fumble my words and it leaves the other person with a confused look.  When I think before speaking I tend to butcher the language a bit less and am able to communicate more clearly.   Wow, what a revelation!

Isn't it awesome how the Lord uses unconventional ways to teach us life lessons?  Now I just need to bring this new lesson home!  Pray for me; I'll need it!

This is Cessia and Leonor.  They bring lunch for us each day.  We start with a different type of soup each day, followed by meat or seafood, veggie and rice.  Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in South America.  They make fresh fruit juice each day too.  They teach me more Spanish each day... names of foods, recipes, fruits, etc.  It's one of my favorite Spanish lessons each day.

Becca's Blog

If you haven't yet checked out Becca's blog click on the link to the right.  She'd love you to visit!

From One Foot to One Toe

Our Team at the Nate Saint House

Every morning one person from our team has been sharing their testimony of what the Lord has done in their lives.  Emil and I shared last Thursday and Friday and I was grateful for the opportunity because it made me really reflect on what has made the difference in my walk with the Lord.  Some of you know my testimony and many of you don't, but without getting into details I was a believer at a young age.  In junior high, high school and college I was involved in church but always had one foot in the world and one foot at church.  I was really the worst kind of Christian there is.  The one the Bible says causes others to stumble (and the Bible says that it is better for those who cause others to stumble to tie a block around their neck and throw themselves in a river than to face judgement).  I would party with my friends one day, then go to church the next.  I would gossip and talk about others, then proclaim to have Jesus Christ in my life.  I would concern myself with having the bigger and better things in life, then act like God was first.

It wasn't until we began going to Rancho Baptist Church that these things began to change.   It wasn't the church that changed me, but the Lord used the people in the church to get a hold of my heart and my mind.  I had different friends come alongside me and hold me accountable.  If you didn't catch that, I said I had people in my life hold me ACCOUNTABLE for the things I was and was not doing.  They did it in a loving way, by pointing me to what the Bible says.  I guess if you don't read your Bible on a daily basis (as I wasn't) you don't know, as a Christian, how you are supposed to live your life.  The Bible is pretty clear and when we are not reading and following it we are being flat out disobedient.  The more I read, the more I learned.
And slowly I went from having one foot in the world to maybe just my big toe!

I am definitely not perfect (and I won't be until heaven), but I can say that the Lord is at work in my life and moving me forward.  I am grateful for those people who still hold me accountable.  That is what loving Christian brothers and sisters do.  I don't ever want to be a stumbling block or the reason someone doesn't turn to Christ.  Lord, I will have to have your strength for that!

Tate's Job (aka Tati)

One of my jobs here in Ecuador is babysitting.  My sister and I watch two little girls after we eat lunch.  One is 6 years old and her name is Hannah and the other is 1 1/2 and her name is Keisi.  They both speak Spanish so it is pretty hard because we don't know a lot of Spanish to communicate with them.  Hannah is learning English, like animals, colors,and greetings.  After lunch she gets home from school and eats.   Sometimes she has homework that we help her with and sometimes she just colors.  She has become my little brown sister and me her older white.  After she eats she has an hour until she goes to school again for (every day it is different) music, are, P.E. or drama.  After one of those classes she goes (on Wednesday and Thursday  to English for a half an hour.  One day a week she goes to the Good News Club and we go with her. Keisi comes home from childcare when Hannah is in music.  She either takes a nap or plays with Becca or me.  she is really cute, but can be pretty sassy.  Some days we ( after school ) take them to our home and play, paint nails or watch a movie. Then  their parents pick them up.  I love watching little kids and I am glad to be watching Hannah and Keisi.  They have become practically family.  We love them and they love us.  It will be really hard to leave because we have become so attached to one another.  It will be difficult for us and for them.  I don't want to leave because this is like my second home.

Becca doing Hannah's nails

Tate and Keisi

Tate and Hannah

Team Ecuador

This is our team.  Three more weeks to go.  Please continue to pray.  We appreciate you all!

Can You Still Hear the Rain?

At night I lay in bed listening to the rain beat down on the roof top.  It's such a calming sound; a sound I'm not accustomed to hearing back home in California.  The rains here are tropical, pouring out of the sky in buckets, saturating the warm air and surrounding us with strikes of lightening and tremendous roars of thunder.  There are many sounds here in Ecuador, like the early rising roosters, the barking dogs or the vendor driving through the streets calling out his specials for the day.  Yes, there are many sounds, but the rain is my favorite.

I wonder, do the locals still hear the rain?  Have they become so accustomed to the sound that they no longer notice it?  What about the sights, the lush jungle, the Andes Mountains?  Do they stand in awe of the volcano we see on our walk each day or has it faded into the background?

It makes me wonder what sights and sounds we have become deaf and blind to at home.  Think about it.  If you woke up tomorrow and approached the day, as if it were your first, what sounds would you hear?  What sights (things or people) would you see?

Today, pray that the Lord will give you a fresh perspective as you go through your daily life....
... and be ready for what He might reveal!

Sangay Volcano we see on our walk to training each day.

Asombroso - Amazing!

This was the climb up to the waterfall we visited today.  It's called  Pailon del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron).  It was one of the most amazing wonders of creation I've ever seen.  God is so powerful!

Before getting to the waterfall we had to walk  1KM down a steep path .

Once getting to the waterfall we had to climb on our hands and knees through a tunnel that leads to the back of the  fall.  It is pretty tight, mighty wet and a bit crowded since it is a holiday weekend.

Once through the tunnel we were behind  the waterfall.  We are almost to the top.  We couldn't take pictures at the actual place behind it because it is so wet and powerful.  No picture could describe the sheer power of the water!

The white is the actual falls from behind.  We are waiting our turn to go higher up.  Not a sight for those afraid of heights.

Afterwards we had to climb back down the tunnels.  The girls loved this adventure!

Not an easy climb for those who are taller!

Below is the cauldron.  We are soaked after our climb to the top!

This is only the bottom part of the falls.  Pure beauty.

We are at the bottom of the falls quite a distance away.

As if the falls weren't enough, we went ten minutes up the road to take a cable care across a canyon  1000 feet above the ground.  No waivers to sign, no warning signs, and it only costs $1.50 per person.  I'm questioning my parenting choices!

Even I, normally pretty adventurous, was a bit nervous, but what an amazing sight!

Serving is Enough

When the Lord opened the door for us to come to Ecuador we did not know exactly what we would do here.  We offered the service of our family and just moved forward.  We knew the Lord had a plan for us, but couldn't see it just yet.  Now that we are here in Shell we can see the Lord's plan thus far.  Our job here is to serve our team.  Our team is made up of 15 recordists and directors for Global Recordings Network.  Each of these people has worked diligently on the field with people groups around the world who had not yet heard the good news of Jesus Christ.  Every morning we are blessed to hear the testimony of one person on the team.  Each of these stories are moving, extraordinary and inspiring.  Not because the person sharing is some super missionary, but because each one has allowed the Lord to take control of their lives and lead them where He wanted to use them.  The Lord has used each one in mighty ways and continues to now.  We have the privilege of building bridges with each of these individuals and the ministry they are involved in.  We are here to serve, encourage and pray for each one of these people.  In the beginning I didn't think this sounded very exciting, adventurous or glamorous, but now I realize it's much better than that - it's serving another brother or sister in Christ.... a job Jesus himself would have taken upon himself (and did).  Serving another is showing love... a commandment from the Lord.  Lord, forgive me for thinking that simply serving another wasn't doing "enough".  Thank you for the opportunity to serve you and those you love!

On the left side of the street is I-Tec where the training is taking place.  On the right is Nate Saint Memorial School for the missionary kids.  In front of that is the Nate Saint House.  More pictures to come.

Catching My Breath

The best two words to describe life here in Shell are simple and friendly.  Now this is only an observation from someone who has spent a mere 2 weeks here, but it is definitely the feeling I get living here.  Let me explain…

Simple:

Today, after returning from the training center, I had to decide what our family would do for dinner.  Now, for anyone who knows me, not knowing our meal plan for the next week is a bit out of character.  But, that is life here in Shell.  Will we go out to eat or stay in (eating out costs about $12 for our family at a sit down restaurant)?  Well, Emil and I decided to have dinner in so I went to the store for what we needed.  I went to the butcher for ground meat, then to the fruit stand for tomatoes and fresh garlic, and then over to the corner market for tortillas and cheese.  That sounds like a lot of running around in our Western minds, but it was all within three blocks of the house!  Life is simple, something I’m not too used to!

Relaxing on the roof-deck of our house

Friendly:

I have truly never been anywhere that had friendlier people than here.  Everyone you walk by greets you with a smile and a greeting (Buenos tardes, etc.).  Everyone, even the youth, acknowledge you with a smile.   People recognize us (we may stand out a bit) and are so helpful and encouraging as we butcher their language!  People have time for one another, something we have long forgotten.  At the park the other day another 10 year old girl came over to get Tate (or Tati as they call her here) so she could try the swing (a board and some rope) that they had rigged across the monkey bars.  She couldn’t communicate verbally, but she was determined to make a friend of her. 

Tate and her Park Friend, Michelle 

Redneck Ecuadorian Swing

Simple and friendly… two lessons worth practicing.  Have you ever found yourself so busy with life that you forget to breathe?  Since we’ve been here in Ecuador I feel like I have finally caught my breath!  Praying you take time today to breathe.

It's Snack Time

One of our jobs here is preparing snacks for the team.  Thought we'd get a bit creative!  Ants anyone?

Becca, Tate and I (Stacy) tried one; Emil was not brave enough.  Everyone decided they tasted like bbq chicken and popcorn combined.  Interesting!

It's Raining, It's POURING!

Over the last 24 hours (Friday night until now, Saturday night), it has been pouring buckets… and I mean buckets.  If it had rained like this in California the entire state would be in a state of emergency for sure and my house would have slid off the hill!  Listening to the rain outside is such a welcomed sound.  It’s so loud you have to raise your voice to hear one another.  Once in awhile you’ll hear a roar of thunder that is so deep and powerful it shakes the house.  Because it was raining this morning our excursion for the day was cancelled and we stayed home.  Now what?  We are not used to being home without anything to do.  This isn’t our home so there are no household projects to do.  The internet has been down and the phone lines too.  There is no communication with those at home or those here.  Hmmmm??? You know what we did?  We relaxed!  Yes, believe it or not it’s an English word… relax.  It means to do nothing and like it!  We took naps, read our books, cuddled on the couch together and watched I Love Lucy DVDs, and when the rain broke for an hour we went on a stroll (not a walk, just a stroll).  I think we need to bring this custom home with us and share the concept with all of you.  Praying you all find a moment to RELAX!

Here's a Riddle for You...

The team on our roof deck.

Becca and Fernanda (Brazilian Recordist) 

Our leaders Noel and Jon playing Face the Cookie

What do you get when you play telephone with…

            2 Australians

            1 from Thailand

            2 from Ecuador

            1 Colombian

            2 Mexicans

            2 Brazilians

            1 from Argentina

            1 from Peru

            And 7 Americans?

… a night of side-splitting laughter!  Friday night we had the team over for some pizza and fellowship on the roof-top deck.  Someone in the group began a round of telephone and the fun began.  With three languages, well actually four if you count the Australians, the message that began the game never came close to being the same message in the end.  That game turned into a black magic, then a few silly Colombian games and even the game, “I’m going on a trip and I’m going to take….,” where you have to remember each item in alphabetical order (in all four languages), and eventually we ended with “face the cookie.”  We were all crying with laughter, sometimes at ourselves, other times at another.  What a special time to be able to laugh and bond across languages and cultures and just be one big family!  Praying you have laughter in your day today!