Monday, February 18 – a day to paint

“How come they’re so pale?” “Why don’t they speak Spanish?” the Quichuan children asked each other. They wanted to know where “Blanca” was, the white lady, by that they were looking for Elnice, who with her short white curly hair was quite an attraction to them. During the service the day before they tried to gently touch her hair.
The children of Cuatro Lote had been let out of school at noon and now they were busy pressing their noses against the windows of the church watching us paint and commenting on what they saw. Slowly they ventured inside the building and we started talking with them and learned words from each other. They learned how to say “I want a photo” (they love being able to see their picture right away on the digital cameras) and we learned how to say “what is your name” in Quichua. When we explained that we are from Canada one of us broke into the Canadian anthem and al of us joined in heartily. As we explained to the children what we had been singing they immediately lined themselves up and sang the Ecuadorian national anthem for us. They are a real joy to be with. As some of the parents joined us it was obvious to me that it was a joy to them to see us love on their children.
I personally feel overwhelmed with gratitude to the Lord for being able to be in a Quichua village with these gentle people after having read much about them and others in latin American countries over the years. This whole trip and how it came about is such a gift from God to me, I feel so honored to be part of it. I am amazed at the joy we are able to bring with small things, as I observed in the facial expression on the Pastor’s face when he watched Dave paint with a roller and how quickly it covered big spaces. While we were painting Andy was able to help unload the parts for the iron beams for the other church and carry them uphill – yikes, I can barely make it up myself – have to stop time and again to catch my breath.
This morning we assembled 60 goodie bags to hand out to the children after our program on Thursday, they are full of fun stuff for them (school supplies, mirrors, coloring books,crayons,calculators…) then the women went to the open market to replenish lunch stuff while the men bought the paint. Jenell was able to tell us the names of the local fruits and vegetables and thee was a great abundance of them. The meat market portion however was such that would have me become a vegetarian in no time I think if I had to depend on it. Intestines and skin of various animals were boiling in big pots and apparently are sought after as a delicacy. Chickens are lined up on top of a table and one of the girls on the team said – all I can think of is salmonella. They sold very tiny hot peppers and a seasoning that is used in Ahi sauce, a staple here for every meal and one I will try to make at home so I wanted to know the ingredients.
This afternoon we encountered a hole in the road that our bus could not tackle, and after some unsuccessful attempts to fill in the hole with some rocks, 8 of us at a time piled into Paul and Joan’s vehicle and were taken to the church that way, this truly is a continuous adventure.
One of my highlights today was learning to say “thank you from my heart” in Quichua, “pagui shu go shwa” this is the phonetic way, how I heard it. Manuel, the Pastor’s son and one of the worship leaders on Sunday, was trying to teach me and got quite a few chuckles from my attempts to get it right.
That is all I have time for today, will get back to this as soon as I am able. T