Me gusta Ecuador!

First of all, I would like to give a shout-out to Seniora Butler from Starkville Academy. Apparently, I DID pick up a tidbit of Spanish in her class despite all the time spent making up weird pet names with Dallas Massey and making fun of Jay Cook's huge smile. It was strange/amazing how so many Spanish words popped into my head after all these years (almost 10, gag!)

Anyway, Ecuador was terrific! We will begin this blog journey with a picture of me straddling the Equator!

Please excuse what appear to be mom-jeans.

At any rate, in this picture, I am in both the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere at one time, gasp! They can do a lot of cool tricks on the Equator line. Your resistance is different, you can balance an egg on a nail, and they do a really nifty demonstration of how the toilet flushes clockwise in the North Hemi, counter-clockwise in the South Hemi, and if the toilet is ON THE Equator Line, it just goes straight down!

This is one view of the city, from atop a hill. I don't know that woman.
Go to NYC and you can buy a hotdog from a street vendor. Go to Ecuador and you can buy an entire fried pig OR the ever popular Guinnea Pig!
This picture is taken from inside the Quito Baptist Association Center. It is a map of the church plants they are working on inside the province of Pichincha. I thought it was pretty impressive!
A toilet, you're thinking? You can't flush tissue paper in Ecuador, you just have to throw it away. Ew. Also, there is no TP in the individual stall. Not even in the bathroom itself. The TP is outside, on the wall between the Men and Women's bathroom doors. You just get it BEFORE you go into the bathroom, thus you need to do a careful estimation process in front of EVERYONE. Awkward!

This was my view from the room I stayed in. Quito is a modern city of about 3 million people. There is little violent crime, just a lot of petty theft. They primarily eat chicken, rice, and french fries everyday for lunch. Another guy, Kyle, and I are the Coordinators for an International World Changers project here this summer. We are tailoring the ministry to the broader strategies of the Ecuador Missionary (Ron) that we're working with. I am in charge of all the ministry that will take place during the project, as well as teaching church planting strategies to the participants. What is interesting about this project specifically is that there is a large group of nationals (Ecuadorians) who are wanting to form a Latina Mission Board (similar to our North American Mission Board). Their primary focus is to mobilize youth in missions. To get this started, they are going to attend our project to get an idea of the strategies we use. So, I'm teaching church planting strategies to people trying to start their own mission board! Pretty amazing!

And this lovely and delicious treat is what was waiting for me back home! I am so glad to be back home! I missed the hubby and crazy dog so bad!

I hope you found this blogpost both educational and entertaining. I also learned how to shrink a head, but I didn't want to gross you out.