A busy month including a work team from Michigan, drivers training, and summitting Cotopaxi. At the moment most of us are headed to help with the logistics of the Huairasinchi adventure race which begins tomorrow morning. 300 km (200 miles) of running, biking, and kayaking. More when I return.

~MWL

Huarasinchi

This weekend I tagged along on a campout designed to give more outdoor experience to a group of Ecuadorian young adults who will run the control points of the Huarasinchi adventure race this November. The idea is to pair them with one other more experienced individual who is bi-lingual (English/Spanish).

From El Refugio we headed over through the town of San Antonio which boasts the Mitad del Mundo monument which nearly every tourist visits and then around the back side of the Pululahua Crater reserve. After passing through a very dusty mining area we parked at the home of an elderly couple and hiked up the hillside. The group I was with for the day received training in LNT (Leave No Trace), cooking with camp stoves, and how to set up a survival shelter made out of a tarp. Meanwhile those who had been through the training already were camped at the top of the hill in the middle of a corn field and several of us joined them after sending the others off to spend the night under their tarps.

The evening was quite enjoyable, spaghetti for supper, great conversation. A fair amount of stars shown through scattered clouds with a bright moon and it wasn’t all that cold. It was the first time I’ve camped in Ecuador that I didn’t have to worry about snow blowing in my tent every time I opened the door and I could put my sunscreen on in the morning without thawing it out first. This was due to the fact that we were camped at 10,000 ft. instead of 15,000 ft. Quite enjoyable actually, breathing is a lot easier.

It was interesting to hear from the participants their various reasons for wanting to be a part of the race support team. For many it is a chance to learn more of the outdoors. One young man specifically mentioned that he was there to experience God’s creation away from the Playstation, something many in Quito never do. Contrasting this was another man in his mid to late twenties who grew up in the country but now teaches at a technical high school. He brought to our attention the tremendous amount of work it takes to plant by hand the corn that surrounded us. While he said he couldn’t escape that fact he wanted to experience the outdoors “from the other side,” to enjoy it. From the responses we have a great team whose members are open to what God wants to show them. Can't wait to see what happens.

~MWL

PTC

A little update on our main project at the moment, the Professional Training Center. This building will be used mainly for leadership training in various capacities and is coming about in partnership with Leader Mundial. They had the money, we had the property. Our current goal is to ensure that the building is complete for use in February for the global leadership conference. Last year saw about 30 organizational leaders from 9 countries.

This past week we finished the roof tile which was an enjoyable chore. The preparation for that point however was quite a process. Roof decking is tongue and groove that will be seen from the inside. Then the purloins had to be laid, wet eucalyptus that wasn’t the greatest to work with. We also capped the overhangs with a form of fascia to keep the decking in good order. Anyway, all that has been about two weeks in taking shape amidst everything else going on around here.

~MWL

A little bit of life –

So last week I had this craving for rice and beans. Very crazy. More specifically the craving was for gallo pinto, a typical food from Costa Rica. Perhaps it was the conversation a few days before with someone visiting from the Latin America IT office (in Costa Rica) and several others who had spent time there, not sure. Nevertheless, that night I made gallo pinto minus the cilantro (which I didn’t have on hand) along with fried eggs and platanos maduros (mature plantains). Great stuff.

That was a good ending to an interesting week. While it had its good points, like nearly finishing the roof on the PTC (more on that later) and getting signed up for the driver’s ed class I have to take, there were a few negatives. Mainly, while trying to use my ATM card the machine took it. That in itself wasn’t a bad thing, actually it may have been a good thing as it caused me to review my bank records. In doing so I realized that someone had used my card, or number, twice on the east coast of the US the day before. That realization brought about a call to cancel my card at 1 am and the following morning a few calls to inform my bank and ask for a new card. They were extremely helpful. I’m afraid that is part of the adventure of living here in Ecuador and very likely to happen again.

How’s Life?

A few weeks ago at our staff meeting we had a visitor named Jim Burns who has been a friend of Youth World for quite some time. Returning from a youth workers convention in Argentina he stopped with his wife to visit friends in Quito, many of them from Youth World. He brought a great challenge from Heb. 12:1-2 and shared the questions below as a means of evaluating how life is going and what needs to change.

- Is it working? Is life working?

- Am I focused?

- What do I need to do to sustain my life, family, health, and ministry over the long haul? (How am I doing? What’s holding me back?)

- Is my character submitted to Christ?

- Am I living a life of integrity?

- Is my pace of life sustainable?

- Is my heart for God shrinking or growing?

- What areas of my life do I need the courage to change? (What’s holding me back?)

- Do I have enough replenishing relationships? Do I invest in these relationships?

- Do I like the person I am becoming?

- Is the work of God I’m doing destroying the work of God in me?

- Am I giving my family only my emotional scraps?

~MWL

Climbing -

A few excursions thus far. Three of us went to Imbabura and summitted as a trainer peak before an attempt on Cayambe. Yes, I say attempt as we made it to the base camp and no further. Strong winds and lightning made us decide to abandon the attempt and the usual midnight departure. The tent I was in suffered bent poles and the next morning it took us over an hour to dig the tents out of the snow. The trip did serve however to expose our two Ecuadorian interns to snow and glacier travel. That was cool to see as neither of them had ever experienced snow before despite the fact they regularly see it on clear days from their homes.

~MWL