Day 36 in Ecuador

Today was another very good day, but also very exhausting. This morning we decided to get a little fancy with breakfast and had some banana and chocolate chip pancakes with eggs and bacon. It was fun to be able to spend some time with some other interns before their team arrived. After breakfast, Dale and I helped with some cleaning that needed to be done before teams arrived.

U12 practice

We had a Skype meeting with Joseph at 9:00 that went really well. One of my frustrations with work recently was that we were kind of making up work to do and not having set direction. One if the reasons this happened was because we were supposed to have a Skype meeting with Joseph on Tuesday but he got appendicitis and had to get his appendix taken out. A little side note, he apparently isn't able to lift more than 5 pounds over the next six weeks AND his wife is 33 weeks pregnant and could pop at any second. So their family could definitely use some prayer. Anyways, the meeting went really well this morning because Dale and I were given much more direction with our work and now have plenty of things to do.

After our meeting, we helped clean up some more and then worked for about an hour in the morning, improving the financial report for missionaries that we had sent Joseph the past week. At noon, we met up with Edwards again and ended up making him some lunch at la Casablanca. We ate and gave him a good English lesson. Dale then had the idea to give him a quizlet of 30 English words to memorize while Dale and I worked more on some projects. This worked really well and both Dale and I were very impressed at how good of a student Edwards was. He was able to memorize almost all of the words in about 30 minutes. We are doing the same thing tomorrow so keep praying for this relationship to grow and that we would continue to help him learn more!

Once Edwards left, Dale and I worked for another hour before leaving for U12 Cumbre Alta Academy practice at 4. Only about 5 kids showed up for practice today, but it still was a good practice. I was lacking energy for this practice but Dale helped balance me and did an awesome job leading some excercises with the kids at the end. It is definitely very helpful to have Dale down here, especially for days when I am just struggling to serve. We have two of these practices next week, Wednesday and Thursday, and Edgar said that Dale and I can lead both of those. Be praying that God would give me the energy I need to have fun with the kids and to help them grow!

Dale and I then went for about a 20 minute run in an area that was actually really flat, which helped us get a good run in. We then did some pushups and abs before heading to dinner with Mejia and Edgar. We had a nice conversation around that table and actually ended up talking about the bible and Mejia made some references to some good passages.

Next was practice with Cumbre Alta. Only 8 people showed up tonight but it was a really fun practice. We played a fun game at the beginning and then ended up playing 4v4 for about an hour. Needless to say, Dale and I are very exhausted from our workout and from playing a lot of soccer.

Dale, Edgar, Mejia, Me

Although today was tiring, it was a very good day. I got to have many good conversations with some Cumbre Alta players and Dale and I were able to get a good amount of work done. God keeps revealing to me that although it may seem like I don't have much time left, He still is working through me in many ways. I also have a greater understanding of how much of what we are doing is helping a lot of people, which motivates me even more. Praise God for His neverending encouragement and for all the work He is doing down here.

Dios Bendiga,
Nico