Please Pray

Please pray for the LaBouef Family. Sharon LaBouef is Isabella's preschool teacher. The LaBouefs have been missionaries in Shell for a number of years. They raised their family here and now have 2 grown children who still live in Ecuador. One of their grandsons, Joshua, who is 2 yrs old almost drowned Saturday and is in ICU in Quito. Please pray for the family and more importantly for little Joshua.

Family Time

While Joe's parents were here we got to visit La Casa del Arbol. basically a HUGE treehouse. They also have some caverns there that they have done some beautiful mosaic work on. Here is a picture of Joe's parents with the children and then one that shows just how much the monkeys loved Calvin's head! There are also several version of the family picture which include the monkey climbing all over everyone.... monkeys can be such camera hogs.

Praise God! We Have A Car!

Yes, Praise God we finally have a car and I dont' think any of us is as excited as Bella. She told everyone we were going to Quito to get a car and we all sure hoped she was correct. We were fortunate enough to find a 2005 Explorere in just one day and complete the transaction (much more involved than in the states) the next day. We figured that if our explorere in the states could take us over 200,000 miles, it might just do the same down here.
The first picture below is a picture of our explorer and yes, that is a monkey sitting on the hood. Don't worry that isn't a normal occurrence- we don't live that remote. We went to a big tree house that is close by and this was one of their pets. He was very cute until he started swinging from our antenna. Fortunatly Joe's dad came to the rescue. The monkey preferred licking his dad's head to swinging on our car - Thanks again Calvin!

Joe's parents were kind enough to visit us for the holidays. Fortunately they arrived in Quito the day before and in Shell the day of Sebastiao's school Christmas program. We were all excited to see them and even more pleased that they got to enjoy the wonderful night of singing. The children worked so hard on the program and the teachers did an amazing job getting it all put together. Sebastiao sang a trio with the other 2 second grade boys. I have put it here for you to enjoy. Just for those of you who were wondering, yes, this is the entire school with exception of the kindergarten class who served as the nativity scene (but there are 7 kindergateners so that makes a difference in numbers!)

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Sebastiao's school decorated the Christmas tree at the hospital for the holidays with ornaments they made themselves. The kids had a great time and the tree looked wonderful. The children also got into the spirit of the holidays by making up gift boxes for children in jungle communities who otherwise wouldn't have received anything for Christmas. Nate Saint Memorail school teamed up with Sele, a private school here in Shell to provide boxes for over 100 children. The boxes contained the usual small toys and clothes, but also some other items I wouldn't have thought of like bars of soap for washing clothes, matches and candles. These things are essentials in the jungle and helped out the families.

The Unkthinkable

I must apologize, I have done the unthinkable in Bloggingland, I have gone almost a month without an entry. Please forgive me, life has been crazy here with the holidays, family in town and power and internet outages. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for the new year. I will try to get you all filled in on our holidays in the next few days.
I'll start by posting pictures from the kids school Thanksgiving party. They made really cute turkey cupcakes thanks to a work group who brought lots of candy corn from the states!

Just Like Ridiing A Bike....

Last night we went to dinner with some good friends here. We know they are good friends because they make fun of us -to our faces- more than anyone else here (the lady at the butcher who laughs at my Spanish runs a close second). Anyway, they let us drive, Joe to dinner and me home from dinner. It was so exciting after 5 months of not driving at all plus all of the time and money put into getting a license, actually getting to drive was amazing. So, "THANK YOU" to Chad and Andi, you made our day, and hopefully spurred my husband on to buy a car more quickly!


This is a picture of Tungurahua, an active volcano near the city of Ambato. We were able to get this picture last month on our way home from Quito.