Photo Update!

Hello, Friends and Family!

    Lots has happened since our last blog post, and we're hoping to fill you in on some of the highlights through several pictures!

    We are so blessed to be a part of a wonderful, Christ-centered NILI staff, and we have enjoyed getting to know them better these past few weeks!  Upon our arrival, NILI treated us to ice cream. :)

Lucy Olivo, Director of NILI with her husband Pastor Salomon and their little boy David Israel (or "Davidcito")

Jen, Assistant Director/Ministry Coordinator of NILI; Jana, Student Life Director of NILI; and Kyle, Accountant & Secretary for NILI

And you know these people. :)

    We've also gotten settled into our little apartment! We are truly thankful for this space to call our own. It has everything we need (dishes, blankets, towels, etc), and it's been a great haven for the two of us when we've needed it.

Our kitchen, where we make and eat our breakfasts and dinners. (Mon - Fri we eat lunch in the small cafeteria on the seminary campus with the seminary staff and students.)

A view of our living room from the kitchen. No TV, and we haven't missed it! It has been wonderful reading, journaling, and spending time with others while here.

    Ian and I also have our own office space in the NILI office on campus. This is where I have been working in the mornings, and Ian has been working in the afternoons. (The classroom where Ian takes his Spanish classes is right around the corner from here, and the CENIC office where I work in the afternoons is downstairs.)

 Our office welcome. We've been welcomed with open arms by all of the seminary staff and students here, but especially by NILI staff members.

Our office space with NILI. Note the small "NO English" sign hanging on the bookshelf. As staff, we've been asked to help enforce the Spanish-only policy for students to help ensure that they are being fully immersed in the language while here.

    A couple of weeks ago, Ian and I helped take the NILIs to the TeleferiQo, a cable car that scales one of the mountainsides of Quito, in order to get a view of the city from above.

Quito and active volcano Cotopaxi in the distance. (Cotopaxi is one of several active volcanoes in the Andes Mountains near Quito though none pose any immediate threat to the city.)

Our NILI group: Elysha, Kayla, Lanea, and Miranda with seminary students Christian and Cristina. We try to encourage the NILIs to spend time with seminary students as much as possible to build strong relationships and to help their Spanish.

    One weekend, we helped NILI staff surprise the students with "La Gran Carera." What they thought would be a boring workshop, became an "Amazing Race" through Quito! And yet they still (hopefully) learned how to navigate Quito's public transportation systems: the goal of the activity.

NILIs Miranda and Lanae with seminary students Meri and Nancho

NILIs Elysha and Kayla with seminary students Jeremias and Priscilla  (the winners with their prizes!)

    I (Hillary) have also really enjoyed getting to know the NILI/seminary girls better through fun activities such as painting pictures, cooking/baking, and staying up late playing games during pajama parties. I hope and pray that this shared fun will be the foundation for deeper relationships and spiritual growth in the future.

Pajama party with the NILI and seminary girls on campus.

    One of the most meaningful experiences so far has been Ian's trip with the NILI's into the jungle just last week. We hope to write a longer blog reflecting on this trip very soon!

Our date night before Ian left with the NILI's for a week in the jungle.

     Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! We cannot tell you how much it means to us to have our friends and families behind us. We've shared our testimonies with the NILI staff and students over the past few weeks, and we've told them that your support has been one of the ways in which God has confirmed to us that we are where He wants us this year. And God has been so faithful to us thus far! We've encountered challenges we didn't expect, but He has been here with us, and our understanding of missions and ministry is deepening as a result (more on this in our next blog). We are so thankful for you! And we continue to lift you up in prayer each day.

     As our brothers and sisters here in Ecuador say, "Dios le bendiga" (God bless you)!

Quito--One Week In

As our first full week in Quito is coming to an end, we find ourselves slightly exhausted, curled up on the couch in our apartment, preparing to make some "Horchata" (an herbal tea), reflecting upon the full and exciting week we've had.  

After a fairly low-key weekend, during which we had the opportunity to settle into our apartment here on the seminary campus and get our bearings in our barrio (neighborhood), we jumped right into responsibilities first thing Monday morning.  Although our responsibilities for this semester are shaping up to be different than those we expected, so far we have found our work here at the Seminario Teológico Nazareno Sudamericano (South-American Nazarene Theological Seminary) to be both very challenging and very rewarding.  We have found that flexibility and a positive attitude are necessary prerequisites for missionary work!

This week, Ian began intensive (4-hours/day 4-days/week) Spanish training in a Spanish-only-speaking classroom.  He is taking this course alongside the 4 NILI (Nazarene International Language Institute) students on campus this semester.  The course has been very challenging, and Ian is probably only grasping about 50-60% of what is said by the instructor at this time.  Nevertheless, his Spanish is improving daily both inside and outside the classroom, and for now this is his primary responsibility--to learn Spanish so that he can fully participate as a staff member with the NILI program.  His responsibilities also include shadowing Kyle, another male volunteer with the NILI program who has been with NILI for about 2.5 years now.

While Ian was beginning Spanish training and shadowing responsibilities, Hillary began work with CENIC here on campus.  CENIC is a branch of the seminary's ministry that provides conference facilities to local churches, youth groups, and other Christian groups.  We were unaware of CENIC before we arrived, but it seems that we came at just the right time to lend a helping hand to this ministry.  Hillary has begun acting as a staff member at CENIC nearly every afternoon, helping to create monthly financial reports and facilitating weekend conferences.  The business CENIC generates helps to financially support the broader mission of the Church of the Nazarene in the North Andean Field (Ecuador, Columbia, & Venezuela), as does the NILI Program.

This past week has already held many surprises & adventures for us.  We've located a phenomenal panederia (bakery) in our neighborhood of Carcelén called "Pytter Pan."  (Pan means "bread" in Spanish.)  Large, freshly baked loaves of cheesy bread cost less than a dollar, and tasty sweet bread loaves are packed with raisins and custard!  :-)  

We've also been reminded of how fuerte (strong) the sun is at the equator.  Every day we slather our faces in sunscreen, only to return in the evening with slightly pink foreheads.  Since it's also currently the dry season in Quito (May-September), the strong sun and dry grass create an environment where random fires spring up throughout the city.  On any given day, 10-20 small fires catch (sometimes as a result of something as simple as the sun reflecting off of broken glass in the streets).  Most of these fires burn out quickly and seem to cause little distraction to residents of Quito.

Not only is the sun strong, but the altitude in the city of Quito (about 10,000 feet) takes a toll on visitors during their first few days here.  After about 5 days, Ian joined some men on campus to play basketball one afternoon.  After 45 minutes of game time, those accustomed to the altitude were still going strong while Ian was panting underneath a shade tree.  After basketball he slept for 3 hours and still woke up a little woozy. :-) (He's doing fine now!)

In order to climb even higher, we traveled with the NILI students on Friday up to the top of one of the mountains that surround the valley-city of Quito on a cable car called the "Teleférico."  At 13,000 feet we had an incredible view of the city (and airplanes!) beneath us.  Check out the video below for a cool panoramic view of the city and surrounding mountains and volcanoes!

Many adventures and surprises already, but the best surprise of all so far has been how well our friendships with the NILI staff (and other seminary staff & students) have developed.  We love the people we are serving alongside of here--Jana & Kyle, two other young Mission Corps volunteers with NILI; Jen, co-director of NILI and Mission Corps volunteer, and her Ecuadorian husband Harry; Lucy & Salomon, an Ecuadorian couple who are director of NILI and pastor of our local church in Carcelén, respectively.  These and many other staff and students here on the seminary campus have welcomed us with warm embraces and we feel at home among them.

We look forward to getting a chance to take some video of the seminary campus and the folks we work with soon so that we can share with you all in our next blog post.  Continue to pray for us as we move forward in our ministry here in Ecuador (specific prayer requests are listed on the right-hand side of this blog), and we will continue to thank the Lord for your support and encouragement!

   
Be sure to turn the volume down on this video; it was windy up there!