Greetings from Machachi, Ecuador!

Ecuador is amazing! We are on Day 2 of our school distributions, and ministry has been going very well. The team is breaking into two groups each day so that we can double our impact, and the reception has been excellent thus far. We did about 8 or so schools in Quito yesterday.

Today, we left Quito at 6:00 this morning to go to Machachi, a mountain town about 2 hours outside of the city. We are staying at a seminary there for tonight and tomorrow night, where we will be doing schools through Thursday. We arrived just after 8:00 this morning, and immediately split into our groups and did presentations in about 6 schools each. It has been a long day! But the kids have been so receptive it has been worth the sleeplessness and long hours. Yesterday we had the opportunity to hang out with kids after the presentation for about an hour and a half. We taught them “Elephante, Serpiente” and they taught us “Raton, Gato.” The team has done a great job of interacting with the kids, and they are doing phenomenal presentations. The median age of the group is 15-16, so it´s amazing that they are doing a better job than some of our adult teams.

The terrain is beautiful. I expected it to be like Peru and Bolivia, which are very stark and bare in comparison. Quito is relatively clean, and the mountains are so green! Especially in the area where we are now, the mountains are beautiful. There are even a few active volcanoes that we have seen on our drives. The weather varies from cool in the mornings and evening to fairly hot in the afternoon. It has been overcast for the most part, but I learned the hard way that you can still get a sunburn…I foolishly only brought SPF 25, and it lasts about 2 hours at the most.

As you may know, today is my birthday. It really is not a big deal to me that I am not at home, but I started to think about it today and came to the realization – what better thing to be doing on my birthday then handing the Gospel to kids in Ecuador? I really am enjoying working with Pat – we make a great team, as we each fill in the gap in our individual areas of strength and weakness, and Katty has been such a blessing to work for. This trip is making me remember what it is all about. Thanks for your continued prayers! We have schools tomorrow and Thursday, a Hopefest Thursday night, and then Friday and Saturday we are at the Compassion project. Sunday is our trip to the center of the World!

I miss everyone, but I´m thankful for family that encourages me to come on these trips.

Love you,
Kathryn