Blogs from South, Ecuador, South America - page 8

Ever since we arrived our church has been planning to move. The building for the church is owned by the church, but they only lease the land. The owner wants to build a high-rise building. We were supposed to be off the property in January, but the city has imposed so many different permits that we had to jump through so many hoops that we just had the last permit signed last week. So the construction will start on Monday. Knowing that, Debi and I decided that we wanted to move closer to the church, so we started looking around this week. We told everyone at the bible studies on Tuesday and asked them to pray for us. That evening we both got on line to see if we could find something. We found one house ... read more

The second part of our tour today was in the Yungilla Valley. It is about an hour and a half south of Cuenca. First we went to Santa Isabel, a city build on a very high hill. After the tour bus scraped the rear end twice going down some of the streets we decided that was not a place for us to live - too many hills to walk up and down. We went through the church and walked around the park in the center of town for about 15 - 20 minutes then boarded the bus again. We then went to the Hosteria Canaan. A hosteria is another word for a hotel or hostelery, usually an inexpensive place to spend the night when traveling in countries other than the US. BUT, this was definitely not ... read more

Well, this was the day we have been waiting so long for. We were able to take some prayer blankets to the children in the hospital that have cancer. First of all a huge THANK YOU!!!!! to our wonderful friends in Tennessee that have so blessed us with items to take to these children and adults in the hospital. To Lights Chapel Baptist Church, Greenbrier, TN for all the prayer blankets, clothes and games they have made and collected for us. To Kim Pitt, White House, TN for all the knitted and crocheted scarfs, hats, crosses and bookmarks. We spread most of these items out in our footlockers that we brought back to Ecuador, except for the final locker that we packed which was all prayer blankets. Let me back up just a bit to explain ... read more

The last stop this day was the most beautiful and the most interesting. It was the Orquideas del Ecuador. We were told by the horticulturalist that was giving the tour that there are over 4,000 species of orchids in Ecuador, and they were working on 2,400 of them here. He first showed us some of the seeds they were germinating. They have as much as 1,000 seeds in a small bottle. Then we went down to the large building that had even more bottles of seedlings. There was a young lady taking some of the seedlings out of the bottles and transplanting them into soil. This greenhouse had thousands of orchids growing. We could take pictures through the window, but could not go into that part of the greenhouse. Then as we went to another area ... read more

Next we went to a pottery factory (house) in Gualaceo. Here they make beautiful pottery, all by hand. Even the wheel for throwing the pottery is foot powered, no electricity. The rocks are ground into a powder, then water is added. One man just beats and squeezes the mixture until he has the consistency that they want. Then it is given to the two men that do the throwing and actually make the various items. After they are done, a young man draws the designs by hand, just using a nail. Then they are put in the oven. This is not a gas fired kiln as in the States. It is an oven that is wood fired, and there is no top to it. Once the items to be fired are placed in the oven, they ... read more