you CAN teach an old dog new tricks

So my mom taught me how to make the awesome dish clothes that she supplies me and many of my friends with!!! Disclaimer: this does not exonerate her from continuing to make them nor does it mean the mantle of responsibility for making them has fallen onto my shoulders!
Having a great time with family first in Kansas City then Toronto! More to follow!

Fun with friends

I just love getting ready for friends to come over. The act of making things beautiful, inviting, warm and welcoming brings me joy. I got to do this Friday for some special women. We had such a great evening just laughing together and unwinding at the end of the week. We drank coffee and ate mil hojas a tasty Ecuadorian dessert of flaky pastry and delightful creamy richness. I thought I would share this evening with you in picture form. Welcome to my home! Virtual hospitality!!!!!

"You are a mist..." Js. 4:13-17

Aaron teaching away!  Bryan Cole next to him.  Aaron used to pour into Bryan through camp experiences here.  Bryan is back on our staff, and Aaron and Christine and the kids are our new team leaders and will arrive on the ground in Quito in June of 2014. 

Mist around the hills just to the North of Quito, rainforest in Ecuador. 

So fun to have Aaron Passmore here visiting last week.  This was the title of his talk on Wednesday night at the Semester Abroad Chapel time.  Each week we gather as staff and students to have dinner together, and worship together through sharing a meal,  song, teaching, and prayer.  It is a really a wonderful time to see the students interacting with each other and I just love being part of their worship together.  These last weeks, this is the only time in the week that they see each other all together.  They have been in homestays with Ecuadorian families, all over the city, and are down to having just a few days left before they return to the apartments.  They actually live around the corner from us.  The boys are a street above us, and the girls live just down the block from us. 

enjoying the beauty of Puerto Lago with my dear friend Christy

Anyways, back to having Aaron here.  Some of you know that we have known Aaron since he was in 6th grade.  He has been loved by our family over 21 years.  He now is married to a wonderful woman, Christine, and has two great kids, Zeke, and Damarice.  They are coming in June to be our new team leader.  So Aaron was down checking in with the team, visiting, encouraging, listening, and sharing his heart.  It filled my heart with such joy to watch him challenge the students from God's word and his life and ministry.  God seldom lifts back the curtain and allows such holy moments this side of heaven, but it was one of those for me.  I almost wept with joy, however, I did restrain myself!  His challenge was far more than for students though, God struck my heart in a powerful way, and has had me thinking about these verses in James since Aaron shared them last week.  I awakened again this morning to Quito covered in mist, and then downpour of rain, so the reflecting and praying continues.
 What about you?  What are you wrapping your life around?  What are you allowing to wrap itself around you?  Is it Mist?  or something more substantial?  Hmmmmmm.

Rain, glorious rain!

We've had lots of dark, threatening skies in the last months, that have amounted to nothing!  But a few days ago it began to rain, and it has been enough days in a row, that I think I can safely say that the rainy season is finally here!  As I write, it is pouring again.  It has rained off and on throughout the day!  I just am so thankful.  The dust, and grime is slowly being washed away.  And the hills, and parks are turning green, slowly but surely.  It really doesn't take long.

I had one of those spring cleaning type days today.  The last weeks have been a succession of visitors, and trips, and people, and craziness that has been pretty non-stop.  This weekend rather than doing the normal things that I do on a Saturday, I chose to stop, and just be with Phil.  I knew I could get to the "list" once he left on Tuesday.  So, this morning, I awakened super early to say goodbye to Phil, and fortunately I got to go back to sleep for a few more hours.  Then I rolled out of bed, and attacked my list with a vengeance!  Tonight as I write, our bedroom and bathroom is sparkling clean, mattress cover, sheets, duvet, bathmats everything, clean!  And best part of all, the landlady had her handy man remove the inside glass today in our bedroom and all the mold that was growing in between the two sets of windows is now cleaned and gone!  And the one pane of windows that is left is finally clean on the inside.  I am finishing the day with that wonderful feeling of a day well spent, a job well done.  A house cleaned and in order!  This is no doubt left-overs from boarding school and my own mother's ways of living!  I cut my eye teeth on the saying "cleanliness is next to Godliness."  And I can't tell you how old I was when I realized that that wasn't necessarily true (even though it feels like it is true) or Biblical.  My formative years have shaped me and my personality is probably bent towards order in a most profound way.  So, I love the feeling at the end of a day like today.  Deep satisfaction.  The other good news of the day was the landlady said she would have the outside of the windows cleaned!  We live in a third floor  apartment building, and I have been trying in vain to find a ladder so I could do the windows.  She laughed at me, and said, I wasn't to do any such thing, that that was their responsibility and it had been more than two years since it had been done.  (Yes, I can vouch for that!)  Why would I mention such a thing?  In a blog?  Well, among the long list of some of my favorite things would be clean windows.  There is just something so delectable about looking out freshly cleaned, sparklingly windows!  And I was so excited just thinking that this might happen sometime soon for me!  Yeah!  Maybe a small, insignificant eucharisteo, but a meaningful one for me.  It is interesting to have something like window cleaning be totally outside of your control.  Lots of corollaries there. 
Phil is en route to Thailand right now.  I think his plane is touching down, or maybe already has landed in LAX.  He has a 5 or 6 hour lay-over and will get to see  Derek, Amber and Sebastian.  Austin will actually be going with him the rest of the way.  They are running camps for MK's, TCK's in Chaing Mai, at Grace Academy, with Hume Lake International.  There are a team of people that will put on Hume type camps for these kids.  Austin is helping with the games and Phil is speaking.  Please be in prayer for them, they will be traveling til Thursday late afternoon.  Camp begins Friday night.  Phil will return to Quito late on Oct. 29!  I am thankful Phil gets to hold wee Sebastian tonight, and hug and visit with Amber and Derek, and do this trip with Austin.  But I am also just a tad sad!
I am here, holding down the fort, teaching my incredible class of students whom I just love.  I will do a blog all about them soon, but wanted to ask their permission before I put up pictures of them! 
My sweet Natalie just face timed me.  She pulled over because the sunset over the beach was so beautiful and made her think of me, and she decided not to just think of me, but to take the time to share the moment with me, via face time!  How great is that.  I am so thankful for face time which allows me to see my kids, and my grandbaby, and while it is no substitute for holding that baby in my arms, or actually being with my kids, it is a wonderful gift!
My heart is so full, and so thankful.  Is there someone who you need to stop "thinking" about and take a moment and call or facetime them?  Do it, just a few minutes might make their day.  And besides, it might be the Holy Spirit who is causing your thoughts to turn to them, prompting you to pray, and encourage them in some way.  Don't miss out!  Beth Moore said once that she had a friend who was a good note writer, not just a good note-thinker.  I loved that and it still inspires me to this day.

Cutest feet ever!  

Thy Word is a light...and a lamp...

 It is a heavily overcast Sunday morning!  I am sooooooooo thankful for some rain and cooler weather.  We have had scorching clear skies, merciless sun (remember we are right on the Ecuator at 10,000 feet!)  and so much wind.  The city and outside the city, is like a crisp dust bowl, and the rain is so long overdue.  Today I awakened to the delicious darkness of heavy clouds, and I came to the front of the house, and looked out, and "my hills" to the south cannot be seen, Cayambe is invisible, as is anything beyond the east hill of Quito.  AND IT WAS RAINING LIGHTLY.  Thank you, thank you, thank you God.
I made a pot of coffee and am sat with my Bible enjoying the peace and quiet.  Quito on a Sunday morning can really be as quiet as a teeming city of 2 plus million can possibly get.  Even the gas trucks haven't been around honking and letting people know they can come out and buy gas!
It came to me that it had been a looong time since I had posted anything.  I have felt I had nothing worth writing about, nothing that would be reader worthy!  That's a little clue about me, when it goes dark, it usually means that I am not doing so very great for some reason or another.  It doesn't usually mean that I am too busy.  A few days indicate busyness, a long period of silence, pray extra! :)
I don't think I can put my finger on any one thing, it has been layered things, complex webs of stuff in my heart.  I would say that I have never been a procrastinator really, especially through the last 2 1/2 years in school, I was the nerd who worked ahead, and made arbitrary deadlines for myself so that I was never pulling all-nighters, or waking up saying, 'oh, it's due today!'  But somehow, I am in a slump, and just cannot seem to find a way out of it, each week I have several deadlines to prep for, and it is not uncommon for me to sit down over and over again, to feel like I am hitting a wall, writers block, thinkers block, or something!  I am not sure what is going on.  I learned at ISF that it is important to just be with whatever is true, to be honest, to turn towards God.  I realized the other day that even this has seemed wrong!  Ah ha!  Shame, shame, hide and cover, I am not being a good little girl and working ahead, and being productive, productive, productive.  Hmmmmmm.  So I am turning towards God in my mess, thankful that He is neither surprised, nor critical, nor wringing his hands in despair, nor rolling his eyes, nor disgustedly walking away.  He knows I feel out of sorts, like a long jumper who has taken off on the wrong foot, and flubbed the jump as a result, but day after day of that.  "And can it be that though my God shouldst die for me, amazing love"  an old hymn is ringing through my head and heart this morning, and I am humbled, and amazed, all over again.  Another song, it must be a cross of love!  Wow!  How can He love me? In my mess?  In my procrastination?  In my fatigue and exhaustion?  In my hiding and covering?  Shame?  Ahhhhh, back to that again, BECAUSE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, OR MY PERFORMANCE.  HIS LOVE IS A SETTLED GIVEN!  Just like in geometry or logic, given this, then that; given His love, given my sin, HE BORE MY SIN ON THE CROSS, HE WHO KNEW NO SIN BECAME SIN, THAT I MIGHT BECOME RIGHTEOUS!  Mind blasting!  "Blasting, not boggling, because anything can boggle the mind."  There is only one response to these truths, prostrated, humble, overflowing gratitude.  So many many eucharisteos, and somehow I have gotten away from writing and numbering them on paper, slinked into, slid into "thinking them" and from that to "not even thinking them"  a slow steady decline.  Again!  "He who knows me best loves me most!" another Gaither trio song I believe.  He is brining truth through old songs to me today, and I thought I would share. 

Please pray that I will trust God, and His Spirit alone, to bring about Christlikeness and transformation in me.  That I will attend to the Spirit's work in me and deny Satan footholds in my life that become strongholds if they are ignored or fed.  And pray that my awareness of sin would only bring brokenness and humility that draws me closer to God, rather than shame and guilt, hiding and covering that distances me from God, the only hope, the only answer to my condition.

El Tri Color!

This is my lovely daughter Amber, and awesome little grandson, Sebastian James, and he is sporting his Ecuador Jersey from the National team.  Copa Mundial here we come!  Si se puede!
Can I just say that being far away from kids and grandkids just is not my favorite thing.  I am looking hard for some eucharisteo there, but not sure!

 Austin hiking at Hume, enjoying nature!  There is something important, and orienting about getting next to something huge, whether its mountains, or oceans, or Redwood trees (below) to remind ourselves of how tiny we really are, and how powerless we are!  However God is powerful, and the creator of such great beauty!

 So, today I am headed out of the city, to our lovely Youth World Hacienda El Refugio, to sit with a friend, and then sit on her porch (below) and soak up some of the tranquility  of the countryside.  Hear birds, and watch humming birds, pray and think!  And maybe do some reading and journaling.
We will see! 

 Looking out from the porch!  I will sit here in about an hour! :)  Yeah!

More of the views I will have this afternoon! My soul needs to get out of the busyness, and the noise of the city, especially living within a stone's throw of 5 or 6 huge apartment building construction cites, one of them is so close the workers can see what I am eating!
So, even as I write, a gas truck is honking (they do all day, every day) and a truck is passing and someone is on a loudspeaker saying that they are here to buy any kind of recyclable steel, wire, washers, dryers, etc. etc., there is construction going on in our building, and that's just a little of why, I need to get out for just a few hours, and hear nothing but birds!  I am so grateful to have this beautiful spot to go to. 

And finally, can you see why I miss this little man soooooooo much!  So if you live close to your grandbabies, today make a point of squeezing them, and think of me and pray that I can be a creative grandma, finding ways to love from so far away!  

Back to School--Not!

The sounds of school buses rolling again early each morning, the uniformed children pouring out of buildings, school gates that have been locked for the last 6 weeks, are once again flung open, and the sounds of bells and children ring out--so I know school is back in session!  But, we have no first day pictures to take, and I am not back in school myself, (first Aug/Sept. in 3 years) I am not reading through syllabi, counting pages to read, plotting and planning out my homework load etc.  And I miss it!  All of it, having kids in school, going to school myself.  All of it.  But there is a season for everything, and that season is over.  So I am taking the time to say goodbye.  So for those of you who are cranking up for another year, who have stocked backpacks or who have readied your own classrooms, or are reading over syllabi and sighing or thinking of complaining!  Stop!  School, whether teaching or learning is a huge eucharisteo!  Do you know that there are parts of the world where girls are forbidden to learn, and do so at the risk of losing their lives?  Be thankful for the freedom you have to teach, or learn!  Enjoy!  Seize and Savour!
As I sit here tonight, I am looking over a heavily clouded sky, it has been raining a little, and I am hoping there is more to come.  We need the rain so badly.  I have candles lit, and am enjoying the stillness in the house.  I look around and am so thankful for the ways that we have been able to settle in here a little more.  Today I found a little store tucked, almost hidden from the street, what caught my eye was some flowers in a bucket inside the door.  They were packets of roses (25 in a bunch) and they were so, so fresh and beautiful.  All the places that I ordinarily buy roses have had such poor quality roses lately that I haven't bought any in a long time.  These were wonderful.  I stepped in and was delighted to find the owner, such a lovely lady who reminded me so much of Phil's grandma Tate.  We started to talk, and she was brimming with love of the Lord, a deep faith, love for people, etc.  I left some 25 minutes later with a new friend, and was touched at God's provision for my soul today.  I felt like I had been with an angel He sent to visit with me.  Another eucharisteo.  We share a love for flowers and arranging them, for the Lord, and meeting people, good music, good coffee and quiet coffee shops that have good ambience!   I walked away full.  An errand to the taylor to have a kitchen curtain made for the girls house had turned into so much more.  If I hadn't been walking back from that taylor, if I hadn't had a bit of money, if I hadn't seen the flowers, if I hadn't listened to the inexplicable tugging to go down the long hallway and call out, I might never have discovered this gem of a lady.  A lovely day!  A delightful, unexpected surprise.

Water Level? Up to eye level!

For those of you who are visual you might be laughing or gasping or praying already!  For those of you less visual you might be still wondering what I am talking about.  Either way, let me explain.
Do you ever say "yes" to something or agree to help in some way, only to get into it and think, "what in the world have I done? I can't do this! I can't even come remotely close to pulling this off!"  Well, let's just say that's where I am at today.  I have agreed to help by teaching a class at a college level for Phil's Living and Learning Semester Abroad Program in Quito (good grief, I should have to have some kind of training in teaching to pull off writing course outcomes, and objectives and homework that will all match up as well as be accurate and based in reality! right?!)  I am in that completely overwhelmed stage (thus the waterlevel being at eye level image--as I am a human that means I am holding my breath or doing without, or drowning!).  I actually love teaching, in general, but somehow the pressure to pull of a legit college class complete with rigorous academic standards and homework and seat hours that are all on the up and up just overwhelms me because of all the unknowns. However, I am thinking back to three years ago right now as I began my ISF program at Talbot School of Theology, and as I read syllabi and looked at required reading lists, and course objectives and homework schedules, I remember thinking the same thing, "I can't do this, I got myself in too deep!"  And you know what, it was deep waters at times, but God kept my head afloat, and breathed air into my lungs when I sank, and here I am finished with course work.  So, I have that and a zillion other ebenezer stones (thus far I have come) examples in my past, so I will choose to trust, that by God's grace, wisdom, discernment, energy and strength, His creative powers at work in me, once again, in my weakness His strength will shine.  Let it shine!  Let it shine!  And if you would take a moment and just pray for me to be still, and able to listen and hear Him guide and direct me as I put this class together!

  Gig Harbor, one year ago, the night before I finished my retreat!  A huge eucharisteo exclamation point!  Can you bear the beauty of this sight!?!  This was a sunset that just kept going, and going, and getting more and more beautiful.  I am choosing to remember this provision, and its significance then and now, at such a time as this.  If God is for us who can be against us? (Ro. 8)

Fun Adventure: Quito from a different view!

 This was the super fun tour bus that we got to take on Thursday afternoon.  We sat up top and so we saw things from an unusually high perspective and therefore saw things we would never otherwise have seen.  We, Phil and I, also got to go on streets and in areas that in all our years here we never had seen.  It was the coolest thing.  I had wanted to do this since I had seen the bus last summer as I walked the Parque Carolina.  I never did get to go on a red double decker bus in London, and so this was the closest thing to it.  There was just some kind of kid lure to me of riding up high in a bright red bus.  Plus I had looked into the route and the tour, and it looked interesting and informative.  So, we finally did it on Thursday afternoon.  It was our last hurrah of our vacation time!  And it was wonderful.  I will let the pictures do the "talking" and I hope you will enjoy some of this very beautiful place that is Quito.  For those of you who once lived here, I trust it will be a happy walk down memory lane and a seeing of familiar sights.  For those of you who wished you could come, I hope it inspires you to start saving!  I will ride this bus again with you!  Any time.  My next desire is to take the night tour and see all the churches and museums lit up at night! 

 It was an overcast and rainy afternoon which was especially perfect as I got to be outside all afternoon without concern about getting burned!  There was a high top covering the bus some of the time when necessary.  This is our lovely Basillica--a gothic cathedral that took 100 years to build and it is still not finished.  The legend says that when it is finally done there will be some major catastrophe, and so that is why they continue to build slowly and not hurry to ever "finish".

 Our spectacular skies, varying shades of grays and whites in clouds and some blue way off! 

 There are some people who are doing such a lovely job of refurbishing and reclaiming the beautiful colonial sector of Quito.  It dates back to the 1500's!  How's that for history!

 I love it!   Amidst all the hustle and bustle, two pigeons on a small balcony, preening and enjoying the afternoon.  Reminded me of Mary Poppins and the song "feed the birds tupence a bag...."

 Again, the touches of the ordinary, daily life of a city dweller mixed in with all this history and beautiful architecture.  Note the geraniums on the balcony, the spray bottle of some kind of cleaner or maybe insecticide on the windowsill, the pretty lace curtains.  I wonder what the life of the person is like who has taken the time to cultivate beauty in a cramped space.

 Another building that has been repainted a lovely shade of green with white trim.  Notice the gorgeous wrought iron balcony railings.  These window/doors open wide to the inside and so it is like a little balcony only the inside opens to the outside.

 Again the touch of life in geraniums!

 Panecillo!  Laura Gowan this one and any other Panecillo picture is for you!!!! :)  Your favorite place in Quito, I know!

 Notice the crosses!  I couldn't really get a great angle, but you get the idea.  And another Mary Poppins pigeon scene!

 Love the tenacity of this gardener, whoever he/she is.  Just loved this!

 Que viva Quito!  La carita de Dios!

 Ok. there's no messing around with these flowers!  Someone has a green thumb.  This is just one of the several old old buildings that have been refurbished and are now amazing boutique hotels.  Pricey but drop dead gorgeous!

 Oh, there she is getting closer Laura!

Our bus driver was a genius and he navigated with ease these narrow streets that are sometimes climbing straight up!  At this particular spot we got in a bit of a cafuffle with a car parked illegally and a little kiss between our hubcab and their bumper, and a cop came and sorted it all out!  

Notice the stairs that are just beyond the white car.  They are the beginning of a long steep climb up to the Panecillo.  Fortunately we were in the bus!

 I couldn't find out what this beautiful church was called.  You see it looking to the east and south from the tip of the park up at the Panecillo.  I want to be able to find it up close some day.  Bucket list

 See what I mean about amazing architecture.  This is another mystery building off to the east not far from the church above.  I have no idea what it is, but I will find out!

 One of the streets we were on had a series of seven crosses in the course of its long rambling wonderful route.  They each have a history and a different date of installation.  Some were big, and some were very small and hard to see.  I wish I had been able to capture all seven, next time!

 Another of the lovely boutique hotels

And that concludes our wonderful, beautiful, double decker tour of Quito.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.