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!