Busy and Satisfied! More grace gifts! part 2

 Tuesday afternoons I get to spend time with little Graham who was just 7 weeks old when we got here, and today turned 11 weeks old!  He is growing right under my eyes and I am amazed and awed and grateful beyond words for this moment in time when I am lucky enough to be able to spend time with him and his mamma!  Cameron and I have been friends for a long time!  I took her to Cebiche for lunch and conversation when she was considering coming down here as a single missionary!  She did, and she met and married Roberto, a great Ecuadorian guy.  Now they are parents!  And I get to hang with Cameron Tuesday afternoons and discuss life, faith, being a mom, ministry, culture, etc. etc. etc.  We never run out of things to cover!  It has been such a privilege for me to walk life with and journey as a soul friend with Cameron for many years now.

 No words are necessary!

 o.k. just one, PRECIOUS!

 We wore him out with weighty discussions!  Snoozing in his mamma's arms!  A profoundly moving picture for me and his mother yesterday afternoon of complete trust and abandoned peacefulness and rest!  God desires for us to rest in His infinitely capable and loving arms in just this way, and sometimes I guess it helps me to get a glimpse of this in some concrete way!  Are you resting in His arms today, or are you restless and anything but at peace? Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls!  Matt. 11 my paraphrase

 Beach countdown!!!  3 1/2 days!!!!  I have cooked 12 to 14 pounds of BBQ beef all day yesterday it was slow cooking, in this dutch oven, and in the crock pot, and it is back in today finishing up.

 The Business students come for dinner on Wednesday nights and Bible Study/discussion and so their dinner of spaghetti is cooking on the left, and the chili for the beach for 23 is cooking on the right!  (Thanks to Sandi Miller's wonderful pots I am able to be cooking for a large group).

Marlo loaned me her kitchen aid to bake today, she is down at the beach already, and will join us Sunday with her family!  We are taking all the Quito Quest interns and many of the Short Term Full time Staff down for a mid-summer retreat.  We will worship, discuss, learn together, eat together, relax, go for long walks on the beautiful beach, and last but hardly least eat seafood right out of the ocean every day for lunch at Bernabe's--he has had a little shack that has grown to quite a restaurant over the years!  It is a family favorite and I will be sure to eat some of each: cameron encocado, cebiche, cameron alijilo, cameron apanado for A,L,N,S, & D.!  Oh, yum!   Above, are the days goods of baking, several batches of chocolate cookies, and thanks to Austin's team giving me 2 huge jars of peanutbutter this morning, I am also on my fourth batch of "Angelina Bars" :)  [peanut butter bars].  A small jar of peanut butter costs 8 dollars here, and so I was not going to be able to bake anything with peanut butter!  But this is one of the "little" ways that is so significant to me of how God provides above and beyond what I expect, or even think to ask!  Thank you God, another grace gift!

 Angelina Bars on the left, some of the cookies cooling--on computer paper!  Improvise, innovate!

 More cookies waiting to go in the oven!  It is awesome to have such a huge kitchen and loads of counter space to be doing all this cooking and baking! 

 At 48, and at 10,000 feet it is more important than ever that I keep my self in check, and organized with my eternal lists! The mind isn't what it used to be! To Do's on the left, shopping lists for the perishables on the right, I don't have a lot of space for perishables, so needed to get them closer to the time we leave. 

 Monday night Phil and I did all the shopping ahead that could be done, unperishables and all the meat and produce that we needed to be doing the cooking with.  This is everything loaded up in the entry way.  Again, it is so wonderful to have so much space to pull something like this off.  We will be 23 or so at the beach.  We will leave early, early on Sunday morning and return on Thursday afternoon.  Teams for block 3 begin to arrive on Friday and Saturday!  And our friend Stephanie Richardson arrives on Friday for the pre-wedding fun!  So we will move into high gear doing flowers and anything else that needs to be done for Dana! 

The Taco Salad meat already in bags and frozen for the coolers!  Same, Isla Del Sol, Erik and Gladys here we come!  So, so excited.  It has been two years since I got to go to Isla!  Have I mentioned that it is my very favorite place in the whole wide world, and I do mean of every place I have been!  If you are looking for a wonderful vacation spot, this is it!