Tuesday, September 7, 2010
3 Days to Go
Hi there,
Haven´t updated you in a while. Well, over the past week we´ve been carrying on the day to day things of the Church. Some days we´ve visited some families to spend some time with them talking about the gospel. In the evenings there is usually something going on. Some nights there are cell groups. These are shared around between different members of the Church who´ve been Christians for some time. Some of them are right up in the hills. There can be between 5-15 people at these meetings. Generally, they sing songs at the beginning and then discuss a passage of the Bible. Then the host gives sweet black coffee and some biscuits or pastries or something like that and everyone chats for a while. Last Wednesday we had the first of a new Cell group just for young people. There were many who had been drawn in by the weekend camp. Three young lads prayed to receive Jesus.
On Saturday we went to Ingapirca, some Incan ruins high up in the hills. It takes a couple of hours to get there cos the roads are pretty dire in places. They can be fine and then you will hit spots where the surface is appalling and also they´re working on them so sometimes the good part runs out. Then as we got closer to the national park area, the road was really dire so it was slow going. It was lovely up there though, really hot above the cloudy valleys. Was about 30c I think. We saw some indigenous women washing their clothes in the river. Also, we stopped to talk to an old farmer where a guy was ploughing with a tractor at a forty five degree angle! We stopped to talk to some people binding sheaves (cue Biblical reference). David talked to them about the gospel and prayed with them to ask Jesus into their hearts. Then we headed on for the park. They normally charge about 10 dollars for tourists as opposed to 1.50 for nationals in these places. I got in as family! The whole place was only discovered in the late 50s. They reconstructed it about that time. We went round with the guide and then for some lunch and then we headed back. Was a good day. Saturday night we had the normal youth group meeting and David robbed my Psalm 77 from the study I had to give in our quiet time together here in the house (I robbed it from Mike´s Bible study a few weeks ago!).
On Sunday, we had a baptism in the river some distance away from here in a place called Paute. They have 2 Sunday morning services normally here(Mike ?!), one at 8 (which is about 8.40) and one at 10.30 (presumably 11am). We had to go to the earlier one and then went to the river to prepare for the baptism. The river was cold and they constructed a kind of wall out towards the middle of the river, I suppose to help people as they walked out to be baptised. There were 9 people baptised, one of whom I know only got saved last week. They all put on their white robes. Then we sang some songs and prayed and they were baptised. Afterwards, of course some people decided it would be a good idea to roll up their jeans and go into the water....a waterfight was only minutes away. I decided it would be best to watch from a dry distance. Surprisingly it didn´t end until some of them were thoroughly soaked. Then after what had been a really hot day, it started to rain and the poor wet ones had to stay in their wet clothes for a while as we had some food and then made our way back home in the car. That night we were invited back to the place where the camp was held to have dinner. It was duck on the barbecue. Was a bit tough to get the meat off the bones but was pretty decent. No after effects! It had been a long non-stop day so I was pretty tired...no problems getting to sleep.
One thing here which I find hard is there is little time to yourself. It´s non-stop social interaction all day. Then because it´s all in Spanish, you just get to a stage where you´re too tired to carry on a conversation. Add to that the fact that my sarcasm has made a rod for my own back and you have a situation where they´re always slagging me (aww). A few of my phrases have become common currency here. I said one day that something was a disgrace as a joke (una desgracia) and now they´re always joking that everything is a ´desgracia´, I also said I wasn´t interested in something ´no me interesa´ - the same story, the last of my phrases is a rough translation of ´get lost´which is ´larga te´! It´s quite a strong phrase in Spanish so they think it´s funny when I say it. Above all I think it´s cos my accent is funny that they like repeating these things. ´Spanish´ spanish sounds funny to them. Sometimes I think I´ve created a monster!
Yesterday we went to Cuenca cos they had some things to do and I said I wanted to buy some souvenirs. Cuenca is like the Kilkenny to Azogues´s Mountrath! There are lots of tourist markets every day there and lots of tall blond tourists wandering around. I wandered around with them with my tourist camera hanging round my neck. The people on the stalls like to barter but I´ve course I can´t be bothered bargaining over one dollar on certain things. David told me to be quiet and he´ll do the bargaining. Some things came down from 35 to 25 dollars which ain´t bad. We went to a restaurant for lunch as well and all three of the guys, David, Pablo and Jacob (who´s been around us since I´ve been here) all ordered the same kind of stuff as they eat every day! I took the opportunity to get some Italian spaghetti carbonara....it wasn´t bad either.
Then in the evening we went to Pastor Sergio´s wife´s mother´s house (Pablo´s granny) and had some coffee. We then went up to a look out point and looked down over the city. Then we went for hot dogs (they didn´t fry the onions!) and ice-cream (mmmm) and headed for home.
That´s all for now.
Welly (by the way they pronounce it pretty well now but anyway)
Haven´t updated you in a while. Well, over the past week we´ve been carrying on the day to day things of the Church. Some days we´ve visited some families to spend some time with them talking about the gospel. In the evenings there is usually something going on. Some nights there are cell groups. These are shared around between different members of the Church who´ve been Christians for some time. Some of them are right up in the hills. There can be between 5-15 people at these meetings. Generally, they sing songs at the beginning and then discuss a passage of the Bible. Then the host gives sweet black coffee and some biscuits or pastries or something like that and everyone chats for a while. Last Wednesday we had the first of a new Cell group just for young people. There were many who had been drawn in by the weekend camp. Three young lads prayed to receive Jesus.
On Saturday we went to Ingapirca, some Incan ruins high up in the hills. It takes a couple of hours to get there cos the roads are pretty dire in places. They can be fine and then you will hit spots where the surface is appalling and also they´re working on them so sometimes the good part runs out. Then as we got closer to the national park area, the road was really dire so it was slow going. It was lovely up there though, really hot above the cloudy valleys. Was about 30c I think. We saw some indigenous women washing their clothes in the river. Also, we stopped to talk to an old farmer where a guy was ploughing with a tractor at a forty five degree angle! We stopped to talk to some people binding sheaves (cue Biblical reference). David talked to them about the gospel and prayed with them to ask Jesus into their hearts. Then we headed on for the park. They normally charge about 10 dollars for tourists as opposed to 1.50 for nationals in these places. I got in as family! The whole place was only discovered in the late 50s. They reconstructed it about that time. We went round with the guide and then for some lunch and then we headed back. Was a good day. Saturday night we had the normal youth group meeting and David robbed my Psalm 77 from the study I had to give in our quiet time together here in the house (I robbed it from Mike´s Bible study a few weeks ago!).
On Sunday, we had a baptism in the river some distance away from here in a place called Paute. They have 2 Sunday morning services normally here(Mike ?!), one at 8 (which is about 8.40) and one at 10.30 (presumably 11am). We had to go to the earlier one and then went to the river to prepare for the baptism. The river was cold and they constructed a kind of wall out towards the middle of the river, I suppose to help people as they walked out to be baptised. There were 9 people baptised, one of whom I know only got saved last week. They all put on their white robes. Then we sang some songs and prayed and they were baptised. Afterwards, of course some people decided it would be a good idea to roll up their jeans and go into the water....a waterfight was only minutes away. I decided it would be best to watch from a dry distance. Surprisingly it didn´t end until some of them were thoroughly soaked. Then after what had been a really hot day, it started to rain and the poor wet ones had to stay in their wet clothes for a while as we had some food and then made our way back home in the car. That night we were invited back to the place where the camp was held to have dinner. It was duck on the barbecue. Was a bit tough to get the meat off the bones but was pretty decent. No after effects! It had been a long non-stop day so I was pretty tired...no problems getting to sleep.
One thing here which I find hard is there is little time to yourself. It´s non-stop social interaction all day. Then because it´s all in Spanish, you just get to a stage where you´re too tired to carry on a conversation. Add to that the fact that my sarcasm has made a rod for my own back and you have a situation where they´re always slagging me (aww). A few of my phrases have become common currency here. I said one day that something was a disgrace as a joke (una desgracia) and now they´re always joking that everything is a ´desgracia´, I also said I wasn´t interested in something ´no me interesa´ - the same story, the last of my phrases is a rough translation of ´get lost´which is ´larga te´! It´s quite a strong phrase in Spanish so they think it´s funny when I say it. Above all I think it´s cos my accent is funny that they like repeating these things. ´Spanish´ spanish sounds funny to them. Sometimes I think I´ve created a monster!
Yesterday we went to Cuenca cos they had some things to do and I said I wanted to buy some souvenirs. Cuenca is like the Kilkenny to Azogues´s Mountrath! There are lots of tourist markets every day there and lots of tall blond tourists wandering around. I wandered around with them with my tourist camera hanging round my neck. The people on the stalls like to barter but I´ve course I can´t be bothered bargaining over one dollar on certain things. David told me to be quiet and he´ll do the bargaining. Some things came down from 35 to 25 dollars which ain´t bad. We went to a restaurant for lunch as well and all three of the guys, David, Pablo and Jacob (who´s been around us since I´ve been here) all ordered the same kind of stuff as they eat every day! I took the opportunity to get some Italian spaghetti carbonara....it wasn´t bad either.
Then in the evening we went to Pastor Sergio´s wife´s mother´s house (Pablo´s granny) and had some coffee. We then went up to a look out point and looked down over the city. Then we went for hot dogs (they didn´t fry the onions!) and ice-cream (mmmm) and headed for home.
That´s all for now.
Welly (by the way they pronounce it pretty well now but anyway)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Hi there.
Well last weekend we went to a Youth camp in the hills here. It was from Friday night till Monday lunchtime. There were about 50 young people aged 16 +. We had a lot of good times with them. We had services in the morning and evening and some discussions in the afternoon and games in between. About 90% of the young people were believers. They were really enthusiastic and loved singing worship songs in spanish. A lot of songs have been translated from English so the tunes were familiar. I had to give a talk on Saturday. It went pretty well but it was difficult to get my points clearly across because of the language. Overall it was fine though. Also, it´s normal here that people just talk when you´re speaking (not that that would annoy me!). It´s very hard to have their total attention all the time. Late at night we had a bonfire and sang songs around the fire.
Sunday was the best day for me. We went to a small lake and climbed a mountain and then at night we played some games around the campfire. We played a game I will definitely use with the youth group so get ready! There´s a lot of clapping involved. We kept playing that game until 2.30am!
As a result of the weekend many young people are now coming to some of the cell groups which the church runs and they are starting to learn the Bible from the basics up. They really have no knowledge whatsoever! People do seem to be more open here towards home.
Unfortunately the last day of the camp, I had some food poisoning. It´s easy to get here. I´m still not sure what the cause was. It could be unpasteurised milk which could have bacteria we´re not used to...not sure. Anyway, I felt as sick as a dog and the sun was beaming down. We came home and I took some drugs and started to feel better. It´s taken a couple of days to feel back to full speed. It´s a bit of a pain but because I´m eating what the natives (!) eat it makes you more susceptible cos they don´t get that you can´t eat certain things. With Sergio´s family it´s normally okay but at the camp the food wasn´t great anyway.
On the other hand I had a great encouraging conversation with David and Johnica (the younger two of Pastor Sergio´s family). They´re both quite sarcastic in their sense of humour (so we get on pretty well) but they were telling me that they were not used to missionaries coming and mixing with them so much and eating their food and stuff and that this was very different. Normally missonaries stay in a hotel-hostal and eat western food so they were really impressed. Also, they were worried that I would be really organised and they aren´t. They go to bed late and don´t get up too early and they felt they might have to change cos this western missionary was staying with them. I told them that normally I´m very organised but I will try to adjust to taking things easier ;-)!! When in Rome and all that. Anyway I was really encouraged by that. I told them what I was most concerned with was that I would be able to integrate with the people here so it was a big answer to prayer.
That´s all for now,
Welly
Well last weekend we went to a Youth camp in the hills here. It was from Friday night till Monday lunchtime. There were about 50 young people aged 16 +. We had a lot of good times with them. We had services in the morning and evening and some discussions in the afternoon and games in between. About 90% of the young people were believers. They were really enthusiastic and loved singing worship songs in spanish. A lot of songs have been translated from English so the tunes were familiar. I had to give a talk on Saturday. It went pretty well but it was difficult to get my points clearly across because of the language. Overall it was fine though. Also, it´s normal here that people just talk when you´re speaking (not that that would annoy me!). It´s very hard to have their total attention all the time. Late at night we had a bonfire and sang songs around the fire.
Sunday was the best day for me. We went to a small lake and climbed a mountain and then at night we played some games around the campfire. We played a game I will definitely use with the youth group so get ready! There´s a lot of clapping involved. We kept playing that game until 2.30am!
As a result of the weekend many young people are now coming to some of the cell groups which the church runs and they are starting to learn the Bible from the basics up. They really have no knowledge whatsoever! People do seem to be more open here towards home.
Unfortunately the last day of the camp, I had some food poisoning. It´s easy to get here. I´m still not sure what the cause was. It could be unpasteurised milk which could have bacteria we´re not used to...not sure. Anyway, I felt as sick as a dog and the sun was beaming down. We came home and I took some drugs and started to feel better. It´s taken a couple of days to feel back to full speed. It´s a bit of a pain but because I´m eating what the natives (!) eat it makes you more susceptible cos they don´t get that you can´t eat certain things. With Sergio´s family it´s normally okay but at the camp the food wasn´t great anyway.
On the other hand I had a great encouraging conversation with David and Johnica (the younger two of Pastor Sergio´s family). They´re both quite sarcastic in their sense of humour (so we get on pretty well) but they were telling me that they were not used to missionaries coming and mixing with them so much and eating their food and stuff and that this was very different. Normally missonaries stay in a hotel-hostal and eat western food so they were really impressed. Also, they were worried that I would be really organised and they aren´t. They go to bed late and don´t get up too early and they felt they might have to change cos this western missionary was staying with them. I told them that normally I´m very organised but I will try to adjust to taking things easier ;-)!! When in Rome and all that. Anyway I was really encouraged by that. I told them what I was most concerned with was that I would be able to integrate with the people here so it was a big answer to prayer.
That´s all for now,
Welly
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A Surprising Day
Yesterday we spent the day working on things for this weekend which is a Church retreat. I have to give a talk to about 70 young people in Spanish! Yikes. Anyway we were working on things and I thought ´well this isn´t going to be a very interesting day´. In the evening Pastor Sergio went to the next town, Cuenca, to have a meeting. I was left here and uploaded some photos. Then this guy came in off the balcony (there seems to be another back way into the apartment if you climb up from a side building and come onto the balcony!) and told me his name was Javier and that we were going to a cell group together. I said okay as I had no choice.
Then we drove a little bit through town and went up into a small dingy apartment. There were sofas and 5 or 6 people sitting around. In the Sierra in Ecuador (the mountain region) people are more formal and it´s normal to greet with a handshake (or a little kiss for women) even if you only meet for a few seconds in the street. So we all greeted each other. Then Javier told me that he wanted me to give the talk! Thankfully we were working from a section of a book for new believers. We had photocopied sheets. I was still in shock and kind of hoped he was joking and I hadn´t picked up the humour. But no, I WAS giving the talk.
So we began to work our way through the sheet. It asked ´who are our spiritual enemies´ and we looked up verses listed. I realised that these people were mostly newcomers. In fact one man was visiting for the first time. His name was Angel. We moved on to ´how to combat our spiritual enemies´ and then ´how to deal with sin´. It was really good to discuss these things together and to be able to help some of these really new believers (not sure if they all even were). I have been asking God and asking you to pray that I could be of use here and I felt last night that I was. Thank God.
This morning we have a woman of 75 years in traditional dress with us for breakfast. She would be indigenous (not mixed). I want to take a picture with her but it might be a bit rude. We´ll see.
Hasta pronto.
Wesley
Then we drove a little bit through town and went up into a small dingy apartment. There were sofas and 5 or 6 people sitting around. In the Sierra in Ecuador (the mountain region) people are more formal and it´s normal to greet with a handshake (or a little kiss for women) even if you only meet for a few seconds in the street. So we all greeted each other. Then Javier told me that he wanted me to give the talk! Thankfully we were working from a section of a book for new believers. We had photocopied sheets. I was still in shock and kind of hoped he was joking and I hadn´t picked up the humour. But no, I WAS giving the talk.
So we began to work our way through the sheet. It asked ´who are our spiritual enemies´ and we looked up verses listed. I realised that these people were mostly newcomers. In fact one man was visiting for the first time. His name was Angel. We moved on to ´how to combat our spiritual enemies´ and then ´how to deal with sin´. It was really good to discuss these things together and to be able to help some of these really new believers (not sure if they all even were). I have been asking God and asking you to pray that I could be of use here and I felt last night that I was. Thank God.
This morning we have a woman of 75 years in traditional dress with us for breakfast. She would be indigenous (not mixed). I want to take a picture with her but it might be a bit rude. We´ll see.
Hasta pronto.
Wesley
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Day 2 with my Host Family - The Angamarcas
Tuesday 24th August
Hi Everyone,
I've begun to settle in more and have been speaking a lot of Spanish. The Angamarcas are very kind and forgiving of my mangling of their language. It's been good. I'm getting used to their food too. It's cold here in the mornings. We've been eating a lot of cheese. They also eat plantain mashed and fried. They call it patacon. It's pretty bland but nice with something else. They drink powdered coffee here too which seems sacrilege when they produce real coffee here.
Yesterday we went out into the hills around Azogues. The scenery is very spectacular. I took some photos which I will try to upload at some point. The houses and farms are poor but very beautiful in a decrepit way! I saw a woman in traditional dress (panama hat and wide skirt) dragging two cows by a rope down the road. We also hit a young cow with our car. It ran across the road in front of us. It wasn't serious for the cow or us thankfully. We had almost stopped when we hit it. We visited some people who had heard the gospel recently. There was a very old lady and her daughters one of whom is a Christian. The live on a small farm. They even had what looked a bit like Friesan cows! Only one or two though. Their kitchen was full of flies but they gave us coffee (instant!). They listened as Pastor Sergio explained Psalm 1 to them. He explained that if we live by a river of life we will have life but if we live by bad waters we will produce bad fruit. The culture here is much slower (even than Ireland!) so Sergio spends a lot of time chatting before talking about the Bible. It's nice to listen to it all in Spanish.
PS
My nosebleeds have stopped so thanks for your prayers. Please pray that I can be of use to the people here and not just a passenger. Thanks. Also, I hope you like my new Blog background. I think it's more civilised don't you?
Hasta luego.
Welly (my name here)
Hi Everyone,
I've begun to settle in more and have been speaking a lot of Spanish. The Angamarcas are very kind and forgiving of my mangling of their language. It's been good. I'm getting used to their food too. It's cold here in the mornings. We've been eating a lot of cheese. They also eat plantain mashed and fried. They call it patacon. It's pretty bland but nice with something else. They drink powdered coffee here too which seems sacrilege when they produce real coffee here.
Yesterday we went out into the hills around Azogues. The scenery is very spectacular. I took some photos which I will try to upload at some point. The houses and farms are poor but very beautiful in a decrepit way! I saw a woman in traditional dress (panama hat and wide skirt) dragging two cows by a rope down the road. We also hit a young cow with our car. It ran across the road in front of us. It wasn't serious for the cow or us thankfully. We had almost stopped when we hit it. We visited some people who had heard the gospel recently. There was a very old lady and her daughters one of whom is a Christian. The live on a small farm. They even had what looked a bit like Friesan cows! Only one or two though. Their kitchen was full of flies but they gave us coffee (instant!). They listened as Pastor Sergio explained Psalm 1 to them. He explained that if we live by a river of life we will have life but if we live by bad waters we will produce bad fruit. The culture here is much slower (even than Ireland!) so Sergio spends a lot of time chatting before talking about the Bible. It's nice to listen to it all in Spanish.
PS
My nosebleeds have stopped so thanks for your prayers. Please pray that I can be of use to the people here and not just a passenger. Thanks. Also, I hope you like my new Blog background. I think it's more civilised don't you?
Hasta luego.
Welly (my name here)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Settling In
Hi Everyone.
I don´t know if anyone´s going to bother reading this blog but I´ll post something anyway. I´m now staying with the host family since yesterday in my final destination, Azogues. It´s 1pm here now so you can work out the time difference!... They´re very nice and kind people. The house is decent and I have my own room. I´ve been hanging out with two of their sons who are in their 20s so we have plenty in common. They showed me the town yesterday. It´s about 24-25c here by day, quite cool at night but pleasant.
Some of you will be pleased to know there´s no hot water so I´ll be healthier than ever at the end of this trip. My Spanish is coming back too. They´ve asked me to give a talk in Spanish this weekend at a Church retreat for young people. I hope I can make myself understood enough. Please pray my Spanish is up to speed by then. At the moment it´s total immersion which is good. Also, please pray for my adjusting to the altitude cos I´ve been getting nosebleeds which are annoying and i have to take aspirin cos otherwise my head is fuzzy (no jokes) so it´s a vicious circle.
I will post again later and will try to upload photos to flickr.com
Wesley
I don´t know if anyone´s going to bother reading this blog but I´ll post something anyway. I´m now staying with the host family since yesterday in my final destination, Azogues. It´s 1pm here now so you can work out the time difference!... They´re very nice and kind people. The house is decent and I have my own room. I´ve been hanging out with two of their sons who are in their 20s so we have plenty in common. They showed me the town yesterday. It´s about 24-25c here by day, quite cool at night but pleasant.
Some of you will be pleased to know there´s no hot water so I´ll be healthier than ever at the end of this trip. My Spanish is coming back too. They´ve asked me to give a talk in Spanish this weekend at a Church retreat for young people. I hope I can make myself understood enough. Please pray my Spanish is up to speed by then. At the moment it´s total immersion which is good. Also, please pray for my adjusting to the altitude cos I´ve been getting nosebleeds which are annoying and i have to take aspirin cos otherwise my head is fuzzy (no jokes) so it´s a vicious circle.
I will post again later and will try to upload photos to flickr.com
Wesley
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