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
Thursday, August 26, 2010
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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