The Not Interesting or Flashy Post

Solely Things on My Mind

This post has nothing to do with moving or Ecuador. I just wanted to type out what I am going through mentally with my faith. If you don't care about spiritual things or philosophy, you probably will not enjoy reading this. If you do, you still probably won't enjoy reading this hahaha.

      The world's concept of Christianity has lost most of its face because we, as a people, have tried to take matters into our own hands. Bear with me as I explain. Christians have apathetically handed the responsibility of being God's hands and feet solely over to the church. They do not view themselves as hands and feet outside of church. "The church is where people get saved so I'll just bring my family, friends, and strangers." This mentality has placed a certain passive aggressive pressure on the church. So that over the last 20 years or more, they (the church) feel the need to spice things up a bit.

     As if the God of the Universe, the Alpha and Omega, and maker of all things isn't interesting enough to captivate the minds of His people. On top of that, preaching and teaching is geared now to dumb down to a child's wording so that ALL might understand. When I say "all," I do not mean for every age, I mean for people that believe and people that don't. Again, bear with me. Christians think that it's the church's job to save. Pastors now gear sermons only to save, and in the attempt to save the lost, they water down complex scripture to a single point and relay that as a topic for the lost to leave and ponder. That has to be a run-on sentence. In this ridiculous attempt of culturization of the church (commonly called seeker-friendly), we have created a diminished view of church membership, created church hoppers, and a child care organization throughout the year that has little impact on the family as a whole in a spiritual nature.

   "The preaching is okay, and the music is cool, but I want a closer church," or ,"I want a church that has more events and things, to impact the community." Like God ONLY uses church functions to draw His people to Himself. Is that written in 2 opinions? And for a lot of church goers," If I don't like this church we'll just go to another." The church is viewed as what a person can receive from it. Instead of the important difference... How can I serve the church? A message and ideology that is inescapable if the Gospel of Christ is being preached.

   People are not ignorant to the fact that worship services are being designed to captivate your attention with loud music, and lights, and a comedy routine. SO many things have been added in, that people leave the church service talking more about personal opinions than God's inerrant Word! May it never be! People also have the mindset that if I feel too much pressure or if I have a confrontation with someone, I can just go somewhere else. Other churches wont ask me any questions about what church I came from. They will only try to be as inviting as they can be because I'm a guest. On a side note, if the pastor says a big word like doctrine or theology don't get scared or tune out. Your job, Mr./Mrs. Christian, is to grow in the knowledge of the Lord. You NEED foundational biblical doctrine and theology to help fight the schemes and darts of the devil!

   My contention is not to deter you from going to church, but to encourage you to seek what scripture says about what a church is, and how it is supposed to function. Check out the Timothys and Titus for starters. Recognize the difference between Church and church. Look up what it means when scripture says it has been built upon the the foundation of the prophets and apostles with Christ being the cornerstone. Important things to know if you are wanting to be a part of a church. Saying "I go to church" means nothing. Being able to articulate why you are a part of a church is a necessity for a Christian. Vic hates it when I say this cause it's super cheesy but: You can spell religion without Christ but you can't spell Christian without Him. It's cheesy, I know.

Secondly, are you worried that when you go to church you'll be viewed as a sinner? I pray that you ARE viewed that way! If you weren't a sinner then you wouldn't have a need for a Savior would you...? Don't let that stop you from going to church! Which brings me to my next point:

God's Word is confrontational. The Law shows you you have sin. There is nothing you can do to pay for the wages of your sin, which is death. And then comes the question," Well then what is my purpose in life, to die?" To a person who is asking this question, what would you say? Go to church? Jesus? If you're a good person God will love you? Come with me this Sunday and I'll introduce you to my pastor? Yeesh!! 

Always be ready to give an account for the hope that you have. That is YOUR command and YOUR responsibility. If you cannot articulate what you believe, then why do you believe it? Postmodern thought is running rampant as is has been for a long time now. "To each his own" might as well be written on our currency, because the only thing that talks is money now anyway, right? It's definitely not Christians talking and shedding light into darkness. It's very easy to be apathetic to Postmodernism. Because most can't articulate their faith and God is only love and doesn't like confrontation. May it never be! Let's draw a mental picture:

God, the maker of everything, is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. He owns you! And every person everywhere in the whole world has sinned against Him. You are now on His Wrath list. What does His wrath look like? Burning in a lake of fire with the weeping and gnashing of teeth in a state of perpetual dying without the release of death. And that's not even explaining it with full gravity. You cannot be with God because you have sin, therefore you will be WITHOUT God. You are dead in your trespasses and sins. There is not a thing you can do to break the chain of sin that holds you. You can give to the homeless, feed the starving, create a cure for cancer, save a country from being nuked, find Waldo, and raise 15 children while working 5 jobs, and you will not come close to even lightening the color of the stain of sin on you. You are under sin, you are chained by it, it has you by the soul! 

That is your condition apart from Christ.

For it is by Christ Jesus alone, received by faith alone, given by grace alone that you can be saved from God's wrath. Read that carefully. Christ paid the debt that I owed. He purchased life for me with His own blood. He has already died the death that belonged to me. And to take that a step further, He gave me the righteousness that was His! So now, when I stand before God, He will see Jesus' righteousness. And what a glorious day it will be indeed. 

I only felt the need to type this because of current events in my life. I did not take the time to post scripture references, please forgive me, this was meant to be informal. If you want to turn this post into a key word search and find the references... by all means hahaha. Thank you to all that has invested time in both my wife and I. We love you.

   

The Market and The Park

In Which, We Go Shopping and Take a Walk

This is just going to be a short post today, but I wanted to show you guys a couple of the places we go shopping pretty regularly. Generally, we'll go about once a week to downtown Ambato (El Centro) to hit up our chicken and meat vendors. 

Puro Pollo is where we get our chicken, and when I say it's the best chicken I've ever tasted, as a full-fledged Southern gal whose diet consists of chicken, chicken and more chicken, you can take that to the bank. Seriously. They fry it a little differently here (not so much breading) but even still, it's amazingly flavorful and moist and tasty. 

Carnessa is where we like to get our ground beef and, occasionally, some chuleta de cerdo (literally, cutlet of pork). John likes the chuleta we've gotten at some of the little restaurants for breakfast, so we keep experimenting with spices and sauces and such to see if we can get the same result. 

This is one of the entrances to the Mercado Central. Downstairs is all veggies, fruits, breads and almost every type of meat you can imagine. It's huge inside, taking up practically a whole block. Upstairs is their 'Patio de Comidas' or Food Court, where you can get llapingachos, an AMAZING Ambato specialty. The best I can describe it is a fried potato ball with bits of chorizo, topped with a fried egg. Doesn't sound like much but they are incredible and if you come visit us, you will definitely be eating some. 

I didn't get any pictures today, but they hang a lot of their meat out in the open air. There's very little refrigeration going on while they're selling it. It's kind of gross but cool too. You see every cut of meat and every piece of the animal. Seriously, we walked past what looked like giant pig legs, with the hoof still attached. Not sure what they use it for and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know (in case I eat it in the future) but it's still pretty cool to see the entire animal being used. 

These next few pictures are of the outside of our apartment and the park we take Jethro to every day. It's just around the block from us, so it's an easy walk, and there's plenty of space for him to basically run free for however long we end up staying.

This is the front of our building. We're on the third floor, which you can't see too well from this angle, but we've got a balcony area with an amazing view of the city. The little gated area on the second level is the terrace (or, terraza) and that's where we hang our clothes (air drying, yo) and that's where Jethro stays when it's sunny out. He likes to watch (and whine about) a cat that's across the street. 

There are 2 other families in this building. The people on the first floor have the garage on the left, which also backs up into the second half of their apartment. The first half, with the main living areas and kitchen, is directly under our apartment on the first level. We saw the entire building when we first looked at the building and it is NICE. Like, North American-standards nice. 

Juan and Andrea live on the second floor, and they've got a lovely little apartment that's roughly the same size as ours. They have a bit more living space, but we have a balcony, so it's a fair trade.

A bit of graffiti, but still a nice park

Parque La Cantera is where we go every day. Like I said, it's quite large, with a lot of fun things for kids as well as plenty of space for Jethro. There's actually a skatepark there as well, and we'll see skateboarders as well as a few kids on bikes practicing different tricks. 

The bowls for the skaters. Grey and cloudy today, and quite cold, but we still have to go to the park!

Continuing on, the park ends at this little valley, which goes down to concrete soccer courts. We see people out here every day. There's a school on the far side that uses it for recess and PE, and there are several high schools in the area that will come a few times a week for the same thing. We also see local soccer games on the weekends, REALLY late at night. I think we saw one this last weekend that was happening at 12:30 am?! And there were people watching and everything. They were enjoying themselves though, so who am I to judge? ;)

Also, this picture doesn't do justice to how steep these hills are. Jethro will be coming at a dead run from the bottom, and by the time he gets to the top, it's almost like he's barely moving. These guys are STEEP...so I want him to run up and down as much as possible. Nothing like a tired hound dog.

Space for soccer games and PE!

Speaking of the hound dog, here he is! I honestly believe he's going to severely dislike us when we bring him home. He's still spoiled here, but he gets waaaaaaaay more time with us and he gets a lot of freedom to explore. 

Overlooking his new domain

Anyway, that's today! Tomorrow I get to go help out Beth and Jill with baking sweets for this upcoming expo they're doing for the bakery. I'm REALLY looking forward to taste-testing ;)

Catching Up and What Next?

In Which, I Write a Long Overdue Post

Hi guys! Victoria here. Sorry we haven't posted very frequently. Neither of us is really good at sitting down for an hour and just banging away at the keyboard, but I promise, we are working on getting better!

So it's been a little more than a month, and we're starting to really settle in. Our apartment is still looking a bit bare, but we're going to be filling it over the next few months. 

This is our living room and our dining room. We're still not entirely sure which is going to be which, but I imagine we'll figure it out as we go. Right now though, it's quite bare and echo-y, which is the most annoying bit. Hopefully, with a bit of furniture and maybe a rug or two, we can eradicate that issue.

SO. Lots has happened, but none of it really big stuff. We're finding a daily rhythm, thankyouJesus. I love the 'no schedule' feeling of vacation, but after a few weeks of it, I really start to feel lost and adrift. I just work better with a schedule, I suppose.

Anyway. We're getting into a rhythm that includes, as John mentioned in the last post, Crossfit! Our torture of choice involves a 20-ish minute walk down and then up some pretty steep hills (baby mountains, really), followed by a cardio-intensive WOD, then a nice hot shower, then, depending on the day, we'll do another 20-ish minute walk BACK to the apartment or we'll take the bus into El Centro for groceries and lunch. Needless to say, the bus days are my favorite. 

Welcom back, Crossfit still hates you!!

One of my LEAST favorite thing about this Crossfit is that they love cardio. Oh man, do they ever love their cardio. And burpees. They REALLY love burpees. I've made an agreement with Santiago, one of the trainers, that I'll do 3 doubleunders for every burpee I don't have to do. I really, really hate burpees. 

I struggle through a lot of the WODs due to their aforementioned love of cardio (which I have always severely lacked) in addition to the altitude. Have you tried to do wallballs, wallclimbs and a 200m run at 8000+ feet? No? Then shut your mouth. It's ridiculous y'all. I feel like I'm on the moon, but without the whole weightlessness effect. THAT would be appreciated  but nooooo...I just have to feel like my lung are about to be ripped out of my body. 

In other news, we're getting more and more comfortable with the local markets. We've been going to the Mayorista roughly every other week, and we still go down to El Centro every Monday for our meat. We have the best chicken vendor - a place called Puro Pollo, and it is, indeed, THE.BEST. chicken I have ever tasted in my life. Seriously. I'd ship you some if I could, but I can't, so come visit us and I'll feed you. In the meantime though, I'll try to remember to take pictures this Monday so you can see what I'm talking about. 

Heaven in a bag!

One of the strangest and yet most common-sensical thing you'll see here is people eating out of little bags. You get them from street vendors selling their wares, anything from snack food to straight up lunch or dinner. This is one of our favorite street foods (so far) - papas fritas (fried potatoes or, if you prefer, french fries). The lady at the tienda around the corner from us sets up this huge grill/fryer most nights and fries potatoes and sells them in these bags for a buck. She tops it with a few fried hotdog pieces, ceviche (onion, vinegar, tomato and herb sauce), mayonnaise and the Ecuadorian version of ketchup. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. They are so good. And awesome for a snack to hold you over while you make dinner. 

One of the best things that's happened in the past month is that we've become really great friends with the people who live on the second floor (our 'vecinos'). Juan and Andrea are just a few years younger than us, with a 7-month-old baby boy, Juan Martin. They have been absolutely wonderful! We've had breakfast, lunch and dinner with them in their apartment multiple times, and they've helped us immeasurably when we're looking for things for the apartment, like curtains for the windows or mirrors for the bathroom. They've taken us to Baños and we've somehow fallen into a habit of going out to dinner with them on Saturdays. 

They've introduced us to their friends and family and basically just welcomed us with open arms and open hearts. Juan speaks pretty good English and Andrea understands, so between all of us, we have some really amazing times and awesome fellowship.

And that's basically where we're at now. We haven't found a home church yet, so please keep praying for that. We really want to get plugged in with a spiritual family here. But the Lord has blessed us with so many other people already, who have been nothing but open and welcoming to us, and we are so grateful for them. 

OH! And we still see Marco and Elena, athough not as often as we'd like. No fault of theirs or ours, we're just all busy with our lives. Their daughter Tania and her husband John-Mark have been visiting for the past 2 weeks or so as well, so they've been busy catching up with them. However, we're planning on seeing them tomorrow at church, and John and I are really looking forward to that!

Speaking of my favorite husband, he recently trimmed his mountain-man beard, so I'll leave you with the pictures of THAT particular event at the end of the post. 

In the coming weeks, we've got a couple of things happening. Our Canadian friends, Beth, Wayne and Roxana (Jill, really, but apparently the 'J' is really hard for Ecuadorians, so Roxana it is), run a bakery out of their house, Panaderia Canadiense (Canadian Bakery). They make a lot of really great things, and we've been able to sample most of them. Perks of being friends ;)

Anyway, there's a sort of expo-market going on this coming week in one of the surrounding towns that they'll be attending to spread awareness of their bakery. We've offered to help them in the past with either baking or deliveries, and they've taken us up on that offer. I'll be helping Jill bake the sweet treats (crisps, brownies, energy bars) and John will come along as the muscle. That's going to be at least 2-4 days, so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that and post them up.

Also, we're planning on going to Quito very soon to get John signed up for his distance Spanish courses and get the Student Visa squared away. We also might sneak in some sushi there, but who knows, it's tough to tell. Anyway, that'll probably be the week after next and we'll probably make a daytrip out of it, since Quito's only 2.5-3 hours away. Should be good fun, and again, I'll do my best to remember to take pictures of whatever we do. 

Let us know what you want to hear about - food? Friends? Where we go? What we do? There's a lot going on every day, and if we were to write it all, then you DEFINITELY wouldn't read any of this. So leave us a comment with what you want to know more about, and we'll do our best to accommodate you :)

In the process...

The aftermath...

Finished product!

Things to Think About When You Move

Setting Up and Settling In

   
      Well we have been here for a month now, how time flies. A lot has happened.... Not big things but many small things. Victoria and I found an apartment to rent by God's good grace. We were really lucky because places tend to go very quickly here. If a place is listed in the paper in the morning it is usually taken by 12:00 noon the same day. Elena and Marco were hugely helpful in helping us find a place. We searched through papers and online and then went out and visited them. It was encouraging when Elena and Marco was expressing how much they would enjoy us being close to them if possible. And then as if it was preordained (which I believe it was) we found a note in the paper about an apartment building 2 blocks away from their house. We went with them over to check it out. It was a brand new building that has 3 floors and each floor is 1 apartment. All 3 were listed in the paper when we saw it and literally the next day when we got there the first 2 floors were taken. We walked in and the woman (Monica) started to show us around. We found out that Monica actually used to be a student at the University that Elena used to work at! So we are walking through the building and looking around, and we notice people are still painting the walls and putting in light bulbs and things. The place is literally brand new and being finished. We walked through the 3rd floor and asked some questions about how the renting process works, would we have hot water, can we set up internet, etc. While we are being shown the place, 2 other families showed up to look at it as well! Being that Monica knew Elena, she told them that we had first dibs as it were. Which put us in a position where we needed to make a decision promptly. Vic and I weighed our pros and cons about the place and then asked what would it cost per month. Monica told us, which I waited for the translation from Elena. Then with a chuckle we said yes!

Jethro inspecting for safety

 Victoria and myself had already made an agreement not to rent a place higher than $400 a month. Monica quoted us $200. Hence the chuckle. Being 20/20 and looking back, God had planned out every step that we unknowingly walked in. God led us to Elena, God impressed Ambato upon us, God worked out everything for us to depart to live here, God had this apartment built at the exact time we would arrive looking, God had already made a connection between Elena and Monica, God knew what our income would be and provided a brand new place in a good neighborhood for us to call home, and there is no telling how many more graces God has set in motion that we haven't even seen yet. Now we all know that part of God's great love for us can hurt sometimes when He is growing us, maturing us, and conforming us. But man how sweet are the times that He abundantly gives you joy and we get the pleasure of giving Him the glory for it.

Yes that is a massive propane tank
on the ground beside the oven

Breaded chicken with peppers and celery
(the suspicious fruit on the right is a naranjilla, I think)

You Don't Need a Microwave

We have been in this apartment for 2 weeks now and we now have internet set up. Sorry for not having posted sooner! It took a while to get things set up here. The apartment didn't have a thing in it. No refrigerator, no oven/stove, no bed, no table or chairs, no couch, plates, eat utensils, cups, nada (nothing in Spanish). So that was interesting in and of itself. We looked online in various places that we could find, and was able to find a bed, a stove/oven (gas), and a refrigerator for $480 total (yet another grace). Since then we have picked up some of the small things that are needed for everyday life, and we've been going to the markets and the mall to get food. "I have been considering myself a master chef" (said in a proper English accent in a very proud manner). Many-a things mighty tasty have been coming from our cast iron skillet that we brought with us even though it weighs more than my right arm, but thanks to the persistence of my lovely wife, we have it here... The foods here are super fresh! All the fruits and vegetables, eggs, meats, and the best milk I have ever had in my life. When scripture talks about the land flowing with milk and honey, I imagine that milk tastes like this milk. NOT fat free, or skim, or 1%, or 2%, and even thicker than the vitamin D back in the States, it is A.....mazing.

This is the view from our balcony
on the 3rd floor

We have a good size closet but we did
not have any hangers to put up our clothes

Exercise

I believe we have told you about the difference in elevation here. It will take a toll on you with just regular walking. Vic and I finally got acclimated pretty well. Enough to say," Hey why don't we find a gym close by and start working out again." Two gyms were pretty close and so we went to them and worked out for a day in each. And then.... BAM! We found a crossfit gym within a 15 minute walking distance. A real game changer for everyday life. They have everything needed for crossfit workouts and the guy that owns it really cool and can speak a little English. And here is the kicker, they have really hot showers! So, at our apartment and most places around here they use these little electronic heaters for the shower head. It's super cheap to buy one but this is how it works: It WILL heat water but only about a 15 degree, at best, difference from the temperature of the water coming in. And to get it to heat you cannot have a lot of water pressure coming out. It doesn't have enough time to heat. So you have to barley turn the water on to a drizzle and hope that the water coming in to the unit is at least 65 degrees. Time management has now taken over my shower time. Whereas back home I would take a 20 minute shower, I now take a 2 minute shower. And I could not be any more awake by the time said shower ends. Which I guess overall is a good thing cause I study Spanish on Rosetta Stone in the morning.


That's pretty much whats been going on from my point of view, I'm sure Victoria will post a more intelligent and descriptive post that will answer the questions you have after reading mine :)

For those of you that saw Victoria's post on
Facebook, no, she still has not let me buy a
box of mac n cheese...

Love you guys and thank you for keeping up with us and for your prayers!

 

First Week Down

In Which We Explore Our Surroundings and Write a Post Together

We arrived to Ambato on Thursday, and since then we've been trying to get as settled into the things needed to survive as well as possible. We are staying in the same little house that we stayed in the first time we came to this city in Ecuador. However, we are only staying here for 2 weeks while we find a more permanent house or apartment. We do have Jethro (our dog) with us so we need an area for him to be able to walk around in. They have random little parks all over the place, which is very convenient considering the needs of our four legged friend.

We took a taxi ride up the Via Ecologica to Santa Rosa for 3 dollars and we walked back down to enjoy the scenery. It started as a good idea to exercise Jethro, but ended in a good exercise for us. The road literally goes uphill for about 2.5 miles. This picture is off the road about 50 yards. It looks pretty flat but it literally starts to drop off past the small little tree all by itself.

The hills above Amabato

The epic look of surprise

So in the process of trying to make a simple routine per day, we have to get into the groove of the culture. When to buy certain foods, where to buy certain foods, and how much said foods should cost. We were able to find some basic foods like 1-2 days here. Low and behold we found rice/arroz. I always pick fun with Victoria because she is half Puerto Rican but for some reason CANNOT cook rice. It should be a prerequisite for having a Hispanic background... We had heard from another family here that when cooking rice here you have to use 3 cups of water to 1 cup of rice because the elevation difference (8,000ft+) makes the water evaporate more quickly. She cooked that rice like entirety of the Hispanic culture was behind her. Not a single crunchy, non-cooked piece was to be found. I was so proud that I congratulated her. To go along with this awesomely cooked rice we had fresh avocado and fried plantains.

The biggest zucchini you will ever see

On Sunday, we met up with new friends of ours, Elizabeth and her step-dad Wayne. They're Canadian immigrants who recently became Ecuadorian citizens, along with Elizabeth's mom, Roxana. They offered to show us around La Mayorista, which is the biggest market on our side of town. This is most likely where we will do most of our weekly shopping for produce. And man, oh man, do they ever have produce! It's all so fresh and a good 50% of what's seen is grown either within a short distance of Ambato, or within the province of Tungurahua. Eating locally is not a problem here at all.

We saw all manner of veggies an fruits, half of which I couldn't even name. Since the growing season is basically all year round, things such as zucchini and squash and cucumbers can get to enormous sizes!

Spices, spices, spices!

Dried goods

Elizabeth made sure to introduce us to their spice vendor. He had an entire little shop full of freshly hand-ground spices. There were also nuts and chocolates available. It was seriously overwhelming, since all we were looking for was a little bit of chili powder. We'll definitely be going back soon though, because you can never have too many spices when cooking.

There were also stores with freshly ground corn, wheat, rice, beans, pasta - you name it, they probably had it. Everything was in the big barrels that you could walk by and see and even touch!

There was a particular area dedicated to greens - spinach and lettuce and kale and everything that grows that's green. Beth was looking particularly for dill, which she said was typically a little difficult to find. We went by this one vendor with all sorts of fresh herbs, and she miraculously had a bundle. Beth had spoken with her the week before, and apparently the lady had held them for her.

Fresh herbs!

The fruits and vegetables are incredibly numerous, like I mentioned before. A good half of them I don't even have a name for them in English! And they're all SO GOOD, especially the fruit. They've got two or three types of passion fruit in season right night, and Ambato is known as the land of peaches! They've got several different types that come into season through out the year, and they are all absolutely delicious. 

Rambutan - so very odd looking, but so very tasty

So we went to the market on both Sunday and Monday. On Monday we went into the center of town -(El Centro) to the market there to check out the meat-sellers. Beth and Wayne introduced us to their chicken and sausage suppliers, and we bought a little of both to get us through the week. 

On Tuesday, I (Victoria) was feeling the effect of the past few days at 9000+ and walking all over the place. Plus, I hadn't been drinking very much water, so I was overall dehydrated and just feeling bleh. I had a headache and stomach ache and had planned to stay home, but Beth and Wayne called to invite us to Baños that day. They said they were planning on going to the hot springs and then going to a chiropractor to get adjusted. They didn't have to tell me twice.

The city right up on the mountain

Baños Cathedral

So around 1 that afternoon, we loaded up on a bus for the 40-minute, 80-cent ride to Baños. The town is pretty small, but it's very popular with tourists, both foreign and local, due to aforementioned hot springs. Apparently the weekends are typically slammed, but the weekdays are much more manageable, so we were happy to be able to enjoy the sights and sounds without fighting a crush of people.  

The hot springs were absolutely wonderful! My back and hips were sore, and soaking in a hot mineral pool was exactly what I needed. They have varying levels of temperature at the springs. There was an area with freezing cold water - good for circulation, and then several pools of varying heat. We were in the 2nd hottest pool, which looked more like a cistern, but it was glorious. It's slightly unappetizing to look at, because the water is  slightly murky, but that's the way it comes direct from the underground springs. Beth reminded us that this entire area sits on an active volcanic line, which is why they can get water that hot from mountains that high.

Natural hot springs and waterfall

Baños itself is gorgeous. It's known for its hot springs, but it's also known for its adventure tourism and waterfalls. There's hiking and kayaking and rafting to be had within a short walk or ride. We saw dune-buggy type vehicles that you could rent for the day to drive around the area. 

Communal clothes washing station
 naturally fed by the waterfall

The city itself is wedged in a very small, narrow valley. It backs right up to the mountains, from which they get their hot springs. They claim (and we can attest to) the cleanest water at Virgen de Agua Santa. The spring comes directly from the mountain into a stone cistern. People drink directly from it as there are no chemicals, no contaminants, other than a few leaves and sticks that fall into the cistern itself. It's pretty amazing water, we drank some ourselves :)

Cistern at Virgen de Agua Santa

After a good 45-minute soak in the springs and some refreshingly clean natural water, we headed to the chiropractor. His name is Jeffrey and he's from California. He's been in Ecuador for 20 years now and has married an Ecuadorian woman, thus making this his home. Beth and her family have been seeing him for a while now, and we were just excited to be able to get adjusted. Upon meeting Jeffrey, we realized that he's absolutely crazy, but it's our kind of crazy, so we felt right at home.  He knows his stuff and he put us to rights very quickly. We didn't ever plan on being able to be adjusted while here in Ecuador, so finding someone who knows what he's doing who isn't very far from us is a wonderful surprise and blessing.

Entrance to the Virgen de Santa Agua

Entrance to Jeffrey's house, and his cat!

Hello from Baños!

The rest of the week was pretty slow. We did take the next few days to just relax and recuperate, having done a lot at an altitude neither of us is used to. We went and saw Beth, Wayne and Roxana several times, having dinner with their family and just generally hanging out. We spent a good amount of time walking around our area, getting to know this neighborhood and the surrounding areas. We've been keeping our eyes peeled for houses for rent, but so far it seems like the newspaper is going to be the best bet for us. Nonetheless, the walking has been great exercise, as well as a good way for us to get to know the area and for people to get to know us. We try and greet everyone we see (well, John does) and most people here are very friendly and welcoming. We get a lot of strange glances, but we're getting used to it.

On Friday, Marco and Elena stopped by to water their plants and also to invite us to church for Easter. We were very happy and excited by that, and of course said yes. They also invited us for cafecito (coffee and bread) at their house later Sunday evening, which we gratefully accepted as well. 

When the appointed time rolled around on Sunday, Marco and Elena picked us up and away we went to church. Their church is several neighborhoods down from us, closer to El Centro. It's in  a lovely little neighborhood and it looks like a large converted house. The meeting area has been opened up to roughly the size of a small gym, and the downstairs area houses the kitchen, bathrooms and another smaller meeting area for the children, youth and adult ministries to take turns using. 

The service itself was very nice. My Spanish still isn't good enough to pick up everything in a normal-speed conversation, but I was able to grasp a good portion of things. We knew some of the songs even though they were in Spanish, and that was a huge encouragement. John was able to follow along with a few words, and Elena helped us both by translating at times. 

Part of the play at church

Afterwards, since it IS Easter, they had a special presentation by the youth and some adults. It was a play done about the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and how it impacts us today. It was interesting to watch and gave me, personally, a lot to think about regarding cultures and faith. Our cultures are very different, and they do things differently here than I would back in the States. Even with that though, the message of Christ was clear, and I could see the people told and received it with reverence and love. 

 One last thing we saw on the way home - behold the wonder of Ecuadorian driving :

There are 3 people on this bike - look closely

Eat your heart out, overprotective parents! 

A Rant

In which, the Ecuadorian Consulate in Atlanta is basically useless

So here's the post I promised about the Consulate in Atlanta. Since I know most of you are probably tired of hearing about Jethro, I'll keep it relatively short and I also promise to put up another post documenting our adventure on Saturday.

When exporting pets from the US, the governing authority is the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). They, along with the country you are planning to export the pet to, dictate the requirements you must fulfill before putting your pet on a plane. 

To make a long story shorter, basically you have to vaccinate your pet within a certain time frame, make sure they are cleared from external and internal parasites within a shorter time frame, and then have them examined by your USDA certified vet within 10 days of your flight. Your vet fills out the APHIS form with all the necessary information, then you have to either drive or mail it to your state USDA office for certification. 

This all seems relatively straightforward, but now comes the tricky part. According to previous regulations, you then had to take this paperwork to the nearest Ecuadorian Consulate and basically have them endorse it, just saying that they've ok'd everything and your pet is free to enter the country.

APHIS put out a new form in December of 2014, and it was actually very welcome, because the old form was a little tricky and I believe you had to have it translated. The new form was very streamlined and was in both English and Spanish, so no need for translation. We had also received notice from several unofficial outlets that the endorsement from the Consulate was no longer needed, but there were conflicting reports about it, so we decided to cross our T's and dot our I's and just get the endorsement to be on the safe side. 

This is where our story actually begins. There's a Consulate in Atlanta, and according to their website, their hours are from 10am - 2pm. I'd heard from other people that you needed an appointment to be seen, so I tried both calling and emailing, which had exactly ZERO results. No one ever responded to any emails and no one ever answered the phone. There wasn't any easy way to leave a message either, unless you just pushed random numbers to get out of the message loop. 

So we decided to just show up and see what happened. We went down on Tuesday and arrived at the Consulate at 1:30, only to find that nobody was there. I tried calling again and sent another email, but nothing. The best course of action seemed to return the next morning when they opened at 10am.

The next morning, I received an email (hallelujah!) from the Consulate stating that they only worked by appointment and that I should've prepared better and contacted them sooner, and that they haven't received any emails or voicemails from me and they would know, because they checked this morning. Also, they're busy all day today so they couldn't guarantee that they would be able to see us. Oh, and their hours are 9am to 2pm. 

Needless to say, I was less than pleased with the response they finally deigned to give. 

So we show up, and there was a really pleasant and very helpful young intern there. He was very nice and took our information and let us know it would be 20 minutes or so before the vice-consul could see us and endorse our paperwork. No problem, we sit down to wait. 

In the background, I can hear him talking to another lady, and what I hear makes me realize that she's probably the one who sent me the email that morning. My Spanish isn't 100%, but I could understand enough to know that she didn't want to have anything to do with us and was just being really dismissive, telling the intern that we could wait as long as it took and that it was our problem and not hers. 

So he finally comes and takes our paperwork, only to come back a few minutes later with a really apologetic look on his face. He tells us that they (I'm assuming the vice-consul and this other woman) are telling him that we have the wrong form. We tell him that this was the form that their website directed us to, that it was directly from the USDA APHIS website. He understands and goes back to talk with "them."

This went on for a few minutes, this poor young intern going back and forth between us. He was very apologetic and very nice, saying it didn't make any sense to him either, but that the vice-consul and this other woman were insisting that we had the wrong form and that they couldn't (wouldn't??) endorse the form we had. 

At this point, I was kind of panicking. We couldn't get the form they were wanting in the time they wanted it. Our flight was leaving THAT DAY. We would've had to go all the way back to Simpsonville to our vet, then down to Columbia to the South Carolina USDA office, then come back to the Consulate, all before 2pm, which is when the vice-consul left for the day. 

I may or may not have had a mini-breakdown in that moment, but thank the Lord for John! After I tried calling the Secretary of State for Georgia, he just stood up and said, "Thanks for your help, but I think we'll be fine without it," shook the intern's hand and walked out of the office. 

We were pretty scared at that point - we didn't have the Consulate endorsement, would Jethro be accepted through Immigration and Customs? Then, as we started calming down, we realized a few things. A, the Consulate was apparently looking for the OLD form. The intern had brought a copy of  the other forms they had endorsed, and it was the form prior to December 2014. B, the endorsement wasn't even necessary, we were just doing this to make sure all our bases were covered.

All this to say - if you ever plan to bring a pet to Ecuador, don't bother dealing with the Consulate in Atlanta. You don't need anything from them and, even if you did, they're not competent enough to know the updated regulations for THEIR OWN COUNTRY. *end rant*

At the end of the day, everything went without a hitch. Jethro is here now and being spoiled more than he ever was in the States. So I guess it really is all's well that ends well. 

Llegamos

In which, we arrive

Well, we're here. It's been a long time coming and there were a few moments in there where we despaired of making it, but the Lord was amazingly gracious and we arrived with nary an issue.

Driving - their least favorite thing

To make it easier, I'll start at the beginning. You're welcome.

We left Simpsonville on Tuesday morning around 11am. The plan was to drive down to the Ecuadorian Consulate in Atlanta, get the final certification for Jethro's paperwork, then head to a little house I had reserved for us via AirBnB to spend the night, before heading out the next evening.

It went mostly well - we had a little kerfuffle with the Consulate (that's going to get its very own post), but all in all, it went as planned. We arrived to the house around 3pm or so, and it was DEFINITELY on the wrong side of the tracks,but the house itself was nice and clean and we were able to relax. 

Slightly worried about the upcoming trip

We went out that evening with a friend of ours (Hi Mildred!) and had an awesome meal at BrickTop's followed by milkshakes at the Varsity. Pretty much a phenomenal evening. By the way, if you get the chance, have the deviled eggs at BrickTop's. TO.DIE.FOR. 

Anyway, we pretty much crashed that evening, and the next day, we decided to rent a car to do our last minute driving around. We stopped by the Consulate (yes, again, and yes, still to come in its own post) and then ran by FedEx to get copies of our paperwork. By this time it was noonish, so we stopped for some food, then ran back to the house to load everything (and Jethro) up in the car and head to the airport. We dropped the car off at the rental return center, then hopped on the transport bus to the international terminal (which was a feat in and of itself, with that ginormous crate). 

By this time, Jethro was confined to his crate, but he was doing pretty well. We could tell he was nervous, but he didn't seem to be overwhelmed so we were happy about that (mainly me). 

Time to go!

We got to the terminal and got all our stuff wheeled in and right up to the counter. The lady was very kind and the process was amazingly straightforward and SOOOOOO much less stressful than I ever imagined it would be. We filled out the paperwork for Jethro, paid his fee, got our bags checked and were headed towards the security check, all within 15 minutes. We stopped at the oversize baggage area for Jethro's crate to be checked, and then he was taken down to the holding area. It was as smooth as you could possibly imagine. I was worried while checking in at the airport because I've heard from others that the airlines can be veerrrrry picky about letting you on the plane with just a one-way ticket. Apparently this is to protect themselves from having to bring you back at their own cost, but we didn't have any issues.

We made it through security with absolutely no problems, found the same Blue Moon Brewing Company restaurant that we found last time, and sat down for a drink (or three). We went to our gate about 30 minutes before boarding, saw Jethro's crate on the tarmac, got on the plane, got confirmation from the co-pilot that Jethro had indeed been boarded, and we were off. 

Truly, the Lord had his hand on us throughout the entire thing. Every step along the way, we've only dealt with kind and generous people. It's been absolutely mind-blowing to see everything work out so incredibly smoothly in the absolutely perfect manner. 

Upon arriving in Quito, we went through Immigration without a hitch - 5 minutes, tops. Immediately after, Jethro was waiting for us in the oversized baggage area, where a kind young man told us that he had been a little anxious, but they had offered him water when they took him off the plane. We could tell (and smell) that he was nervous, but he didn't make a peep as we loaded him up on the carriers and wheeled him through Customs.

This is where I was the most nervous. All our bags went through the scanner and then we had to hand our paperwork for Jethro to a man standing behind a little plastic table. While we were loading the bags back onto the carriers, he walked over to me with the paperwork and said, 'Estas bien', handed me the papers, smiled and said, 'Welcome to Ecuador' I could've cried. 

We left the Customs area and immediately found our ride - they stand there with a sign with your name on it, which is amazingly helpful when you're still in shock and can't process Spanish just yet. We got everything loaded up with some wonderful help from the airport personnel who basically walked us through the entire process, and we rolled into our hotel around 10pm (we're behind an hour here, so it was 11pm EST). 

Our room on the end at QAS

We stayed at Quito Airport Suites and if there's a better suited place for people with animals tired from a long flight, I don't know where it would be. There was a large open grassy area and little rooms around the edge. Ours was on the very end, which was nice since it meant we didn't have to worry about Jethro bothering anyone. The room was clean with a good-size bathroom as well as excellent Wi-Fi (always necessary for us gringoes who are way too attached to our electronics).

The lady who checked us in was very kind and spoke English which, again, was super helpful. Within 10 minutes we were settled in and basically ready to go to bed. 

It was kind of a rough night because Jethro was still really anxious from the flight and the new area, so he paced and whined for a good portion of it. He would sleep for maybe an hour or two, then he'd get up and pace for a while. It was tough, but the next morning, I still felt refreshed. A shower made me feel even more human, and then Jethro and I went out in search of breakfast. 

Having the big open area was such a blessing, because it let him run around and kind of work off his worry. He was still a little nervous, but overall, we could see him calming down.

Jethro enjoying the space at QAS

After a great breakfast of eggs, toast, juice and coffee, we loaded up again to head to Ambato. I had contracted with Rodrigo Pilagonia from Quito Capital Rides to transport us from the hotel to our little casita in Ambato. He was very pleasant and spoke excellent English. He had a 10-passenger van, which made the luggage and crate a non-issue, and he was very kind about letting Jethro be out of his crate and just ride along as he normally would in a car. Rodrigo was an excellent driver and a wonderful person to talk to, and I highly recommend him. You can find him on Facebook in this group - Quito Transport and Rideshare. Just tell him John, Victoria and Jethro sent you :)

Now that we're here in Ambato, we are settling in and feeling more and more comfortable. The casita has a new garden out front, which will definitely be beautiful once it matures a little more. We reunited with Marco and Elena when we arrived, and we all went to lunch to catch up and talk about what we wanted to do going forward. We talked about finding a permanent place to rent and also about finding a program for John to join to start Spanish classes.

John and Jethro - status: LaLa Land

Afterward, John and I absolutely crashed. We both napped for about 3 hours, woke up for a quick bite to eat from the panaderia around the corner, then went back to bed until 8am this morning. 

So far, everything has been really wonderful. We're happy to be back with Marco and Elena, and we're excited to see what's in store for us in the upcoming year. Jethro is just happy to have all four paws on solid ground, and I think he'll settle into being an Ecuadorian dog pretty well.

For now, we're just settling in, but the next big thing is to find a permanent place to stay. Pray that the Lord would bring us to the right place - ideally we'd love to have 2 bedrooms and some green space for Jethro. We've got a little bit of time though, so we're not going to rush things.

After that, we'll be finding John a program where he can study Spanish. I'll be back to my regular proofreading schedule starting next week, so I'll have at least a few hours of busyness during the day.

For now though, this is where we're at and what we're doing. We'll be updating hopefully on a weekly basis to keep everyone back home abreast of all the local goings-on here in Ambato. In the meantime - hasta luego!

Jethro enjoying the new garden