Enter the Colombians

May 19

◦                After breakfast, Trevor shared a few things about the older brothers' meeting in Bolivia last month.

◦                Rojano (from Peru but lives in Las Mercedes, Ecuador with his family) had sent me a message this morning in which he mentioned that he wished his mother and siblings would come to the meetings this weekend but didn't imagine that they would. I hadn't remembered that they didn't come to meetings anymore and had assumed that they were on the visiting list somewhere and that I would meet them at Special Meeting at some point. After receiving his message, however, I decided I should inquire about where they live to see if a visit would be possible. I asked Olinda, who told me that they live quite close. She rearranged the lunch visits a bit so that I would go with Héctor and Miriam, who were lunching not too far from Rojano's mother's home. Sue took my place with Rosa. We left the grounds about 10:00 and walked for 10-15 minutes before arriving at the home of Rojano's mother. Also there were his sister, Clemencia, his brother, Nelson and Nelson's wife. We chatted for quite a while about any number of things and then sang a few hymns before traveling on to lunch. Héctor invited them to the meetings, so hopefully they will come.

"Look here, little fellow!"  

Oops!  Now Mama has her eyes closed.  

Oh well, we'll just put both of them in.

Heading on to lunch

◦                Lunch was with Sra. Liduvina and two of her grown children, Óscar and Clara. We had soup with potatoes, pasta and a piece of chicken followed by LOTS more potatoes, cuy and salad. Héctor asked me to tell about some of the older folks in my part, so I told about my grandparents and Donald Bowen and Veda Hall. We finished up with a few hymns, as usual.

◦                We arrived back to the ground just after 2:00, and I was a bit keyed up for a nap, so I didn't even attempt it.

◦                After eating some 45 potatoes at lunch plus chicken and cuy, I certainly didn't need to eat anything at teatime. The problem was that Patti had made some delicious looking carrot bran bread that was still warm from the oven. And there was butter. I had a piece. I would have had another one, but I just couldn't do it.

◦                I tried to answer a call from Trevor sometime around 5:00 but couldn't make it happen. I headed downstairs to see if he was there and find out if he had called me by accident or if he needed something. On my way down, I found out that he had left a while ago to accompany the Colombians (Sra. Jeidy Quitiaquez, Sra. Alicia Mera, John Narvaez from Ipiales and Juan David Timarán from Pasto) up to the ground from the main road. I walked a ways down the trail (without taking my phone) to see if I could see them. Nothing. I went back to The Sanctuary to get my phone and went back out on the trail where I had signal. Still no sign of anyone. I tried to call Trevor, but nothing would go through. After a while, my phone died, so I went back to my room to plug it in. And there I waited until I heard the group approaching. At that point, several of us headed down the path to meet them. It was good to see the three from my field along with Juan David from Pasto. I felt bad about not being able to get the phone calls because they could have used help with the luggage. Anyway, by the time we all got up to the ground, they were ready to serve supper. So, it was a good thing I spent a little time before tea reading my bible instead of taking a nap because the rest of the afternoon didn't exactly go as I had planned.

◦                I skipped dish washing and "went to bed" early.