Scenes from El Cristal

Getting ready for our meeting days

Washing the fruit to be made into juice

Cleaning rice

(Taking out the stones)

Juice-making

Cooking rice during convention

(Dear A,  Can you tell that this is my watermelon apron?)

When you're making 50-60 cups of (raw) rice for a meal, it's nearly a full-time job!  Our largest rice cooker does 15 cups at a time, so several repeats are needed.  

Karen and I were the lunch cooks during convention.  I did the rice.  She did everything else.  :-)

We had a number of animal "helpers" in the kitchen as well.  At least they typically stayed in the outside part of the kitchen.  This is our 15-cup rice cooker.

Need a banana?  

This area also contained all the food scraps for the chickens and was fruit fly heaven!

Women's sleeping

We had the workers' meeting here, so mattresses couldn't be put out until Friday.  

The other end of the women's sleeping quarters

Things are beginning to take shape.

Meeting area

The food line

Brothers' sleeping quarters

A from-the-top view of the outdoor part of the kitchen

The dish-washing area

Jill's birthday stash

She turned 46 on June 13.

Ermécides (visiting brother), Rojano (lives in our field, from Peru)

Kamela, Jill

Sra. Fanny (from Guayaquil), Jill, Eli (Rojano's son)

Chopping vegetables after supper

Trying to get everything organized for a picture of the young people

A pretty good-looking group!

The lady in the red, black and white dress is Sra. Ligia, the lady of the home on the grounds.

Best of friends

Looking down toward "The White House"  

To the left is the women's sleeping quarters with the men's sleeping directly below it.  The lady in blue is standing in front of a restroom for women.  The little passage way on the right side of the picture leads to the laundry and another area for sister workers' sleeping.  

Carlos & Nátali

I attended their wedding my first weekend in Ecuador.

The entrance to the women's sleeping quarters

P.S. - Don't you love how organized these photos are?!

The dining area is down some more stairs to the right.  The meeting area is at the top of the stairs in front.  This is on clean-up day, so the tent has already been taken down.

A little better look at the dishwashing and food service area

The kitchen is to the right.  Dining is on the left.  During convention / Special Meetings, there are two  cafeteria lines.  One is where you see the table to the left of the two garbage cans.  The other is across the drive where the man hidden by the tea towel is standing.

More clean-up

Scrubbing buckets

Now, who is that???

Piles of mattresses

A few shots of Jill's (belated) birthday celebration on the evening of clean-up day

Shhh!!!  It's a surprise!  

Trying to get everyone to look at the camera proved utterly impossible.  Here are a few of our efforts.

And now for a few of my pictures:

Jill and I head down to the river for a little respite before the meetings start.

The path down to the river is much better than it was when I was here before.  Still, it pays to watch your step! 

Absolutely beautiful!  

I guess this is as good a picture as I got of the "swimming area" even though you can't actually really see it.  It's to the right of these rocks.  There's a little sheltered place there where you can stand out of the current.  (That is also where they have the baptism.)  You can also swim across the current to a spot on the other side where you can lean against the rocks and keep your footing.  The water is COLD!!!!!  

This gives you a partial look at the sheltered spot (in the foreground).  

If the current starts to sweep you away, hopefully this bamboo fence will catch you. :-)

Looking down at the road from the dining area