Meeting Luz's family

May 18

◦        After breakfast, Laércio (the visiting brother worker from Brazil) shared his experience about going to Mozambique to labor. There's only one native professing lady in the country, in the north part, I believe, and a professing couple in the capital - he from New Zealand and she from Canada (or vice versa).

◦                These quiet mornings have been wonderful. I've loved reading my bible and having time to really meditate.

◦                I've been trying to attend the teas since I know what it's like to have that job and not have anyone show up, so this morning's tea was attended by Patti (the hostess), Miriam, Javier and me.

◦                Lunch was very special today. Patti and I went to the home of Luz's mother. (Luz González is on our staff here in Ecuador.) Her sister, Delira, and her little nephew, Max, were also there. Patti asked me to share what I had spoken about in the meeting last night, and we sang some hymns after eating fritada, rice, potatoes and salad with a slice of chirimoya for dessert.

On our way to lunch

Luz's mother and Max greet us as we arrive.

The door to the kitchen

Lunch

Max feeds his toy cow, I think it was.

Feeling gigantic yet again

Max was all prepared to leave with us.  He was quite comfortable with Patti.

Even as we got further away from the house, he wasn't at all worried.  Finally, his mama just took him and headed back home.

◦                It started raining nearly as soon as we left to come home, but fortunately, it didn't downpour on us. We waited under a roof for a little while partway home and made a quick stop in at the home of ????. I used the bathroom there. Not ideal as it turned out, but it couldn't be helped. We had to go around the back of the house and by the pigs to get to the stool-less outhouse. Squatting when you have muddy boots on makes keeping your skirt clean quite a task, but I think I managed. (Sorry for the details.) The door didn't shut, so the lady of the home stood outside and held it for me. I'm not sure what they do. Anyway, I'm sure she wondered what took me so long, but... I was glad I had my own paper. There's often none to be found, and I've sometimes wondered about that. Part of a chat with Sue yesterday confirmed my suspicion... They don't actually use it! Today's outhouse contained a pit "toilet" with the pit being quite visible, and there was no evidence of toilet paper anywhere. Well, now there is, but I'll end the story here. On the way by the pigs, one of them got excited thinking I might have food and came in my pursuit. Fortunately for me, it was smaller than the last pig that chased me, and it was also on a rope, so I managed once again to not get run over by Porky on my way back from the bathroom.

◦                Nap time!!! I don't know if I slept, but I didn't hear the snack bell if they rang it. 

◦                Went down to the dining room a little after 4:00 thinking that snack would be over and I could just grab a cup of hot water and head back to my bed and read my bible until supper, but alas, there were still some at the table. So I sat and sipped and then helped with clean up and then found out that supper was being served at 5:00. Quite earlier than normal! But as it turned out, that was fine. We got done with supper clean up early as well, during which process, I agreed to help Javier with a hymn that he was having trouble with.

◦                After dishes and dish towel washing, I headed upstairs to get my hymnbook. I also got ready for my shower and took everything I needed downstairs so I wouldn't have to come back up. We had our little hymn sing, singing #24 that Javier especially had wanted help with and then a few more new ones as well. Then Laércio joined us, and we ended up talking until nearly 8:00. It was quite nice. We had a good time, and I'm glad that such a thing worked out before the rounds ended.

◦                Now I've showered and ready to get ready for bed, and my clock reads 8:19. Sounds like a good deal to me!