day one thirty five - la ultima

So i'm writing this one last post, post fifty four, a few days after day 135. i am home. since last time i posted i went to the beach, came back, packed, said goodbye, had a ridiculous two-day journey home, cried when i saw my family, and have spent the last two days adjusting to the ridiculous heat here...35-40 degrees i think, and going through culture shock as i adjust to living here in canada once again. I can't say that my life is better in one place or another...life is life. and this is just part of it. i love my life in ecuador...and i love my family and this town. i am looking forward to going back to school for my last year. life is good. but that doesn't mean it's easy. and one thing i've learned on this trip is that if i could CHOOSE between an easy life and a difficult life...i'd take the difficult one. Because the beautiful moments in our life are that much more beautiful and appreciated for all their worth. Because we learn so much more. Because we are forced to trust in our Loving Creator. Because we see the true value of the people around us. Because in the difficult times we are refined by the fire.
This is my last post for this travel blog...for now! I'm sure with many more stories to come. For now i will be posting my random, scattered thoughts on my other blog which you can get to by clicking HERE.
i want to thank everyone who supported me, prayed for me, and read my blogs. I know i will be learning things from this experience for the rest of my life. Missing ecuador already.
Chao! love Daniela

day one twenty nine - vamos a la playa

wow. time could not possibly go by any faster. didn´t i just blog yesterday? I got back from Chimborazo and slept as i said...then all i remember next is getting on a bus with Alicia and Jack to Baños. I like Baños for some reasons...like it´s beautiful, it´s small and cute, there´s tons of stuff to do. But i also don´t like it because it´s SUCH a tourist town and really, if you want to insult me, call me a tourist. I hate the stereotype and the worst part is the stereotype is mostly true of foreigners here...the huge backpacks, MEC clothes, camera at the ready, holding an ice cream cone, and looking very lost and confused. i´ll just take the ice cream thanks.
So Baños. we slept a lot, HA! like our favorite hobby. we laughed a lot. Went horseback riding....for 4 hours! ouch. it looks so comfortable on tv! maybe i just do it wrong but man oh man. im pretty sure we got suckered into a tourist trap when planning on going to a spa for massages. we paid the lady at the tour company because she said she got a ¨discount¨. I never felt right about it and really i think she pulled in a pretty good profit. oh well...still less than 50% the cost of one in canada. and now i know for next time....and i´m warning all of yall!!
It was hard to leave Al and Jack at the bus station on monday when i was returning to Riobamba. Although it still hasn´t really sunk in yet that i may not ever see these amazing girls again. nope. still hasn´t sunk in.
This morning we had our summer tutoring program again...i really dont like missing out on them! the kids are all so much fun. and now...im preparing to leave for the beach for a few days. and i am SO stoked! although...it´s so crazy because when i get back on sunday, it´s goodbye Riobamba, goodbye Ark, goodbye Street Church, and off to Quito. I can hardly believe it. trying to take this all in one day at a time and soak in my last few days here. hopefully i´ll have time to blog once or twice more before i come home.
trusting in God and resting in his peace, Daniela

day one twenty - sueños

sooo saturday night we had street church as usual and it was...una maquina!! so cool!! just hearing people´s hearts and desire to follow Christ. Frejol asked who wanted to go to the jail the next morning to visit and tell people about Jesus and pray with people and hand out soap. The next morning there were maybe ten of us who went. It was unlike anything i could have expected. It was like a whole community in there...with children everywhere and families. I feared at first that these kids lived here but later realized it was visiting day. One of the kids who always comes to street church, i learned has a father in the jail. The lives that these kids have...i cannot even imagine. We passed by the door of the maximum security cell, which...didn´t look so secure to me. This is where the worst of the worst of all of Riobamba go. People were playing soccer and basketball. There was a small church where some of us went to pray and sing songs for whoever cared to listen. These guys in the street church amaze me. These people in the jail are the people who nobody cares about. These are the people that nobody can trust. These are the ¨scum of Riobamba¨...but Blas and Frejol and Naomi and the rest just seemed to know them as friends, nothing else. I saw the love of God in action yesterday. When Blas went up to the small window in the door of maximum security, where noone is allowed to enter, and shake the hands of the guys who knew him by name, and hand them soap...fear just seemed to leave me. Of course being in a jail is never competely safe, but where in the world could be safer than in the will of God?

We were about to leave but for some reason we had to wait for someone, so we went to visit one of their friends...we went into this small room in a door right beside the maximum security cell. There was a guy sitting at a sewing machine, making shoes. Blas, Chuky, and I sat for a while and ate oranges, listened to music, and helped their friend for a while make shoes. I just love random, amazing experiences like this. None of it made sense to me...why was he making shoes here? was he in jail too? im not really a person of many questions though, i just take things as they are. And then i started to laugh. Here he was making shoes with vans and adidas logos..obviously not real, and he was making them in a jail. oh the irony.

at one point i felt all my dreams dying, but being here...it seems God has rekindled my dreams and given me a million more.

just a few more photos of our tutoring program...
Cami holding a small taste of Canada

little Gaby with her masterpiece

in the taxi on the way to the museum

day one eighteen - vaccaciones en la ciudad

in the past one hundred and eighteen days...
i have not eaten any cheddar cheese...or any cheese that resembles real cheese
i have probably eaten more white bread than i have my entire life
i can count the number of times i have worn a seatbelt
i have learned more spanish i ever thought possible in this amount of time
i have met so many amazing people from all over the world
i have changed one hundred and eighteen diapers
i have wiped one hundred and eighteen noses
i have given one hundred and eighteen bottles
i have learned one hundred and eighteen things about myself
i have learned one hundred and eighteen things about God
i have dreamed one hundred and eighteen dreams
...
ok so obviously not that exact number. but who´s counting.
i have also had the priviledge of helping Gaby with a summer tutoring program in our house.
On the first day of our program last week Gaby challenged me to give a presentation on Canada to the kids and their parents....in spanish. i was so nervous...but i did it! After i finished Gaby was so surprised at how much i knew. I surprised myself. Yesterday Gaby wanted me to teach them how to make Canadian food. Seriously..whats canadian food? we dont have salmon here. I bought maple syrup and taught them to make pancakes haha. the cute hats they´re wearing we made with them out of paper.

day one ten - oasis

i know what it feels like to be in the desert. a few times now people have said to me...daniela you are so different now that when you first came here. you look a lot better. you looked so scared and small and pale when you came and now you just seem more full of life.
at first i didn´t realize that i had so much growing and learning to do while i was here. i knew there was a reason i was here, but i guess i didn´t realize that when i came i was still struggling to climb out of the desert. One of the first bible studies we had here was super powerful and Isaac prayed for me and said that God was calling me out of the dry land. Sometimes we´re so used to being in one place we forget we are there.

i think i have a bigger urgency to pull others out of the desert when i have been there myself. Last night a friend and I stumbled across exodus 3:10 and it talks about bringing God´s people out of Egypt. As I started writing this it came to me that riobamba is one of the coldest and driest parts in all of Ecuador. These people need to be called out of the dry land.

where are we calling them to? definitely not paradise. let´s be realistic people...life is tough whether you are following Jesus or not. but i believe life with Jesus is like having our own little oasis in the midst of the desert. There are still storms and heat but the good news is we have water.

day one oh six - VBS.fuego.

i have been in south america for more than one hundred days. that´s like...a big chunk of a year. a couple times now it has hit me...while waiting for a bus, while walking down the street...dude. i´m in ecuador. i´m a long way away from home. but most of the time i just feel like i´m at home here.

last friday was the last day of the vacation bible school at the ark. it went really well and im guessing over 70 kids from the community came.

this is al and jack...every day i awaited anxiously to see their outfits for the day. they never failed to disappoint.i dont know if you can see but jack is wearing two different shoes.

Isaac leading worship


kids waiting in line for the trampoline

last friday night we had a huge bonfire at the ark to say goodbye to Blas´s nephew, Bryan, who was moving back home to spain. And also because Isaac is leaving to Canada in a couple weeks, and also because they just needed to burn a pile of stuff. I bought stuff to make smores and OH MAN it just tasted like home. Like one of the hundreds of fires my family has had on sproat lake. i loved it.
jack, al, and dan just a LITTLE too excited

Isaac...isaac?, stalin, wicho, and al

he spoke me into being, he is the reason my heart beats

day ninety nine - yo soy Tu niña bonita

the other day i asked at a coffee place if they have coffee to go. he put my coffee in a cup with a lid, inside a bag with a spoon and sugar. clearly ecuador hasn´t caught on to this whole ¨coffee to go¨ thing. i think it´s a good thing though. take your time. sit down. enjoy life. drink your coffee. breathe.