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.

day ninety five - quiero aprendar

quick update...last weekend i went on a trip with alicia, blas, his nephew brian, and frejol. We left at about 8 at night. We jumped on a bus to Chunchi (about 3-4 hours away i think) and when we got there i was like...sooo are we looking for a hotel? and Blas says, ¨hotel? oh no, we never stay in hotels, i think i have a friend here. somewhere.¨ ... ummm you think? ¨ya, i talked with her on the phone once. i think she lives up this street¨. anyways it was pretty funny. we found the lady who was super nice, but didn´t have room, so asked a friend if we could stay with him. I think we paid for one meal over 3 days, the people were so nice there. There were a bunch of parties going on which basically consisted of homemade alcohol and bad music. We stayed for some of them in the first town (i always forget the name) but then made our way to Chunchi where Blas´s distant relatives were baptising their kids...Here in the catholic church it´s a very big deal. We went to the reception after and it was seriously like a wedding. that night we heard some music and went to check it out. Some people were setting up for a disco that night but it was only like 8 and no one was there yet. but we didn´t care. we just danced by ourselves like crazy people. sunday we watched argentina school mexico then caught the bus back home.

my prayer for this trip was to be stretched, to learn, and to be...humbled. i prayed that word quietly because i know being humbled is never fun. And man oh man have i ever been humbled...haha as i write it on my blog. looking back in my journal i wrote ¨heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like you have loved me¨. And that was something i wanted for this trip. I can see how God has been unfolding those things in my life as well as the next lines in the song ¨break my heart for what breaks yours, everything i am for your kingdom´s cause¨. This trip has sparked so many old dreams in my heart and God has given me so many new ones. I am forever learning. I still have over a month left and thinking about it leaves me with mixed emotions. I want it to go by so slowly. I don´t want to leave. But i can. not. wait. to see my family again.
a few things i have learned so far:

love is not an emotion
i can do anything through Christ who gives me strength. anything means anything.
God works ALL things for the good of those who love him. all means all.
kids will never stop asking questions
all people just want to be listened to
out of pain comes beauty SO we can rejoice in our struggles
somehow bull fights are less disturbing to watch than chicken fights
guinea pigs should remain as pets
there is always more to learn
God is always trying to speak to us. always means always. stop for a minute to listen.
we could play it safe and stay on the beach, but you´ll never go anywhere. You could go somewhere and get in the boat but never need to trust in God. Or you could get out of the boat and through your fears and your problems, walk on the sea with your eyes focused on the creator of it all.
you can never drink too much tea
my mom actually does read my blog...

so mom these pictures are for you...my room!


oh and i guess...happy canada day! -daniela

it´s like God is sitting on the edge of his seat, just waiting until we can catch a glimpse of his love for us. ¨there it is!¨ he says. we miss it. but he throws down some more and as it sparkles in our hair and falls to our feet he smiles. ¨my child, if only you knew¨