Day 3
Today was such a wonderful day again. We had breakfast and devotions starting at 7am this morning and then headed to Lote Tres for church. Mount Cayambe fully greeted us as we climbed up the mountain in our vehicles by showing us her full view! We were greeted with warm hugs and even some tears as we got out of the vehicles at the church and were ushered into the church for a 3-hour service! We had singing and the women’s choir and prayers and the children’s choir and even some beautiful dancing to praise Jesus. Our team shared 2 songs with the church, Adam and Jenny both gave wonderful testimonies and Mark preached a great message about the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
After the 3-hour service we took a lot of photos with the members of the church as well as some nice family photos that we plan on printing and handing them out to them next week.
We were served a wonderful lunch of rice, boiled potatoes, chicken and mixed vegetables as well as a lovely warm sweet chamomile tea. The tea hit the spot after sitting in a cold concrete building for the service.
As we left the church building, we were greeted by lovely warm sunshine and most of us quickly stripped off as many layers as we could! It was so nice to be in short sleeves this afternoon (sorry Wisconsin-we know about all of the snow).
The entire team was able to join some members from the community for some agricultural education in a nearby pasture owned by the pastor of Lote Tres. Jim, Mark and Steve have been working out an experiment to do with some members of the community to help improve milk production. They have been concerned for years about overgrazing the pastureland and want to educate the farmers about how to graze for more milk when they milk the cows. There were a lot of back-and-forth questions to gain knowledge. I think they will continue to work through this experiment during this week.
The rest of the team spent this time enjoying the sunshine, playing with children and just relaxing. Most of us left early to head back to the hotel and relax…. And to stop for ice cream! The afternoon was spent in many ways-naps, visiting, sorting supplies, exploring the property the hotel is on, finishing presentations for later this week, climbing trees, etc.
The dairy farmers left for a few hours to visit the farm of a successful dairy farmer close to the city in the hopes of gaining new information to help the people in Lote Tres. Tonight dinner was a creamy chicken and mushroom dish over rice with some delicious salsa.
This evening we all worked again on some different things getting ready for the week ahead: practicing workshops with translators, sorting more supplies, going through donated glasses (maybe trying a few good ones on for size) and the teens in our group hid away in their rooms to all watch a movie together.
Most of us are still very healthy, but one member is getting a cold, one member is struggling with motion sickness, and we are all feeling tired tonight. Please pray that we all stay healthy and that our two ailing members can recover quickly.
Until tomorrow night… Hasta Luego
