day in the jungle

day 83

i hate to throw bad news up here, but we need to pray. now they're calling illian's cancer, skin cancer, and that is has in fact spread throughout parts of his body. tomorrow they are going to run some test on his vitals. the doctors said if the cancer is there, they won't treat anything b/c it's too late. so that is where we come in. we serve a god that walked the impossible, a god that knows the unknown and a god who many times said dead people were just tired and sleeping. it's nothin to pull out a virus for him. pray with faith. pray for peace and tranquility for this kid and his family.

day 82

today was my birthday and what a ride!!!!

i woke up around 3:30 with an intense pain in my eye. so i went to take out my contacts, b/c that normally helps. let me preface this story with another. just before i came down here i got contacts that you can leave in for 5-6 days at a time, even in the night. you are supposed to keep them for 3-4 weeks. the pair that i threw away this morning, in utter disgust and severe pain, was the same pair that i put in the night before i drove to wisconsin back in may. well, takin out my contacts didn't help, it actually worsened the situation. i had pain when my eye was open, and more pain when my eye was closed. i layed in bed thinking about all the possible explinations of what was goin on with mi ojo (my eye). finally, at 5:30 or so i couldn't take it anymore and got dressed and went to the hospital. i have/had a small infection in my eye and the eyedrops are working marvelously. although until about 11 a.m. it looked like i was crying...
after school today we had a meeting to talk about some thing coming up at the school, and first thing they announced that one of my 3 year old students was diagnosed with leukemia today. he had a biopsy done a couple of weeks ago and other than he has cancer of the blood, i don't know any more information at this point in time. i know he went to a cancer treatment center today in a city called cuenca. i'm pretty sure their a special hospital for children with cancer. his name is illian. he knows the colors: purple, red, orange, yellow, green and blue in english. he loves the hokey pokey and has on many occasions actually referred to me as Hokey Pokey as all the kids in his class think that is my name. now, some of the parents are even calling me hokey pokey. :) please pray for this little guy and his family to have the strength and faith necessary to endure this crooked road. the bible says that with a tiny piece of faith we can move a mountain. that means our god is super strong and awesome. so with a 1/16 tiny piece of faith illian and his family can make it through this.

other than that, i taught two extra english classes today after school, a friend bought me a plate full of ribs and yuca tonight (yuca is a potato like vegetable that is native to the jungle here, they fry it like french fries and it's almost like a mix of pancake batter, potatoes and funnel cake). he later invited me to his house and we just hung out. another group of friends called me at the guys house and invited me over to their house where the 12 year old boy was goin to make donuts, but he fell asleep by the time i got there. tomorrow i'm getting donuts...woohoo! and i came home to find my email full of birthday wishes. thank you all for your support and love, it stretches through the cables of this thing called the internet, and i really appreciate. continually pray for this boy. good night (i've almost been awake for 24 hours)

day 74 or 75

i just wanted to let everyone know that i went to the hospital today to hang out with gabriel, and he is doin awesome. he was wearing a batman costume and was walking around. he is eating like a horse, he doesn't have an iv in his arm, and he can laugh. that's right, we laughed and laughed and laughed today. it was really fun. he was crawling all over me like i was a ficus tree, and even though his mom and i were hesitant about it, he was having fun. i'm not completely sure, but he is was either goin home tonight or in the morning. he was having a little bit of leakage from the stiches that they were kind of worried about and might have to restitch it up. but either way he is doing incredible. thank you for your prayers and thoughts. i told his mom that there were lots of people in the united states prayin for him and she lit up like fire-cracker on the fourth of july when she heard this. she is very grateful. however, continue to pray for financial help to come in for the family as this is a significant burden on them.

other than that things are goin really well here. so far this week i am teaching 5 other small classes of english outside of the school. my afternoons and evenings are quickly filling up, but i like it. most of the people feed me afterwards, so obviously it's not a problem. i'm starting to see 'light at the end of the tunnel,' as i'm drawing near upon my halfway point with time here in ecuador. please continue to pray that god will show me direction for the next step.

day 73

ok peeps, i need some help. one of my students, 5 year old gabriel nayapi, fell down while holding a huge kitchen knife this week. the knife went about 4 inches in his stomach. he put 9 holes in his intestines and i think when he pulled the knife out, part of his intestines actually came out of his stomach. he had surgery and it went really well. he is no longer in intensive care, and is getting better. i went to the hospital today and spent several hours with him and his mom. his mom hasn't left the hospital since monday when the accident happened. be in prayer for this little guy. he is so cute and it breaks my heart that he can't laugh b/c the pain is so bad. i made him laugh today without realizing this and his smile quickly faded to small tears. he is super tough. he had three drainage tubes in his stomach and the doctor came in while i was there and cut the one stitch that was holding each one, and pulled them right out of his stomach. i could literally see every single muscle in his tiny body flex b/c the pain was so intense. he only cried for about 10 seconds. his mom is a single mom and is worried about the finances to cover the hospital bills. insurance is pretty non-existant here, so pray that god will be able to help find a way to cover the cost of gabriel's time in the hospital, which is only going to total to about $1,000 dollars.
on the bright side, he got to eat for the first time today since goin there on monday. the little dude scarfed a piece of bread like a dog does when you come home from vacation and you're not sure when he ran out of food, but it was obviously at least a couple of days ago.

thanks for all of your prayers and support while i've been down here. it is apparent that people back home are doin their jobs prayin for me and the people here, b/c only god could have made this experience so great and wonderful for me.

day 67

here are some pictures from our weekend trips to the river with some of my friends. we have a lot of fun when we are together...

day 64

the plane is finished!!!! in just four short months, galo and the guys have managed to take boxes of metal and turn it into a machine that can leave the earths ground. so awesome. yesterday they took it to the airport in three pieces, fusel loge (not real sure of that spelling) and wings. put it togther and started it up. the engine fired up and started perfectly on the first try. they do really great work down here. however, they did not get to fly it due to their main instrument breaking only after like 10 minutes of being on and running. so now they have to wait until somebody comes down here from the states to replace this panel instrument thing. appearently, whenever you ship stuff down here from the states, customs goes through all of it and takes whatever they like from inside. for example, i was talkin with jesse saint yesterday and when he waas living down here, his mother sent his family a christmas package. it had three of everything, and they were just little trinkets and decorating stuff. when he got at least one of everything was gone and some things were completely missing. so i wouldn't send anything down to ecuador if i were you. if you do, send two. one as a bribe for customs and one for the person you're sending stuff to.

school went really well again this week. yesterday we went to the other christian school here in shell and the lady teachers played basketball against their lady teachers and the men teachers played soccer against their men teachers. it was a beautiful sunny day outside and was a lot of fun. however, my face looks like a lobster :) but it doesn't hurt too bad. i also helped out at this english class that is held on thursday nights and the people that come there asked me if i would come back every week b/c they thought i was funny and liked talking to me. my business class that i'm teaching for this highschool girl is goin really well too. i think soon her dad is goin to take me up in a helicopter with him.

well, it's now the weekend so i'm goin to get out of bed and go find something fun to do. i love you all and miss you lots. please pray for me that god's direction for my life would be clear and evident...

yay, pictures!!!

i forgot to mention that another huge thing that people do during carnaval is spray each other with this foam stuff called carioca, not sure of that spelling. the trip up there was cold, the concert was cool and those two guys with me are, (obviously) gringo matt and ivan penafiel (he goes by ivan and pena)

day 59

man time is flying by...

last weekend was carnaval... which is an excuse to run around like a kid and throw buckets of water, water balloons, flour, eggs, the list goes on, with everyone. so me and gringo matt (a missionary kid) and my buddy pena hithchiked to the mountains and watched a concert...probably the jeremy camp of south america. it was a lot of fun. after the concert we played carnaval with the band members outside of the colluseum. i'm pretty much famous now.
b/c of the holiday i didn't have school on monday and tuesday. so i worked in the shop with the guys finishing up the airplane, i put together and refinished a crib for the pastor's new baby, and got a wicked sunburn cleaning off the roof of the house for 5 hours. also, we didn't have school on friday, well, i had to wear a tie and go to the colluseum with the kids for this program, but no classes. speaking of classes, they are goin great. i never thought i would say this, but i'm glad there is no holidays coming up so that we can get back in a grove in my classroom learning some more english...wow, i really can't believe i am thinking this. i'm so old.
this weekend, steve saint and his son jesse and his grandson jacob arrived for a two week stay. jesse is helping finish the instruments on the plane and steve is doin this training thing at this camp ground a few miles from shell with some indeginous people. dentisty, basic health care stuff, small engine repair and a few other things. jesse is a real cool guy. very down to earth.
well, here's to another week.