Ecuador - property

This next segment is just pictures of the property with a small description.

View of the Andes from the camp



Walking down the paved road to the orphanage. The property is split in half. The campground is at the top of the hill, the orphanage is the bottom. Both halves are walled and gated separately. This is from the top of the bottom half.

One of the gardens they take care of.

The school on the property. It is a private school, and there are kids from the surrounding areas that attend in addition to the kids from the orphanage.

There are a few buildings on the property used as housing for guests and teachers and stuff like that. I think this might be one of them, but I don't really remember.

The church

A view looking up

Ronnie Brock describing what everything is. These are the houses that make up the orphanage.

Beautiful pictures of the mountains beyond.

 Sunset from the camp

The Coe's house from the street between the camp and the orphanage

Off to Ecuador!

Quito, Ecuador was the final destination. But let me start back at the very beginning...

3 years ago I began teaching a great group of 7th grade girls at church on Sunday mornings. At the end of my first year, Haleigh Brown and her family left us to go full time  to the mission field, in Guatemala. The following summer another of my girls, Kayla Nichols, left with her family to go to Ecuador. (Another family at church, the Coes went with them). A 3rd family was scheduled to go to the same place the following summer, the Brocks. They also had a daughter in my class, Lydia.

Last summer I decided I would take each of the girls out for ice cream for their birthday. Lydia was the first. And last. :) Since she had spent the entire summer in Ecuador, she had lots to tell me. Side story... at the time there was a plan in place for our youth ministry. Starting this coming fall there would be no more small groups on Sunday mornings - the kids would be serving some where on the church grounds instead. Which meant our small group would be done. (that plan is no longer in place - was it all just God getting this trip planned???) Knowing this, I wanted the girls to bond as much as possible this past year to solidify the friendships they had. After I had that talk with Lydia a plan started to form. What if we all went together this summer to minister in Ecuador, and to spend some time with Lydia and Kayla and their families? A mother-daughter trip.
I mentioned it, the girls were excited, we picked a date and nothing happened. Everyone backed out and I thought the trip was done. But then in 1 weekend 2 mothers emailed me and the trip was back on. Fast forward to the weekend when all our money was due. It was then that I found out that only 1 mother/daughter and myself had paid and turned our paperwork in. Lots of prayers over the weekend and by Monday we had mostly everything worked out. The trip attendees were myself, Amber and her mother, Connie, Mary and her mother, Carol, and then I got to be the guardian of 2 more: Shannon and Claire. Also later added to our trip was Callie from the global department. We also had a family of 4 that flew separately, but joined our trip. (Keith, Lynn, Lindsey, and Will). 12 of us total.

So the actual trip.... We flew out of Birmingham on Saturday, June 16th

top row: Mary, Claire, Shannon

bottom row: Amber and Jaime

 

Shannon and I on the way to Atlanta.

Below: Mary and Carol, same flight

Short flight to Atlanta. We at dinner in Atlanta and then headed to our gate. We thought we had tons of time and set up our first of many rounds of Nertz for the week. But then we ended up having to stand in line for over an hour trying to get our seats situated. So I had to clean up Nertz. :(

Next came our flight to Quito. A few hours of uneventful fun. Movies and music. Our last leg of the trip was a short drive to the campground. We were there by midnight.

Shannon and Amber, Quito bound!