Annalise has started sitting

Here, captivated by Bob the Builder on TV....

Guamote

We stopped in at a rural market in Guamote on the long drive back from Quito. This is one of the country's larger rural markets and it was happening! We got checked out with long stares by the locals, saw lots of pigs, sheep, fruit and the hugest veggies ever. Quichua seemed to be predominant, rather than spanish. A fascinating glimpse into another facet of this amazing country.

As we travelled south on the Panamericana I just couldn't get over the strenuous physicality of so much of the population here as they work their land on the steep slopes, much of it by hand. I also appreciated the way people can pass time, whether it's just sitting quietly on the edge of the road waiting for a bus, or passing a volleyball with a friend on a dirt patch out the front of a house or talking with a companion on some upturned boxes. All this as we listened to Kirk Patston's talks again on Ecclesiastes, and it made me want to again put my mind to enjoying and savouring this moment of time, this season that God has us in, rather than rushing through it, always looking to the next thing rather than the current.

So, I am thanking God for our three little kids, and enjoying their stature and all that it entails - the wonder and joy, the frustrations and the laughs.

That being so, I shall go and take joy in being able to comfort our screaming 7 month old as she tries to get back to sleep....

South American Guava

The lady at the shop said I should try this, I agreed with her and found myself buying something new. (My interest in this particular guava was spiked after watching the guys on Master chef make the guava snow egg dessert, but the guava they used is completely different.)

It was really hard to open up, and the white bits were really soft and fluffy with a big seed inside. Overall I thought the flavour pretty unspectacular.

I'm more impressed with my quince paste that I made after finding quinces in the market. They were 50c each which I baulked at as expensive but a friend back home assures me this is incredibly cheap for quinces. I might have to make some more at the rate that Evie is eating it up!

Vida Ventura

Went out for lunch today. Good food, lovely spot, great company (my family). I am trying to quickly dig into my food before Annalise kicks up too much of a fuss for being stuck in the pram. Evie can't figure out what the big deal is. Thanks Lord for an opportunity to enjoy today. Oh, and only 4 people thought Annalise was a boy (see earlier blog).

Roadworks

It's our barrio's turn for roadworks. Good but bad...

The method is for the workmen to go around for a week and dig out all the existing holes, making them excessively big and, at times, impassable (I saw someone stall in the ditch below the other day). Cars come careening down the hill, and slide to a skidding halt as they realise the new driving impediment that has now occurred.

When all the digging is done, the following week (or the week after that) is spent filling up all the holes. It makes for a continued need for defensive driving!

Evie turns 5!

We celebrated Evie's fifth birthday this past weekend. We had cake with icing that stained our teeth, we played the potato and spoon race, pin the tail on the donkey, painting and general party shinanigins...has it really been 5 years since we welcomed our little girl into the world? Thank you Lord for this little life.

The power of a symbol

It took me a while (being a bit slow on the uptake at times) to figure out why I can have Annalise dressed up like such a girl and still everyone saying how handsome he looked.

I know she doesn't have any hair yet and that makes it a little tricky, but doesn't the dress or the various shades of pink give it away? Apparently not, if you are Ecuadorian.

While I take my cues about the sex of a baby by what they are wearing, an Ecuadorian will almost exclusively zoom in on a baby's ears to see if they are pierced or not, and that's the clincher. When 100% of baby girls leave the hospital with pierced ears, it's a pretty sure way to decide if you are looking at a boy or a girl....unless it's an australian baby with a mum who hasn't pierced her baby girl's ears!

Gourmet travellers

Was very excited to receive a new food mag from a friend from RPC, and especially so to see a salad with quinoa on the front cover! Tried it out this last Sunday with a family over from church, one of whom commented, 'we normally use quinoa in soup'...nothing like breaking with tradition!

Fresh out of the salon

Pegs are such useful things aren't they? This afternoon they not only served to hang up Annalise's nappies but also as rose petals for a wedding Evie attended, then they morphed into hair clips for Mattias' and Evie's hair dressing salon. I think I'll ditch my regular hairdresser and just use these guys instead!

Giant cubby houses and the like

Here we have the giant cubby house that kept Evie and Tijs amused for Saturday morning, courtesy of John's building prowess. There were a few tears when I pulled it down the next day.

And here we have Annalise, at 6 months, trying out her first real food, good old rice cereal. Despite the face, she really didn't seem to mind it at all!

We had some new friends over for lunch today, Sandra and David and their two kids, cooked up some hamburgers on the wood fire BBQ out the back, and made it a good aussie burger with beetroot, served on John's homemade bread rolls. It was a nice time and good to hear more of their story, how they have worked as missionaries around Ecuador and elsewhere and are now back in Loja, their home town, for schooling for their kids. How encouraging to see how God is using people from everywhere to tell others about his awesome rescue!

Trying out fresh prunes

Here is my latest purchase at the market, fresh prunes, 25 for $1. They are pretty good.

I hadn't made it down to the market for almost three weeks, so I bought up big yesterday and spent a whopping $30! I think i don't need to go again for another three weeks...

Meet the neighbours

I was lying in bed the other morning and heard a distinct 'moooo'. Looking out the window, I was able to meet our new neighbours, a family of cows! I am feeling somewhat 'country' right now.

Our neighbours seem to be somewhat transient, as after about a week on this vacant lot they moved on. They were milked every day though, and extra feed was dropped off in a taxi, so they have all the mod-cons that cows might need.

A few days ago I managed a small walk/jog around our new neighbourhood. Not sure really where to go as it is pretty hilly (ie hard work) and also a big mix of houses and workshops (mechanics, carpentry and so forth) which isn't always too nice to jog past. I think I passed our cow friends along the way too! I picked up a couple of pebbles ready to throw at any alarming dogs just in case but had no need of that, they seemed pretty docile at that time of day.

We've bumped into Rodrigo and Mariana a few times (I used to go riding with Mariana in 2007) which has been nice and is making me think maybe I just need to get back on the bike. So, the trick will be to co-ordinate kids with John to be able to get out here and there.

The Virgin goes past

I was out the back of the house a few days ago when I heard the music of a brass band going past.

Out we went to have a look, and there, going up our street was a little procession carrying the Virgin del Cisne. Not exactly sure of her final destination on this outing, but she was wearing a sun hat for good measure!

Please continue to pray that the many here would discover Jesus as the one who is truly worthy of their devotion.

Things aren't always as they seem

I have been trying this past week to buy a hose fitting for the hose we have. It is a 3/4" hose and I have found that they are not very common. In fact I went to several hardware stores and they all looked at me strangely saying that hoses are 1/2" and not 3/4" (obviously we inherited an imported product).

I bit the bullet and bought a 1/2" fitting in the hope that I could make it work. I slid some half inch hose on the fitting and then slid the 3/4" hose over the top and it was all good. I was literally excited after such a long process of trying to get our hose working.

But... the end of my glee came when I took for granted that the fitting would be strong, made of copper or some other, any other strong material. Boy was I wrong. It was prooving difficult to do up the fitting and so I grabbed the multigrips and went to hold it tight and something wasn't quite right and as I looked closer I reaslied that I had just crushed the fitting and what you see is left below. The only thing still intact was the bit I didn't touch.

Bus stop, Ecuadorian style

I had a little chuckle with a fellow team mate who is due to go on home assignment soon. She was planning out her travels and where to get on and off the bus back home when out of town and had a sudden realisation that she wouldn't be able to just yell out to the driver to stop at her desired destination but would need to go to an actual designated bus stop. How inconvenient western travel can be!

Tennis

We made it to the tennis court with our friend Diego! A nice Sunday afternoon activity. We all managed to have a hit, and Evie wanted to stay for a million hours so she could keep playing! Mattias was most sad to get in the car cause he had to say goodbye to the cow that was off to the side of the court...

Charcoal chicken and roast pork...

Fast food like this is especially prevalent on weekends....enjoy!

Crystal car wash - Ecuadorian style

Thought it might be fun to show a few parallel services across these two cultures of Australia and Ecuador....so here is the first instalment, the car wash.

You know you're back in Ecuador when...

The plane lands and there is a hearty round of applause from all occupants....

Baggage includes lots of roosters being transported for various cock fights...

Random fireworks go off at any time of night or day...

Red lights are more of a suggestion...

You hear yourself and your kids being referred to as 'zuca' (short form of azucar, meaning sugar, which is white)...

You start hoarding all your change as even $5 can be too big a note...

You gaze up and see mountains all around and realise - this is life in the Andes!

Fruitfulness

We have just spent some time with a mate in Wenatchee, three hours east of Seattle, as a way to help transition between the saying of so many goodbyes in Australia and the many hellos to come back to in Loja.

It was so great to see that almost everyone seemed to have some sort of veggie patch going in their yard, making the most of the fertile soil and excellent growing conditions they have over summer. These gardens were fruitful, verdant and abundant in bloom. There was a a sweet fragrance in the air as we passed by clusters of flowers in every yard.

As we set our sights on life for the next three years in Loja, we pray that it will be a Wenatchee-like experience...digging down into the fertile soil of God's word, revelling in relationship with Him, living fruitful, verdant and abundant lives for His glory.

The Hatchback - a perfect family car

I was pretty impressed with being able to fit three car seats across the back of the hatchback we had on loan for the duration of home assignment. It did require some contortions to get the seatbelts done up, but we did it. We even managed some road trips with all five of us crammed in and the boot full to the brim too. Yay for the hatch!

Further education

To my (Karine) delight, and that of various companions, John is now a TAFE certified barista! We are reaping the benefits of improved coffee making skills and coffee art. Needless to say that John was pretty pumped at the end of a 5 hour day which was all about coffee!

Normality

Funny how what used to seem so normal now stands out after living with another 'normal' for a few years. And so here we have a picture of regular rubbish bins standing on the nature strip, nothing of seeming consequence, but after three years in Ecuador where generally you put the bin out just before the truck comes to pick it up and then stay around to bring it back inside as soon as its empty to ensure that your bin doesn't go walking, well, it struck me as quite amazing to see bins all over the place in Sydney casually hanging around on the nature strip waiting hours upon hours for their rightful owners to bring them back in. Living cross culturally opens my eyes in two directions, a new culture and my own. Let's hope those lessons continue!

Play dough art

You can tell my arty sister has been around the place when the kids regular play dough activity transforms itself into an exhibition on the wall! Here is their effort from the other day...who knew the kitchen tiles would lend itself to such a job as an art gallery for these dough sculptures!

Now baptised....

At the end of May Mattias and Annalise were both baptised. We promised to raise our kids to know and love Jesus and to follow him all their days. What a promise! Completely beyond our scope if it wasn't for our gracious God who works within us and through us. And I am so thankful that it isn't a promise just made by us as parents, but also by our family and church family to help us in this and to pray for us as we journey along this path of parenthood.

We hadn't baptised Mattias yet as our church in Loja doesn't practice infant baptism. This is probably a good thing to avoid confusion over it's significance when compared to christening within the catholic faith where it is seen as a necessary part of salvation.

Annalise put on a good show, crying the whole time we were up the front (she was just hungry, I guess I didn't time that quite right!).

Connecting across country experiences

It was good a while ago to be able to get together with some other people from our year at SMBC who are involved in similar work to us all over the world. Five families in five different countries across three continents all passionate about seeing people come to know Jesus and continue in Him until the end.

It was so nice to see our friends face to face and talk about some of our experiences of the past few years that we have read about through newsletters. Who knows when our home assignments will next coincide!

Life is hectic

I just need some sleep mum! The footpath will do me fine...

Life with Annalise

I can't believe our newest little girl is one day shy of 8 weeks! She is a sweet thing, with lots of smiles for us all and generally pretty settled (after Mattias and his reflux, what a blessing that is).

Evie and Mattias are doing a good job of being big sister and big brother, but Mattias isn't shy about telling me when it is time to put Annalise back into bed so he can't get some play time in with mum.

Ever thankful for our great church and family who have been an awesome help with meals being provided and pick up from pre-school and taking Evie to swim classes as I wait at home for the 6 weeks no driving post c/section.

Where are you meat? ....oh, there you are!!!

There's nothing like having a meatatarian in the family.

Botanical gardens fun

Here is a little video of the kids in the Botanical Gardens.

Kids and scooters

We recently acquired some scooters for the kids to ride and well, things have not been the same. They have discovered they have a circuit around the house, they have discovered Centennial Parkland’s bike track for kids and yesterday they discovered the Botanical gardens in Sydney. We have certainly been enjoying the sights of Sydney.

I think the most photographed tree in the whole of the gardens is this one below. While there are hundreds of lovely healthy trees all about you, this one gets all the attention, talk about the poor tree feeling different. It reminded me a bit of what it is like to walk around Loja. We do stand out from the crowd.