Recent food adventures

I took the kids out for KFC the other day, as a holiday treat. I love the way fast food gets tweaked worldwide to increase its appeal to the local market. Here we have the super combo #1.... plenty of rice and lentils = happy life for the average lojano, including these three!

Our local major supermarket has a healthy selection of most parts of the animal, here we have tripe, tongue, crackling, and pork feet amongst other delights. Just want to add that the other week I did eat a little bit of BBQ pork heart which was quite nice (although rather heavily salted). The presence of the pork heart was mainly due to it being part of the props for John's talk for a church leadership retreat....

Ricuras de Sal y Dulce...always a winner, plus it has a fancy sign saying its part of the cultural food heritage of Ecuador. A big tortilla of fried green plantain, with beef and eggs was Tijs' meal, the girls are having crumbled cheese, white corn, little potatoes (papa chaucha - very delicious) plus a fried ripe plantain on the side. The batidos (fruit with milk) are divine!

Here we have the famous local arveja con guineo (pea and green banana) soup, topped with avocado. Who knew avocado in soup was so good? And the pink drink is horchata, the local tea made with over 20 different herbs and flowers, can be served hot, warm or cold.

Cecina con yuca....a big slab of pork on the BBQ with yuca (or taro)....a wonderful way to fill the belly (this was for Ecuadorian fathers day, will we remember to celebrate the Australian date in September?).

An afternoon snack of yoghurt and yuca bread. Tasty and appropriate in any kind of weather with the cold drink and the hot bread.

And here is part of Saturday's breakfast, mandarin juice. I can never quite get over these beauties. Do we actually get mandarins like this in Australia?

In honour of all those in the construction industry

We passed this sight the other day, I couldn't resist taking a photo out of admiration for the bravery of these two guys!

So much that could be said, but all I'm going to say is that my heart was in my mouth just looking at them while taking this picture.

The wall was very nicely painted the next day when I passed by.

Highlights - the plank of wood they are sitting on, the rope pulley system they have going, the height...

Recent mornings and thankfulness

At church we are studying the book of Colossians, in the current sermon series and also in our small groups. I've been struck by Paul's continued call for us to be thankful, to be overflowing with thankfulness, to be singing songs with gratitude in our hearts to God, and to give the Father thanks through the Lord Jesus. I've sought to put this into action, to be conscious of what Christ has done in rescuing me from spiritual death and bringing me into eternal life, a great source of ongoing thankfulness. And, as I've travelled through my mornings of the past month or so, I've been struck by how they have really been great occasions for gratitude and thankfulness to God in his kindness to us in such practical and concrete ways. They've been varied, kind of hectic but good.

There was the 4:30am start to make the early morning flight as I accompanied my mum on the start of her journey home.
Grateful for her time here, the opportunities we had for conversation, the time she was able to spend with Evie, Tijs and Annie as 'Oma', for her being able to look after the kids as John and I went to a SIM leadership development conference.

The three loons with Oma

There was the morning driving down to Malacatos with the kids with the rest of their school to celebrate Children's Day at the beginning of June. 

Grateful to see the kids playing with their friends from school, being able to enjoy the warmer weather at lower altitude and a super fun pool.

Yay for a fun day of swimming and hanging out with friends

There was the bleak morning drive to the kids school with a new SIM team mate, Kelly, so that she could check out whether it would be a suitable option for her kids. It was a rainy and rather windy day, similar to many other recent mornings. On the way back down into town we got held up by a tree blocking the road. Out we got to clear as much as we could from the road, and then I was off to see if anyone nearby had a machete to chop the bigger branches off.
Grateful to find a machete-wielding guy plus the extra help from the bus drivers arriving to pick up a class for their swimming lesson, grateful that the tree didn't land on our car or earlier in the day on one of the school buses filled with kids! Grateful to find helpful people around, and grateful for a car with 4WD on that muddy road!

Maybe we need to add machete to the list of required items in the car

There was the morning we moved house, and despite not being our most organised move, we got it done by lunchtime.
Grateful for the generosity of friends who helped move, stack and transport our things down the hill to the other side of the valley. Grateful to have a living space downstairs that should be helpful for ministry, with bedrooms upstairs for the kids to not be too disturbed. Grateful for a little backyard with some grass!

There was the 5:30am morning waiting in the dark for my riding companion (who doubles as fearless protector from fearsome street-dogs), which turned into a 6am solo ride along a non street-dog populated road. 

Grateful for a gorgeous morning on the bike along a rushing river amongst green hills. 

There was the cooking morning at school with Annalise's class. 

Grateful to be able to hang out with the kids and help out in a practical way when asked. 

There was the morning of our team meeting. 

Grateful to be able to play a fun game and work on developing what our 'Growing up' ministry team looks like as we look to a more directed vision for this area of SIM's work in Ecuador. 

How about you, what have you been thankful for lately?