Hello, Goodbye

Through my teen years and all through college, I was an avid Beatles fan.  Even though I haven't  listened to them in years, I had the song "Hello, Goodbye" stuck in my head this morning as I was thinking about our lives here as missionaries.  If you're not familiar with the song, don't worry... it just says  "Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye" about a million times; you're not missing anything ;)  

Anyway, it seems like we're always saying the same thing, hello...goodbye, all the time!  

We live in a pretty unique place in Ecuador.  The small town where we currently live has an orphanage run by an American missionary, and a missionary hospital run by HCJB Global.  As you can imagine, this brings short term missionaries who stay anywhere from a week, to six months, to a couple of years to work at just these two places and volunteer their time.  So, just as soon as we meet someone new, it seems we have to turn around and say goodbye to them!  I'll admit, though a little reluctantly, that sometimes this is pretty easy to do.  Obviously you won't hit it off with every person you meet!  Sometimes, though, it's a really tough part about being here.  Cultural differences make it hard to have really close friends who are locals, so when you meet Americans who share your beliefs and your hobbies...it's a tough thing to let go of!  We just had to say goodbye to a family who came here for 6 weeks or so who we became friends with.  Pray for them as they turn to God to decide if this is where He wants them to be in the near future.  Pray for us as we are reminded that even short-lived relationships are worth investing in, and that God blesses us with people we never would have met if it weren't for His work!   

On a different note, Andy will be leaving on Friday to take his first trip downriver in the mission's new boat! Honestly, I've got the heebie jeebies about him going, mostly because there's no way for him to contact me if he makes it there alright, and also because he's never been on the rivers before.  We haven't bought a motor for the boat yet, so they'll be using the current and oars to propel the boat.  Anyway, just pray for the trip, and for my peace of mind.  

As a response to my last blog post...I went to the allergist and discovered I have a severe dust-mite allergy, not a mold allergy! This is excellent news! The doc put me on something like zyrtec-D, and for the first time in MONTHS, I have been able to breathe, sleep, and live like a normal person.  It has been a wonderful blessing, and I feel that the Lord has had so much mercy on me!!!  Thank you all for your continued prayers and friendship! 

It means more than you all know :)

Love, 

Priscilla

All by myself...! :)

This may surprise you, it totally does me... but I have not spent one single night alone in two and a half years. Not one.  This weekend will be my very first time without either husband or baby since I got married.  Granted, Andy's out of town a lot so I've spent plenty of time without any adults around, and I guess once Jude goes to bed I'm basically by myself, but I feel like this is a momentous occasion!
Friday morning, bright and early, I'll be hopping on a bus to Quito (a 5-6 hour bus ride away) to spend some quality time alone seeing the sights, and relaxing...ahhhh....

Actually, that's far from the truth.  I'm headed to Quito to see an allergy specialist about some major issues.

Basically I'm allergic to Ecuador.

I know I'm mildly allergic to dust, as I discovered during my short stint as a maid...I mean, "Dirt Removal Specialist" during grad school.  But, my house is not THAT horrendously dusty, so I'm thinking that I'm severely allergic to mold.  Here's the nitty gritty - in Shell, we get approximately 22 FEET of rain a year.

22 FEET!!!

To put this into perspective, Seattle gets around 5 feet per year, so we're around 4.5 times rainier than one of the rainiest cities in the USA.  To put it mildly, it's really wet here.  And, when you live in a concrete house, the walls soak up the water, turning your house into a super-humidified mold machine capable of growing fungus on things you would never imagine getting moldy - wood, clothes, leather, you name it.  I once had unopened cans of spices (like the rectangular ones you get from Kroger) that seriously turned to big hunks of mold before I ever got them open. Since they're not plastic wrapped or anything, the mold spores somehow can get into the little cracks and crevices between the lid and the can! It was a sad day when I opened my american Chili Powder to find it was a solid mass of green mold.  :(
Anyway, I said all that to say that the incredible mold problem has forced me to see the doctor rather than live on Benadryl (which I have been doing for the last 6 months).  Of course, the only specialists are in Quito, so I'll be going up there to do all the appropriate tests and, hopefully, get some treatment, as well as spend my very first night ALONE!  This will, obviously, be Andy's first night alone with Jude, so I'm hoping they have a fun time...  As for me, I plan on taking a book, some ultra-warm clothes (Quito is cold!), and maybe watching some Ecuadorian TV at the Hostel (we don't have a TV so it's always weird and nice to watch when we're around it). I just might get that relaxing weekend after all :)

On a completely different note, I have a major prayer request for those of you who will take me up on it. Some of you may have seen the pictures on facebook, but here's the story.  A little boy (no more than 10 or 12 years old) was climbing a tree out in one of the villages in the jungle (he was probably getting some fruit), and he fell out.  On his way down a large pointy stick somehow entered his skull and lodged itself into his brain.  He was flown to the hospital here in Shell (a missionary hospital run by HCJB Global) where they performed surgery to repair the damage.  He recently regained consciousness, and can move his limbs, but has completely lost the ability to speak due to the part of his brain that was injured.  The doctors say that there is a chance he will regain his speech, but it could definitely be permanent.  His father seems to be open to the Gospel, and we believe that the Lord could use this situation to bring him to Salvation! Please pray for this family, for the boy's healing, and for the spiritual rebirth of the family.

love,
Priscilla

...and the sickness never stops!

I love this country.  Ecuador is a fantastic place to live, and I think it's awesome that we will get to raise our children here.
But, if I had a penny for every time I've had a stomach bug since arriving in this country...

I'd most likely have only like $1.50, but still, that's a lot of pennies!

It seems like EVERYTHING poses a threat to my weak American system, and getting sick is just an unfortunate aspect of living here.   First, there's the tap water...or should I say river water.  Basically our water comes straight from the river, pumped into a reservoir (so it can get enough pressure to be distributed to the town), and then directed straight to our house.  There is no treatment, filtration, or anything that could be related to cleaning involved in processing our water.   To top it all off, whenever there's a strong rain the water gets extraordinarily muddy. Did I mention that we live in the RAINforest?

I've literally had worms, covered in mud, come out of my faucet.  I wish I was joking.

So, basically, the water is a cesspool of nastiness...to put it lightly.
Then there's the food.  If you don't soak all fruit and vegetables in an anti-bacterial solution (or plunge them in hot boiling water), you're in for a nasty case of amoebas or other parasites that want to make friends with you. So I end up cooking all my veggies, and rarely eat fresh fruit.  I may have a case of the lazies, but soaking fruit that ends up tasting like chemicals gets a little old.

Lastly, there's the inevitable parasite or food poisoning that comes from eating in a restaurant.  Some places are super careful and you're almost never going to have a problem. But, then there's that chinese place down the street that serves up some questionable shrimp-fried-rice, and BAM! you're holed up in your bedroom for a minimum of 24 hours with a nasty case of dysentery.  
Thank God my dear husband was willing and able to hang out with our toddler all day yesterday because the bed was my best friend from morning til night!

I thank God that he gave me parasites to deal with instead of poisonous creepy crawlies in my house all the time.  I'd much rather have bugs that I can't see than ones that I can.  The occasional tarantula is about all I can handle!

driver's license drama

Today we begin the process of getting our Ecuadorian driver's licenses.  We've had a car for about 3 months now, so I imagine it's a good idea to have a valid license, but we've managed to get by without one thus far.... so I haven't been in any major rush to do it.  Supposedly you're allowed to drive on a valid American license indefinitely, which is what we've been doing, but Andy's worried that if we got into an accident or something we'd be more likely to get into major trouble. Here accidents are a BIG deal.  Tiny fender bender? Jail time.  Most of the time if people have an accident, they are quick to resolve it without anyone calling the police because if the cops get involved, you're going directly to jail or you're paying a huge bribe.  Needless to say, if gringos (white, non-ecuadorians) got in an accident with no Ecuadorian license, it would cost us a fortune.   Thus, it's license time.

It seems like this country makes electricity or something from paper because it's the life-blood of the government.  They want papers and copies of every document you could possibly imagine.  The more papers and stamps and seals you have, the more official it is.  We Americans have a saying about the Ecuadorian way of doing things... "Solo un papel mas!"  "Just one more paper!"
But, hopefully we have all our papers in order because we'll take them to the transit authority today, and they will send the papers to Quito (6 hrs away), where they'll take about 3 weeks to determine if we need more copies, etc. before we can take the written driving test.  If anything is lacking from our mountain of documents it will take another three weeks to get it approved, and so on.  The downside of this process is that every individual working for the government has a different idea of what documents you actually need because the laws change so frequently here. To top it all off, this can change based on whether or not they're having a bad day, or if they simply don't like you. So, you can imagine this could be a very long process.

Basically, pray for us! We're going to need it...