Day 1 at Montanita Verde

Hola Friends!

Wow! What a wonderful first full day in San Lorenzo, Ecuador! Some of the team arose this morning extra early to take a hike up to the the lighthouse. It's quite a journey of over 600 steps. Others woke up a bit later and headed up to the local school to play with the children. It is such a fun opportunity to play with the children of San Lorenzo and the surrounding area!

At 8:00 the team met back at La Cueva for prayer and praise & worship. We sang some songs and are working on our moves for Siempre Que Me Muevo Es En Ti. We plan to sing the song on Monday when we visit the workers at the Manta dump. The team is doing well with learning the moves and it helped us all to get energized before breakfast.

Our wonderful host Jorge served us all a delicious breakfast. It included yummy fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh pineapple and watermelon as well as scrambled eggs and fresh rolls. Ordering coffee was quite an adventure for the team...black, half and half, half and three quarters, tea, milk...maybe we need a team lesson on fractions! ;)

After breakfast we all got our backpacks ready for the day and jumped in the Ecuadorian transportation to head up to the orphanage. Although it was relatively dry at La Cueva, it was misting quite heavily up at the orphanage. For those of you in Ecuador with us in 2007, it was just a typical August day. Paul gave us a brief introduction to the kids and house parents and showed the team around.

Soon after the team got right to work. Half of the team went to play games with the high school students before they would leave for school and the other half proceeded to begin building brick retaining walls. For those of you who were here last year, our walls are still standing - yay! They apparently have confidence in us because we have many more walls to build this year.

Some team members jumped into the difficult job of mixing the mortar, while others moved brick into position to build the walls. Nearly all of the team learned how to lay brick today and we made great progress on a set of retaining walls below the curved walls we built last year.

The team split into two groups for lunch. One group ate lunch at House Shalom (formerly House One) and the other group ate lunch at House Jerusalem (formerly House Two). New this year, we were able to eat lunch with the kids. Today we had lunch with the high school kids. Tomorrow we will eat lunch with the children who attend at the elementary school. The elementary school kids still attend school in the morning and the high school kids attend in the afternoon.

After lunch the work on the brick walls continued until about 3:15. Tuesdays, a childrens program continues to happen at the church in Pacoche. The entire team and all of the kids headed over to help out with today's excitement. There were songs, a bible lesson, crafts, and a snack with over 50 children!

After we headed back to Montanita Verde for a short bit. Many of the team decided to take the opportunity to try out the "zip line". Vanessa had a remarkable landing which had the team in roaring laughter. Jeff managed to capture her entire flight on video, so perhaps you all will be able to share in our memory via YouTube someday.

Soon it was back into the pickups and heading back down the mountain to La Cueva. We have about an hour and half until dinner is served. Many people are cleaning up, others are working on today's bible reading and reflection, some are playing games, others are taking the opportunity to rest. I am working on this blog, thinking of you all back home.

It's wonderful to be back in Ecuador! It truly feels like home to me. The love that is shown by the Ecuadorians to each other is wonderful and they fully embrace our team each and every year when we arrive.

We pray that all is well with our loved ones at home. Blessings to you all!

On behalf of Team Ecuador 2010,
~Jennifer