September Prayer Letter

Hello again from Quito, it feels like much more than a month has passed since my last prayer letter. Thankyou for your prayers which have supported and carried me through the past few weeks.

In General
I finished my structured Spanish learning at the start of September, finishing level 6 of 12, which means I got through the imperfect, perfect and pluperfect but escaped before the subjunctive tense.
I´ve decided to attend my local church, Iñaquito. The building holds approx. 800 people and there are three (soon to be four) Sunday morning services. The church was started by HCJB in the 1950s for their missionaries but is now organised and run by Ecuadorians.

Work
I started two weeks ago in the Water Projects office and have been getting reacquainted with the water engineering I studied at university. At present, I´ve started a study into the feasibility of chlorinating the water supply at Carabuela, a large community to the north of Quito where construction of a supply network is currently ongoing. I have also tentatively begun outline design of a community latrine block which we may have the chance to plan and implement for a community to the west of Quito amongst the Tsáchila (Colorado) people. The Tsáchila are regarded as an unreached people group. This is an area in which Water Projects has not worked before. Please pray for opportunities to improve physical and spiritual health through our work there.

My time in the Water Projects office won´t just be spent in engineering. HCJB are currently developing a programme aimed at encouraging people from Latin America into world mission. This year, I will be subject to the mobilisation programme as it is developed to give feedback. The programme will cover five areas; spiritual formation, theological education, vocational experience, cross cultural skills and experience, language acquisition. Amongst other things, I will be spending some of my week continuing Spanish learning and studying the theology of community development. I will also be learning some Quichua, the native language of the communities in which Water Projects work. It will be good to be able to speak some words of their first language but, as it is completely unlike any language I know, progress will be slow! I have also started to study “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster, a book I was given at Christmas last year but haven´t had the guts to start until now! Please pray for me as I learn through all these activities. I´d be interested to hear your thoughts on the “Celebration of Discipline” book too if you have ever read it. We will be joined next month by two work teams who will stay with at least one community and participate in the construction of their water system. The New Zealand work team will head off to Carabuela on 29th September to work on that project. The Harrogate work team will arrive on 21st October and will be staying for two weeks. Please pray for the safety and health of both teams, their witness in the communities, that they will gain a clear understanding of Water Projects´ work and that they will be encouraged in their own walk with God.
Next week (29th Sept – 2nd Oct), I will accompany one of the Water Projects engineers on his visits to a number of communities in the Carchi and Esmeraldas provinces in the north and northeast of the country. It will be a great opportunity to see a number of different projects and cultures and experience a warmer climate!!

Ecuador
Sunday, 28th September will be the vote on the referendum in Ecuador to vote on a new national constitution. This topic was the subject of many heated debates between the teachers at my language school. As voting is compulsory for all, this week leading up to the referendum, both sides for “Sí” or “No” are bombarding the airwaves with arguments for and against the Constitution. The document is incredibly wide-ranging in that it is a blueprint for the operation of a country. Please pray for the continued stability of the country after the vote and for safety in our travels on the day of the result!

Spanish...Schmanish

Today I started Quichua lessons! Quichua is the first language of most people living in the highlands (everything is high here, but they live higher!) and in the areas where we will be working on water projects. It would be great to be able to communicate with people there in their first language but I don´t expect to learn too much. Whereas Spanish is fairly similar to French or at least is a Latin based language, Quichua is unlike anything!

Had a couple of days of gorgeous sunshine recently and so I got to see Cotopaxi and a few of the other volcanos for the first time. The mountains are beautiful, Cotopaxi is an almost perfect cone. Here´s one I drew earlier...

bog? bolg? blog??

Hi
So, I've decided to do a blog really just to make my prayer letters a bit more widely available. But who knows what else might appear here...I certainly don't, but I will try and make it interesting.
x

First Prayer Letter from Ecuador

Greetings from Quito!

Yes, I and my luggage have arrived here safely, I can't quite believe that it was only two weeks ago, it feels like I've been here much longer.
Thankyou for all your prayers, encouragement and support in the past couple of months in getting me here and for the warmth of my send-off both from Carey and from Wellington St on my last Sunday in Northern Ireland.


Since I've arrived, I've been settling into my own little flat just down the street from HCJB and the Water Projects office (I'll be moving about a bit between flats during my time here). On my first Monday I attended a Water Projects team meeting which brought workers from all over Ecuador to Quito for the day. It was a great opportunity for me to meet those whom I'll be working with during this year. The meeting was held in Spanish so I'm not sure I'm completely au fait (French..tch...more of that later) with all that went on but it was very exciting to be in the office and see where I'll be based.


I started language school a week ago in a different part of town, I travel there on the 'Trole', a cross between a bus and a tram. It appears to be the Quitenan equivalent of the Tube i.e. no one talks. I've been making fair progress in class so far, thanks mainly to my rudimentary French but my teacher doesn't let me get away with speaking French in a Spanish accent. I'll be at language school for four weeks in total, seven hours a day for one-to-one lessons. My teacher is Isabel, she's slightly younger than me, a mechanical engineer and a Christian! I'm pleasantly bewildered by how much we have in common. Not only is she able and willing to teach me the Christian and church vocabulary but she can provide Spanish terms for Autocad too!


The Harrisons (Martin Harrison will be my boss at Water Projects) have been stellar at helping me settle in, from picking my up at the airport to using their internet to the provision of home-made curry, I really feel looked after.


I've been to a couple of churches here but I feel like I can't really judge which one I will attend until I can understand the services a bit better. There is an English language church but I'd prefer to stick at a Quitenan one.

I would greatly value your prayers in the next month for the following issues:
- success in Spanish so that I will be able to relate to folks in the communities I will visit with work
- energy to continue learning this month
- thanks for the Harrisons and the support they have already been
- thanks for Isabel, please pray we will be an encouragement to each other
- prayer against attack of homesickness and further physical sickness (I've had one visit of las amoebas amigas already)
- that I will settle quickly in a church and determine areas of service.


10th August was Independence Day for Ecuador. On the Saturday night, there was a concert held in the main square and all the buildings were lit up in celebration. The streets in the historic town centre were shut off to cars and were thronged with people all night.

All credit for the photos goes to Isabel, I'm a hopeless photographer.