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Day 1 in Ecuador with Compassion

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador (the Capital city, at 9,200 feet above sea level!) last night after a 12-hour travel day and we've been blessed to stay at the Swisshotel (Christian-owned).

This morning we started our tour with a visit to the Compassion child development center 119 (a project in a more urban, poor community).

Compassion, by the way, partners with the local church, this one was called "Church of the Living God". We were welcomed with balloons and smiles by about a hundred kids who are part of this project. It's actually summer vacation right now so not all the children were there... there are 235 kids from ages 3-18 in this project and 205 of them are sponsored.

We heard the Pastor share his vision for the church and the entire community.

The Pastor and project staff delivered a presentation about how the whole process works at this project. The accounting system and paperwork for each child in the project is amazing. There is record of the child's family life, health records, school progress, and even notes on how they get along in group activities. All the paperwork is updates regularly. Total accountability.

Two of the girls who made presentations are former Compassion-sponsored children who have come back to teach at the project.

At the project, we had a chance to interact with the children, visit their classrooms and see examples of the lessons each age group is learning. The kids are all so happy and we all managed pretty well with the "poco"amount of Spanish we know! I connected with a little girl named Patricia... but they were all so happy to see us and many of them wore their best clothes for our visit.

After we helped serve lunch (and eat lunch ourselves), we split into 2 groups and visited homes of families from the project. My group visited Margarita, a mother of 4 kids, 3 of which are in the project, and the wife of a bread-maker. It was amazing to see how much they wanted us in their homes and how honoured they were to have us in their country (WE were honoured that she would invite us into her home... which we couldn't all fit into). Like most poor families, the 3 boys shared a bed in one room and the young daughter slept with the mother and father. We presented her with a basket of food and home supplies, and prayed with her (I hope to get the video of our visit online too).

We then returned to the project to pray with the Pastor and ministry workers and exchange gifts.

Tomorrow, we'll be climbing mount Otavallo... I have no idea how much higher we can go and still have air!! haha ... bundle up!

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