walking, eating, and learning

i spent saturday afternoon in a crater... well sort of :) another working visitor, Wendy, and i decided to hike Pululahua (or Pululagua... both are used) Crater. it was an afternoon of adventure of trying to find the right bus to La Mitad del Mundo, then finding yet another bus to a road that was a few kilomoters from the crater itself. it wasn't quite what i expected, but still spectacular, to say the least. The number of inhabitants of Pululahua is around 60 people. as you can see in the picture, it's a small community that's spread out thru out the crater. the town's main form of transporation are mules and horses. there is only one road where cars can enter, but there are few in the community cars. the walk to Pululahua ended up being our "hike" because we were beat when we reached the crater. with the hot sun on our backs, it was enough to call it a day when we reached the crater. what's interesting is that we reached the TOP of the crater, so if we had continued, we would have had to go downhill first, then back up..but it was steep with a gravel path all the way. when we were walking down the crater a little, we met a man who lived in Pululahua walking up the path with a bag of rice or something. we chatted for a bit and he pointed out the one school, community center and church in the community. my entire day cost me about $1.25 USD after a ride on the Metrobus (sorta like Skytrain) 2 buses to Pululahua, a bag of sugar cane (yum!) and the same route back. Wendy and i were giddy at how little we spent for such a wonderful day!

sunday followed with a BBQ at HCJB. that was another good afternoon. i met 2 more Working Visitors that were my age... one is a med student (Bonnie) working at an HCJB Clinic and the other is a girl working in the German Radio Department (Kathy - pronounced Kat-tee). it was a good time of fellowship and burgers.

this week at HCJB is filled with Annual Meetings. though i am not an official member/staff of HCJB, i've been invited along with the other Working Visitors to attend the meetings. the two first sessions after today have been amazing. i'm really gaining a better perspective of the heart, the history, and the vision of HCJB World Radio. a great time of worship (in english!) and some solid teaching from, Ron Hutchcraft. his site doesn't look like much, but he is a powerful speaker and has definitely challenged my view of missions. something that was really really cool about the meetings, apart from the phenomenal teaching, is the technology that we're using to facilitate these meetings. i didn't mention that these sessions are viewed from 5 locations: Colorado, Indiana, Texas, Quito, and Shell. that's right, 5 regions were tuning into the same meeting through satellites, cameras, the internet and everything else! the President, Dave Johnson, and Ron spoke from Colorado Springs, while we in Quito tuned into live streaming video on a huge screen. the fun part was when we went to each different region and had everybody wave on camera! after the teaching, people from different locations were able to ask questions, and see the person ask the question from the different regions! it was really cool to see the advancement in technology and how we really are a global community.

do you guys remember Ruth? she's the other woman from HCJB that i go to Zambiza with. Ruth returned to the States a few weeks ago to do some speaking and visit her sister who was suffering from cancer. we heard today that her sister passed away yesterday. please keep Ruth in your prayers during this difficult time. she should be back in Quito by the end of September.

dL