Last days...

Hola! It's been well over a week now since our last post, so it's probably about time to update about our last days in Ecuador. I've been putting this off, because posting about our final days means that our time in Ecuador really is over. Not sure that I'm ready to face that realization yet. :-) I don't have any pictures available at the moment, so it looks like there will be another post after this to put all of those on.

Our last week at the Bilingue was spent teaching Phy. Ed. As I mentioned before, one of the gym teacher's wives had a baby. This was their first child and they had been trying for a very very long time, so they were very excited! Giovany asked for a week off from work to spend with his wife and son, but the only way that he could get that time off was if Laura and I would take over his classes! We were put in charge of all of his classes...which consisted of only boys. :-) We had a lot of fun! We were the most nervous about the Septimo class (6th grade), since they are basically our size and we weren't sure how well they would listen. They actually turned out to be our favorite class! We taught them how to play elbow tag, had them run relay races, and then we let them play soccer...and they're pretty much amazing! Very sweet guys! Our most difficult class was the kindergarden boys. Uffda! They are not very good listeners. It didn't help that we don't know very much Spanish. With the younger classes we worked on gymnastics and pyramids. For gymnastics we had a big blue mat and a sort of vault-bouncy-thingy. I forget what it's called. We spent our free hours with Isabel and Miguel Angel with the older English classes. We taught some of Miguel's classes The Hippopotamus Song, which was really fun!

Tuesday night we had the party at our apartment and taught Gabriel, Lucho, Johnny, and Isabel how to play Dutch Blitz! Gabriel and Lucho caught on very fast. It was a fun night spent with close friends. Wednesday night we went to Banos with Angela and Christina Lackey to visit the hot springs. We went back to the Lackey house for supper, played some more Dutch Blitz, and had a good conversation with Pastor Lackey about counseling. He has so much wisdom!

Thursday was a crazy day! In the afternoon we packed all of our stuff, which was sad. Our apartment looked very empty. We went out for ice cream with Ruth for one last date. Walked around the Central for the last time and then headed back to the house. When we had left for our trip to the Central, the river had started flooding a little bit again. We had recieved tons of rain over the last couple weeks. When we got back, the entire road next to the river...the one that we take to the Bilingue and the one that Isabel, Gabriel, and Lucho live on...right around the corner from our house...was completely covered by water. The river flooded soooooo much! It was muy loco! We have pictures of that too that I'll have to get up here later. Gabriel was already in the jungle, so he wasn't there, but Lucho and Isabel slept at the Ulloa's that night since their house was blocked off by water! All of the bedrooms in their house are raised by a step, so I don't think anything got ruined, but I'm not sure about that. On Sunday, every school in Cuenca was canceled. This was very sad for us, because we had been waiting to say good-bye to everyone and take our last pictures on that day. The last thing I said to all of the students was "hasta manana!"...see you tomorrow. Muy triste. Marcelo, the director of the Elementary school, came over and gave us gifts from the Biligue...Panama hats (which are actually made in Ecuador). So sweet! We love them! Mary (head of the English department) came over to say good-bye as well. We took the morning and went over to Luis Paccha's house (Darwin's brother) and helped pack everything up and move it out of their house. There house had quite a bit of water damage. The news came and interviewed Jorge (Ruth's dad). I'm fairly certain that all of us got on the Cuenca news. lol! The flood interupted a lot of our final plans, but I'm glad we were there to help Luis and his family. Said good-bye to Isabel, which was very sad. Claudia came over in the afternoon to say good-bye. She's the secretary at the school and goes to the church as well. So sweet! We miss her a lot! We miss everyone a lot!

The Ulloa's took us to the Cuenca airport at 5:30 p.m. and stayed with us. It was so sad to leave them! Ruth has been a good friend of mine for two years, and who know when we'll see each other again?? Loida and Christian became our little sister and brother. Jorge and Mariana became our family too. The airport was very small and before we knew it we were walking outside to our plane. We heard our names called and there was our family behind the gate waving to us! We could see them from our window on the plane as well. They stayed until our plane took off. So sweet...

Our trip to Guayaquil took...20 minutes...no joking. It was ridiculous! We couldn't believe that it went so fast! We went through quite a bit of hassel at Guayaquil...especially poor Laura. When we went through imigration they asked her tons of questions and it took her a lot longer to get through than it did for me. She was also the lucky person who got picked to be searched. They went through our huge souveneir bag, but thankfully our starfish didn't break. :-) We met a very cool woman from California who is a photo journalist and talked to her for a long time. Our flight finally left at 1 a.m. and we slept on the plane. In Houston we had one hour to get our bags, drop off our bags, get through customs, and make it to our next flight. We both had stuff taken away from our carry-ons. When they say that bottles over 2 oz. are not allowed, they mean it. :-) Made it on our plane just in time and arrived in New Jersey around 12:30.

After a lot of fuss about our bags, we finally left the airport at 3:00 and took a bus to Penn Station, Newerk. From their we took a train to Penn Station NYC. We left the terminal, grabbed a map, and started in the general direction of Time Square. Walked past Madison Square Garden and before we knew it we were at Time Square! We were both wearing our Ecuador jerseys and ran into a guy named Byron. He was from Quito, Ecuador and showed us around NYC! We sang him the Ayayayay song that we learned in Cuenca and from there we were able to share the whole Gospel with him! Muy chevre! Please pray for him!

The trip back to Minnesota on Sunday was uneventful, thankfully. By the time we had finished with four plane rides and 40 or so hours of traveling (including layovers and what-not), we were very ready to be out of airports. Readjusting to life in the U.S. has been a little difficult, but we're making it. I fell in love with Ecuador, made so many good friends, and know that if God opens the door to return someday, I will be gone in a second!

Please continue to pray for the salvation of our friends down there. Especially Byron, Miguel Angel, Mary, Daniella, Patricio, Julie, the students at the school, Gabriel's family, Isabel's family, and Lucho's family. Pray for encouragement in their faith for Isabel, Gabriel, Lucho, Fernanda, Giovany and family, Herman, Jose, Teresa, and the whole church. And pray for God's blessing on the Ulloa family, who's generosity allowed us to spend these past five weeks falling in love with their city and friends.

As I said, I'll get pictures up here of the end of our trip when I get the chance. We'll probably post a summary of our time too...favorite memories and all those fun questions. I'll be taking my youth group to the week long FLY Convention in Colorado this Sunday, so that might not happen for another week or so. We'll see. Thank's so much for all of your prayers, support, and comments while we were gone! We appreciate you all so much!

Dios te bendiga! (God bless you!)
Kari