Ecuador- Ceraceta, Lions, Mice and late night Ice Cream parties

6-16
It was an early morning departure. We left the church at 8am for Ceraceta.

We got there around 9 and had to start teaching almost right away. Manaal began by teaching about nutrition.  She got the kids excited and involved. We then did a skit about a wealthy king who dressed as a beggar to visit his kingdom. He found that those villagers who had the most would give him nothing and the family with the least gave everything they had.   The kids really liked it and laughed as we over exaggerated as we acted. I then did a teaching on dehydration. Eric was my translator this time. It was so different having him translate for me. I felt like my teaching was a completely failed attempt this time. Everyone else assured me that it wasn't but I still felt that I could have done better.

We then did one more skit. This skit was the parable of the King who asked his servant to pay back a debt, but forgave the debt when the servant told him that he could not pay. The forgiven servant then demanded a payment from one of his debtors that owed him the smallest amount. The forgiven man was unrelenting in wanting his payments. I hope you know the rest of the story.
In our skit we replaced the King with a Lion (the king of the jungle), A monkey was the forgiven servant, and the man with the small debt was played by me, a timid mouse.
It was a riot. The kids were laughing so hard.

After the children thanked us and gave us many hugs.  I couldn't believe how much love they showed us.  I was hugged by so many children that I almost fell over a couple of times.  When I sat down, a group of girl came and sat by me. I just wished I could have talked with them.

 We then walked to the church there in Ceraceta. We sat in the church and rested as a local family made us lunch. I taught the group how to make 8-pointed origami stars.

We then walked to a nearby house and rested in hammocks until it was time to eat lunch with them. As is a reoccurring theme in this story, the meal was HUGE, I was stuffed by the end of it and thought I might explode.
We then prayed with the family before leaving to do some house visits.
Manaal and I went with Andres and found a house with many people to do check ups on. It is always a great time to work on a team with Manaal.
We saw one lady with a crazy high BP and then an elderly lady in the same house with the BP of an active teenager, though she was having some other health problems that led us to believe that it could possibly be TB. Upon digging a bit deeper into the history of this illness we were able to better  determine what was going on and give appropriate advice. We made sure to have Dr.Sheri talk with her though.

church in Ceraceta

We prayed with the family quickly then and ran to the van to be driven to the Guayaquil church.  Next thing we know, 2 hours had passed and we were rushing around getting ready to leave when Christian and Marlon come upstairs and ask about Manaal and Sheri because they had gifts for them. They also said that they had a surprise for Manaal and Sheri tonight. We went downstairs and met Pastor Caluca (the pastor of the Nigeria church). We found taxis and all headed to Pastor's house.  At his house we sat around his living room and talked about many things. He asked me again about what my dream was. He thought that I had shared too little before and wondered if I really had more of a dream than what I had said a week or so before. I told him what was going on in my life. About my housing situation, my family's living situation, things about my work, and mostly I told him that I was just confused. I was LOVING life in Ecuador. My heart was so alive, I was so happy.

I was just struggling with the dichotomy of if I was so happy because I was doing the work that I am meant to do, or because i am in the place where i am supposed to be.
Manaal also told him about where she was in life right now. He encouraged us and prayed for us.
We were then served a large meal that his wife had prepared. We sat around the table laughing and talking. It is people like this that mae me love Ecuador.  We all were getting tired half way through dinner. It had been a long day for all of us.  I was so excited for a shower and bed once we got back to the church.
We all said goodbye to Andres and headed into the church.

I got out of the shower and expected to find the girls in the room packing and resting. TO my surprise I found a group of people sitting around the table, including Andres (who had never left apparently) eating ice cream and talking. This was the surprise that Marlon and Christian were talking about. A group of our friends were sending Manaal and Sheri off with a small party.
We sat about a bit and I could hardly stay awake. As soon as the party dispersed I shuffled to my bed and fell asleep quickly to the sound of Manaal and SHeri packing.