Well this blog is a long time in coming but here it is. The end of September and beginning of October were filled with action here in Ecuador. My brother and Sister in law, Dano and Tara, came to visit me for a week. They were planning on arriving on Tuesday however due to complications they weren't able to arrive until Wednesday afternoon. It is a good thing they arrived when they did because on Thursday September 30 transportation in the country became a bit crazy. Thursday morning we heard on the news that the police were holding a protest and none of them were going to work. A bill had just been passed that would prohibit the police from getting bonuses and make it harder to receive raises. We also heard the president give a rousing address to the police. Without much more thought we headed to the University. I was going to show Dano and Tara the University as well as take them with me when I went to teach English. Well my nice tidy plans for the day changed drastically! After being at the University for about an hour or so we heard that the protest had gotten a bit out of hand and the police had kidnapped the president! National students were told to go home while international students were not allowed to leave for another hour or two. Because there was no police presence there was some looting taking place, a couple banks were robbed, people were burning tires in the middle of the roads shutting down a lot of transportation and the airports had closed. After assessing the situation the international program director told us all to go straight home and stay there until further notice. (The buses we would need to get to our homes were still running fine.) Dano, Tara, and I returned to our house where we watched the news for a majority of the evening. My house is about a 20 or 30 minute bus ride from where the main action was taking place. In the evening the Military sent a team in to rescue the president from the Police. There was about a 20 minute gun battle (which my director could hear from his house!) which resulted in a successful rescue of President Correa. The following day there was no school but otherwise things were back to normal in Quito.
Now for a few photos of my time with Dano and Tara...
Dano and I singing hymns behind the doghouse on my roof overlooking quito :) It was so good to have someone to sing hymns with... my church here doesn't sing hymns.
Another friend Sean Fabling joined us for a couple days. While all three where here I took them to Mitad del mundo where we had a gorgeous view of Cayambe from the equator!
On our way we stopped in Quinche and visited a Cathedral that I had visited on a class trip. It was fun to show them places that I new at least a little bit about. In this Cathedral there is a sculpture of the virgin which is very well known here in Ecuador.
Before Sean arrived Dano, Tara and I took a paseo to Shell, Ecuador. On the way I got to introduce Dano and Tara to Ecuadorian Icecream. With flavors like avacado, Coconut, and rasberry it is hard to go wrong!
While in Shell we visited the Nate Saint Memorial School. In the library/ main gathering room there was a memorial to Nate Saint and the 4 other missionaries working in Shell who were killed in 1956. We also got to see the current planes MAF is flying and talk to one of the mechanics about what the organization is doing currently.
We also had the opportunity to meet and fellowship with current missionaries, the Umbles. Randy Umble in the nephew of Allen Umble who used to attend my church and who was serving in Albania as a missionary at the same time my Grandparents were working there. In the afternoon Randy and his family took us to the dike to cool off a bit! What Fun!
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