Announcements and Updates

Well, we are just posting machines lately. What can I say, there is just so much going on and so much to talk about and things we want to share with you. And besides, we hear that Grandpa is expecting another post, so we must not disappoint. Grandpa, how did you like the pics of Cuenca?

The 6am sunshine cheered us on as we put envelopes together for English Service before heading out at 6:30.

Speaking of English service developments:

Our most recent theocratic assignment has been fun and interesting. The 6 of us who live in the Valley got together Friday morning at 6:00am to discuss how we wanted to go about accomplishing a census and organizing territories for the valley, as it has never been done before. Our valley consists of about 8 towns, 2 of which we are focusing on first; Cumbaya and Tumbaco. We discussed different options for finding the Enlgish speakers, keeping track of them and making territories. One of the challenges we have found so far is that the foreigners do not tend to stay in one place very long. They are either here on temporary business visas, or are students attending the University in Cumbaya, but living all over the place. The other challenge is that 99% of foreigners live within the closed gated communities that we have no or little access to.

So our current mission to at least start getting the word out and finding out how many English speakers are here, is to blitz the Urbanizations from 6am to 9am, as the residents are leaving the gated communities, handing them an envelope with a short note, meeting invitation and tract. (I mentioned a bit about this in a previous post.) If we aren’t there at 6am, we miss a majority of workers who leave early to head into the city. After a few hours of freezing envelope passing, we head back to a sister’s house for breakfast and to prepare for phone witnessing. As mentioned before, this has been quite effective for finding foreigners, as their names stick out in the phone book. Which brings me to our new assignment of making up the first telephone territory here in the valley. After acquiring a few books to compare, we are compiling foreign sounding names, categorizing them and making up a spreadsheet territory list. It is quite time consuming, but kind of feels good to get something down on paper to get things started. Of course, this has to be done around our normal congregation responsibilities, meetings, service and studies in our own congregation. The English congregation is still something we are only supporting part time, so we’ve got double duty at the moment. However, that will soon change. Keep reading...

Another thing going on that we can tell you all about is the construction of a new Kingdom Hall in Quito to replace the one that the English Congregation currently meets at. Evidentally it is not up to code, something that isn't normally enforced much here, but in this case, the authorities want to shut the kingdom hall down due to laws about buildings that are used for religious purposes. Things like appropriate exits, certain number of bathrooms, etc.

So the brothers are building a new one not too far away from the current hall. "Quick Builds" here in Ecuador aren't so quick, so this project will likely go on for many months. Especially because most days, there are only 4 or 5 brothers working at once on the site. And often, due to lack of support or availability of the brothers, they have to call in other professionals to do the work.

Another challenge is security of the build site. There is an empty lot with a Bodega, (shed) where all the equipment and tools are kept and this lot must be guarded 24/7 from theft. So that means that when the brothers close down the work at 5pm, there needs to be a minumum of two people on site at all times, including during the night. In Quito it's cold and raining most nights, and sleeping on a construction site with very little cover or protection is very uncomfortable for the poor brothers who have the "privilege" of guard duty. This guard duty will continue the entire duration of the project. I myself was assigned to guard duty between the hours of 5-8pm the other night, but I was lucky because the brother and sister I was assigned to guard with are one of the only ones with a car, and we spent the evening in the car instead of out in the cold. I felt bad for getting it so easy, but was still very glad.

Before beginning my guard duty, I was able to help out putting rebar reinforcements together. This is the first time I've done this kind of work and of course it was raining and cold, and working on wet rusty rebar was an interesting (if not slightly painful) experience. But of course, it was fun and I accepted the "invitation" to work a day a week on the site. Anyone in construction who wants to come work on wet rebar, there are ample opportunities in construction here. We could use the help!!

Fabricio, another brother in the English Congregation here in Quito.

OK, now on to the big news. Are you ready?

Are you sure?

WE'RE MOVING!!

Just today, we officially decided to move to Cuenca beginning of September!! Yay for decisions.
We are still not 100% sure where we will live yet, but we did decide to sell all our furniture and travel there lighter. This means finding a furnished apartment (hard, but not impossible) and keep life even simpler than it is now. This brings with it a little stress and lots of trust in Jehovah, as we will be getting rid of everything pretty much that we've accumulated in the past 2 years here, including appliances like stove, fridge and mini washing machine. The cost of having it all shipped to Cuenca would be substantial and we're not willing to use our monthly expense savings for that. And hopefully, the little money made from selling our furniture will help with other travel and moving expenses.

Today I called a brother in the English group in Cuenca to get some important information that turned out to be very helpful. (Thanks Jordanne for suggesting we get in touch with them.) The brother is one of 4 native English speakers/publishers in the group (soon to become a congregation). I asked him if there was a need in English and he emphatically exclaimed "YES! We really need help. Please come help us." Although there are many locals "supporting" the group by attending meetings and trying to learn English, they are only 4 people at the moment actually preaching in the English Territory. A territory that encompasses the entire city, (the 3rd largest city in the country after Guayaquil and Quito) all outskirts, and all neighboring towns, big and small. With 4 publishers! I was very surprised to hear that with such little help they would soon be a congregation. Hopefully once that happens some of the locals will switch over completely and support the preaching. The problem is that many do not yet speak English very well or they are focused on their Spanish ministry. So we feel that our English speaking abilities would be welcome and helpful. And now that we have some experience with the development of difficult minority territories like this, we hope to make a decent contribution.

The same brother, as well as some other friends we know there, have been very generous offering any type of help we might need getting settled in, which has made us even more confident about the move. One friend is a real estate agent and said any apartments we consider, just let him know and he'll tell us about the area and if it's a good place.  Another offered to share taxi costs to and from meetings if we choose to live in a their area, which is a bit far from the hall. Also, everyone has said that they appreciate how much safer they feel in the city there compared to places like Quito or Guayaquil. (Colombia is safer than Guayaquil!). So that is a plus as well.

It will obviously be sad to leave our home and friends and studies and everything here, but it will also be nice to get out of Tumbaco!! We look forward to living in a calmer environment and helping a minority group. Strange that the "foreign language" we will be speaking will be English! We hope to also be a part of the local Spanish congregation that hosts the English group so as not to fall too behind with our Spanish over the next months.

Things we are most excited about for our move to Cuenca:

More personal safety (less clutching pepper spray :)

Cooler temps

A calm, quite neighborhood

Supporting the small English group in the field

Change of scenery

Making new friends in new places

My mom coming to help us move

No more sleepless nights thanks to the dogs upstairs in our current apt.

Possibly having a washer AND dryer in the house!!!

Less death defying landings into the Quito airport

No more weekly laryngitis from the Tumbaco dust

New and challenging field experiences

Things we are least excited about for our move to Cuenca:

Saying goodbye to our friends and family in Tumbaco

Saying goodbye to our new friends in the English Congregation

Being chewed out for abondoning the English here to support the English there

Leaving behind our Spanish studies

Foregoing our favorite cevichochos by the park

We will miss Quito's close proximity to wonderful vaca. spots, like Mindo, Otavalo, Papallacta, etc.

Cuenca's limited variety due to it being a much smaller city than Quito. (No Juan Valdez!)

No more dance class down the street

No more free wifi

We will keep you all posted about the new moving developments as they unfold. Hopefully Jehovah will find us a cheap, furnished apartment close to the hall so we can support the group easier. If not, we still have another good option about 45 mintues away (in bus) from the hall. Not ideal, but the brother I spoke to on the phone and his wife also live in the same neighborhood and could help us out with the travel and stuff, so it's a good option too. 

Well thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep up the good work where ever you might be reading this from. Greetings to all!

Ciao!