To the Jungle!!

Hey guys!



i guess i am headed back out from quito again.



tomorrow morning (Tuesday) i will be traveling to Atacames (on the northern coast of Ecuador near esmeraldas) i will stay there in a house owned by a missionary for 2 days (wednesday and thursday) as i wait for some people that i will be traveling with who will show up on thursday evening.

here is a good map of ecuador so you can see what the heck im talking about

http://www.ulyssesguides.com/bev/ecuador/72dpi/map_ecuador.gif

on friday i will be flying with this group of people (and fred who will be flying out to esmeraldas) into a recently constructed airstrip in the Northern Ecuadorian Jungle! we will spend some time there and that afternoon/evening we will board canoes and head out of the jungle by boat!!!! OYE!

this is going to be a pretty sweet experience!!!



Anyways, last week we got back from camp and i was sick for a few days, then on sunday i helped out at this place called {Pan de Vida} which i hope to work at more as i have the chances. the have services and then give out food to those who come, so it pretty cool. i met some college kids who are working at HCJB this summer and hung out with them, it was a good break from all the highschool kids i have been with. so that was pretty cool.

ummmm..... not much else for news as of now.


i will post/email yall when i get back on saturday... i think... or sunday... we will see.


-david

The Beach and Back

Hey guys, sorry its taken me this long to get some stuff up about my last week or so, but ive been a bit under the weather as i have managed to pick up a bug somwhere along my travels.

anyways. i have 2 new albums up on facebook. (let me know if you cant see them and i will see what i can do on my end)

Ecuador 5.0

http://creighton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033621&l=1c669&id=32504808

Ecuador 5.1

http://creighton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033634&l=2a2e6&id=32504808

Anyways, last wednesday jake, kyle, and i woke up at 4am to catch a bus to the coast. the bus ride was a painstakingly 6.5 hours long as we wove and wound our way out of the mountains, into the subtropics and finally to the coast.

from there our week progressed rapidly. the salt water was warm but incredibly more salty than i had remembered. i also encountered, on several occasions, a sensation utterly foreign to me...... the sting of a jelly fish..... which... in case you are wondering... hurts alot.

and yes... urine does help... but a baking soda paste is more socially acceptable and works the same if not better.

aside from learning about jelly fish we bodysurfed, ate camaron apanado, seviche, camaron encocado, camaron alaijo, and pescado frito for lunch every day (every one of those foods are shrimp except for the pescado which is fish... oye! i ate more shrimp in those 6 days than i have ever eaten in my entire life), and dug into God's word.

we had a kid (travis oberg + the saltwater merchants) from cali fly in and lead us in worship which was pretty much rocking cool. he was a good dude.

umm... one night we played capture the flag, which was a really fun time... the other team won twice(kyle schmidt got the flag twice) and our team won twice (i got the flag twice) so it was a tie.

ummm..

there were alot of pretty sunsets as seen by the pictures

during the week we had team competitions like relays on the beach

and in the pool and finally a great amazing race to top off the week. there were 4 teams.... the triple s sharks, the pimping peeps, Atawapa's Flaming Turkeys, and chinchewea! our team, chinchewea came in second in overall standings at the end of the week

an intern from the church spoke during the week about alot of different topics. true love, compassion,building on solid ground. each morning the kids would do a devotional about that evenings talk, and then we would get together as cabin groups and talk about what they had read and what they thought about it.

it was really cool to see most of the guys really thinking about the passages and making good connections to other things they know and have learned about God. God also gave me oppertunities to talk with the guys in the evenings, and allowed me to share my personal experiences with them about life, parents, and girls.

i think that i am at that point in life where i am still seen as relevant to them, yet have enough experience/wisdom/maturity to see things in a bit different way, thus hopefully allowing me to influence some of these young men towards godliness, which happens to be really cool.

any ways, aside from this bug i am currently fighting off, the week went very well.

this next week i have the oppertunity to fly into the jungle with fred schmidt and then canoe out! it would be from tuesday till friday, that is, if the roads are clear. right now i am in quito, but would first have to travel by bus to shell(south and then east) however, over the last few days it has been raining alot especially over the area where the road to shell goes and there has been reports that up to 500 metres of the road have been swept awy by land slides or covered by mud, so we will have to see what happens in the next few days.

alright, i also may have the opportunity to work with some jr. high kids from a local church depending on what happens next week.

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it has been an amazing experience so far, from being on the top of mountains to the beach in 24 hours.... from reading romans and mere christianity to seeing the splendor of God's creation! just driving through the jungle reveals a whole new aspect and majesty of God. it has truly been a blessing.

fred, desi, and kyle have really just taken me in and made me feel at home. they have been absolutely wonderful. i thank God for their hospitality and kindness.

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i hope all is well where you are. drop me an email if you have time

through Christ who gives me strength,

-david

Mountains, volcanos, and clouds... oh my!

Hey guys!

so today fred schmidt took a day off and took jake, kyle, and myself to climb a volcano just next to quito.

i dont have time to upload my pictures to my blogspot(as it is very time consuming) and already have loaded them to facebook so check out this link. you dont need a facebook account to veiw them

http://creighton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033208&l=3f637&id=32504808

it started out ok, but it was a bit cloudy. we took a cable car for the first part of our journey to the shoulder of the mountain. As the day progressed, it got really cloudy and as we were climbing up, we soon found ourselves in peasoup. we, however, managed to make it to the top of the mountain by scaling 700metres of rock, sand, and a bit of ice. after taking a breather and having a few clear minutes between clouds we were able to plot a quicker route down than we had come up. about halfway down it began to sleet on us and as we progressed to the lower altitudes it changed into rain. yay!

the altitude of omaha: a bit under 1,000
the altitude @ quito: a bit under 10,000
the altitude of the begining of the hike :13,000
the altitude of the mountain at the peak: 15,500

that all equals 4 tired people!

ha.

anyways, we were able to descend the mountain safely and make it home in time for dinner

along the way we met some people from georgia and hiked to the summit and back down which was kindo cool

ummm.... i have to be up tomorrow at 0415 to get on the bus that will take me to the highschool camp i am helping out with this next 5-6 days so i am going to cut it a bit short.

hope all is going well.

email me, i will respond.... eventually. i am not taking my computer with me to camp so i wont write for these next few days unless i find one down there.

-david

Scorpions!!!! AIIIEEEE!!!

Good morning guys!

So, yesterday i was just going to do some more work on the schmidts house, prep for some concrete work and patch the wall around their fire place, which went according to plan. however, to get to the area i was going to prep for concrete i had to move a pile of firewood.

all went well till the last few logs when, as i picked up a log (i didnt have gloves on and i hadnt changed out of my flip flops) out scurries this scorpion!!

that was a bit suprising!

i really jumped back quickly, but then ran to get desi! OYE! we got a jar to put him in and here he is:

So today we are going to take a cable car over to a mountain and then climb the mountian at 10. then we are going to come back and pack for the beach. we leave at 5 am tomorrow morning! We will get back to Quito next wednesday, and im unsure about my internet connection over those days.

anyways. i will upload pictures of today's trip this evening.

out like a trout

-david

ps. fried plantains are DELICIOUS!

pps. O. and i am going to let the scorpion (which we killed with alcohol) dry out and bring him back to the states! OYE.

Mas photographias

el calle donde vivo



la calle



moi



Brasil y askunaga



the MAF quito store room which i spent this morning cleaning



Me cleaning




The MAF Quito Hanger. Notice the runway in the background. that is definitely Marsucrial International Airpuerto(Quito's).




so this morning i went with fred to MAF's office here in Quito and spent my morning organizing their store room and airplane repair stuff. then we went out to lunch which cost 2 dollars for soup, steak, rice, some sort of grain, and dessert. it was really good. we also had tomate del arbol (tomato of the tree) juice which is also very tasty. then we drove around quito looking for a van for MAF to buy to transport people around ecuador. nothing else is really new.



Friday, i believe, i am going to the beach with a highschool group for a week as a sponsor. when we get back the schmidts and i are going to go to shell for a bit as well. i will keep you up dated.



-david

Pictures!!

My luggage.

The boys.

Good morning ecuador!

My room

Where I email from.

Scraping paint.

More Paint Scraping

The wall.

Looking East.

Kyle at the Ramate!(garage sale)

Jake(another MK staying with the schmidts)

Jake and Kyle

Ramate!

Waggles!

Patio

Front yard.

Looking south from above the schmidts house

Looking south again.

June 8th 2007

Hey!

I had a good day today. ummmm. i got up and helped fred do some work around the house. we built a shelf for their laundry room and i scaped loose paint off of one of their walls in their garage which will need to be repainted during my stay. then we had lunch and desi and i went to the mall. it was a good time, and really interesting. most of the food is cheaper here except for the imported stuff, like canned goods which are like 2 times the price of those in the US. i also looked around in the mall. im not really sure how the ecuadorians afford to shop at the mall, i dont think i could! ha! desi says that since they have switched over to the dollar they are able to get credit cards and many of them are really in debt because they dont have the realization that they have to pay it back. (so in effect they have become good little consumers as we are in the US!!!)

Anyways, while kyle went out with his friends, jake, another kid who is staying with the schmidts, went bowling with some other kids from the alliance academy which was fun. we also went out for some baskin robins ice cream. then we walked around quito for a bit and dropped the girl who was with us off at her house before jake and i went home.

oh man. yawn.

tomorrow is the Ramate, or big garage sale, that the families of kids at the alliance academy put on. all the families have tables in a covered basketball court and sell their stuff. this should be interesting because of all the people who will be showing up.

anyways..... thats all i got.

-david

pictures to come soon.

-david