Bacilica (a little out of order)

This is the Bacilica in Quito. It was pretty amazing! There are two towers to one side and instead of the typical ¨Gargoyles¨it is adorned with Iguanas, Turtles and other animals.

Leaving for some travels tomorrow

Hi everyone. We really wanted to post a blog with pictures today about our trip to the cloud forest, but we just didn't have time. It was sooo beautiful. We will definitely do it soon, but for now I just wanted to let everyone know that we are leaving tomorrow on our three-ish week journey through Ecuador. The first place we will go is to the volcano/mountain of Cotopoxi. There we hope to see a cool lake inside a volcano, ride horses and possibly hike up to where the snow starts on this ginormous mountain. . . we'll see how our breathing is at about 15,000 ft. Anyhow, from there we have ideas/plans of what will be next, but we'll keep you updated the best that we can as we go. Please pray for safe travels and a joyous time. Miss you all, but am so thankful for this opportunity!!

The Book of Luke

We have chosen to read through the book of Luke in the New Testament of the Bible. I thought it would be interesting to extend an invitation out to everyone to read the same book of the Bible together and we can have an on going dialouge/conversation about it.

There are four weeks left in our trip, which will be perfect for dividing the book up by reading one chapter a day. This week we will read Luke chapters 1-7.

I do not expect to prepare a sermon for people to comment on. Nor do I have any expectations for this. I will simply start a blog at the beginning of each week (more or less depending on if I have access to a computer), I might add a little something, but the idea would be for each of you who are interested in reading with us to add comments.

Comments may be observations, questions, answers to someones question or something you belive God is teaching you.

Comments are also easy! Just click on the comment tab and follow the prompts. You may write it annonomously, sign your name or create a profile.

I will also "Lable" the four posts as "The Gospel of Luke." For future references all you would need to do is click on the lable to have easy acces to the previous posts/comments.

I encourage anyone and all of you to join us in this. This has the potential to be a very real and rich experiance. If you do not have a Bible you can easily get access to one by searching for it on the internet with a search engine.

Nothing But Love,
Jesse and Cassidy

Jesse´s Birthday

So I spread my birthday out over the week. On Tuesday (the actual b-day) we got a Mokachino coffee drink and a brownie with ice-cream to celebrate. (Jeremy Munoz I am representing your Kite Board business here)

We then went to a futbol match on Thursday to watch the futbol team from Ecuador (who won the Sur America Cup) play against a team from Bolivia. The entrance was lined with official "security" of guards and dogs!

The game was great...

Especially after they score! The crowd goes wild, smoke fills the stands, flares light up barely demonstrating the energy in the crowd. (You will notice a few fans in the picture who climbed up on the fence.)

This is a picture of how they serve beer at the game. It is served in plastic pitchers like the ones my mom used to make Kool-aid in when I was young (that was a while ago since I am 30 now!)

This is my beer...

This is my wife and my beer...

In all, it was a wonderful week!

Our last day of school

Today was our last day of school. I wonder when it will kick in. We´ve been in this internet cafe for about an hour and a half and I keep thinking about the homwork that I have to do when I get home. . .I get a little stressed (this is Cass speaking, obviously. Jesse doesn´t get stressed). Then I think, wait. . . I don´t have any homework, in fact I don´t even have to think or talk in Spanish anymore if I don´t want to. But, of course, I will. I don´t want to lose this month´s worth of work.

This is Jesse and the director of the school (Patty).

This is me and my teacher from this week and last (Yolanda), with my diploma of course.

Empanadas

Last Friday we made emapanadas with a few of our classmates and teachers. It was wonderful to end the week with a fun, brainless, activity. I am always completely exahusted by Friday afternoons. Thinking and speaking in another language makes me more tired than running, which of course I haven´t been doing here anyways. Don't worry I wrote down the recipie and will be happy to make them when we get home.

They are, of course, fried . . . as are most things here =)

The final product . . . with Jesse´s artistic touches!

Botanical Garden

Here is a peak at the MANY beautiful flowers and plants that we saw at the Botanical Garden last week.