Usually Unusual

We made it safely to Canoa and it's beyond beautiful here! From the street children and dogs running wild to the thatched roof shacks to sandy beach. We have spent so much time at the beach and on the boardwalk where all the local restaurants are. We have met an Ecuadorian couple staying at the same hotel as us and had two meals with them, an American family on vacation and had two meals with them, and an Ecuadorian lady who works with environmental conservation in Quito. So many interesting people!

One of my favorite things about being here is how different their way of life is. I love walking down the street or beach and realizing that all of these things that seem foreign to me are completely normal to them.

Boys climbing trees in their underwear. And fitting 3 boys on one small tree.

A man on stilts walking through the street to raise money for something.

Seeing a bus stuck in the sand and them digging it out with a shovel. 

Feeding our breakfast straps to the dogs at a restaurant after having to blindly order something off the menu called balon mesa queso. (turned out to a big fried ball of cornmeal with cheese inside.)

Today we got to go to an English speaking church in Bahia with another American couple. It was extremely small, but the people were very welcoming. They wanted us to stay for the night service that was in Spanish to bad that they offered to let us stay at their house and spend the night that night and then come back the next morning. Everyone is so hospitable here! We went to the next town over yesterday with the Ecuadorian couple we met. The husband spoke broken English. So as he was driving I was in the back seat trying to say that the weather was perfect here. The windows were down which made it hard to hear and I'm sure my Spanish pronunciation was awful. In efforts to understand what I was saying (which wasn't very important anyway), Marlon pulled the car over to the side of the road, stopped the car, turned around and said, "Okay, now what are you trying to say?" I had to laugh at the situation. He was so concerned with what I had to say that he stopped everything to let me know that what I had to say was important.

All that to say, we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves and cannot wait to meet all the children at the school tomorrow! Praying that the Lord is shared and glorified in our time here!

Our little friend Pepe!