from water to ashes

Carnival is my most dreaded holiday every year in Ecuador!
While I loved it as a kid and my kids now absolutely love it, I am more prone to stay in doors during this 5 day holiday that seems to start a month leading up to it!
In the states “Mardi Gras” is celebrated, here we call it “Carnival”. In New Orleans the holiday Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is celebrated by eating, drinking and throwing beads! In Ecuador, it is celebrated by eating, drinking and throwing water and any kind of silly spray, flour, food coloring and a whole other slew of yuk!
You can be getting out of your car at the grocery and BAM, be hit by a water balloon, not a very pleasant grocery visit.
As I am typing this, my kids and their friends are outside playing with water balloons and buckets, I do think out water bill will be high this month!
Being a Catholic holiday and because Ecuador is very influenced by the Catholic church, it usually all ends on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent when all gather in a mass at their local Catholic church to have ash placed on their foreheads to symbolize repentance (for all that water throwing, ha!)


So until next week, I’ll be in doors, doing a lot of cleaning and cooking and well, supplying my kids with a bunch of water balloons and cookies to keep them outdoors and out of my clean house!!!
Loving life on this side of the world,
-L

5:30am yesterday morning Joil along with seven other members of our missionary team both national and foreign packed up our STL Land Rover and headed out for a "jungle adventure"! After driving 2 hours to the end of the dirt road they unpacked the vehicle and packed their backs with the overnight essentials including water filters, bug spray and a "you can do it" attitude!
The next part of the trip was all on foot through steep trails up the side of mountain ridges, streams and rivers and sticky mud that was in places knee deep. After trekking over 6 hours to reach the jungle village of "Pandin" they were able to rest for a few minutes before heading out again for another hour's worth of hiking to find the place that would be home to the new water well project!
While there, not only were they scouting out places for the water well, they were also able to minister to the local people in the village, which is the main reason we are doing all this cool stuff! They held a service in the evening when the sun went down and the church was maxed to capacity with the hungry souls wanting to know more! One girl testified of being completely healed of a snake bite that the others said she should have died of, praise the Lord!!!
Next week Joil is traveling back to the village with a group of people that will be helping put in the first stages of the water well but what is so exciting is that they will also be baptizing several local brothers and sisters who want to make a proclamation of faith!

Thank you again for standing with us in prayer, you never know how much it means to us! Now off to clean some really muddy boots!!!

Sincerely,
Leah