Over a Month Now

(our place and me sitting)




(view from front porch at another house and our cars)



(outside)



Hello all! (Sept. 9)

I hope this update finds you well as the new academic year has approached and the official beginning of the fall season is approaching.
My last update was brief about some of prayer

requests and situations down here with Rostro de Cristo. Everyday, each one of us are learning with as much patience and understanding as we can handle. All of us volunteers have had very challenging days either with our work sites as
teachers, day care helpers, hospital patient care and maintenance and also tutoring. All of us have challenges in one way or another in dealing with the Spanish language and not to mention the different mentality and focus of another culture and its priorities. Living in community has

been something that has had many blessings as we have shared our experiences with one another whether good or bad; living in commununity has also been a challenge of discovering different expectations of each person and the fact that pretty much everything we do, each person knows about it and has the right to have an opinion.
So yes, we really are a family here and we are learning everyday what it means to live in an intentional Christian community with other believers.

As for my worksite, I work at a school called Santiago Apostol in the mornings at the main city Guayaquil which is 20 minute or so bus ride from our community. Duran and Guayaquil are connected by a bridge and separated by a huge river that is quite dirty. My bus ride in the morning is always interesting because they pack the buses like cattle, again, no rules or regulations here with that kind of stuff. So I ride to my work site pretty much standing on the steps of the entrance while the bus driver weaves and dodges through each car.
I haven't been doing much teaching as of yet, mostly observing because my Spanish just isn't there yet, so I do much disciplining with a classroom of 12 year old girls.
An whatever ideas you have of a typical classroom, through those out the window because this school is much different. It's only 6 months old and before that, these girls have never gone to school before so they have never had people tell them they can't talk whenver the want, or leave the room whenever, or yell random things out. It is so loud in the classroom sometimes I can't stand it...and remember, many times I don't know what they're saying to each other, but I can tell when they're upset or want to fight with one another. I have learned many command words like 'sit down', 'stand up' , 'close the door', 'listen' and what not. I discipline a lot because it is complete chaos many times.
I actually taught my first class this past Friday because I showed up to the school and they didn{t hav e enough teachers so I taught the class by myself, mathematics, with girls that I could barely communicate with and who are simply crazy during the classes. Sometimes there simply aren't teachers there or whatever, Ecuador can be very random so sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
In the afternoon there's a after school program called Semmillas de Mostaza (mustard seeds) where about 60 kids come from the community to do homework, recess and learn different values and disciplines that we incorporate into the program. Local Ecuadorians help us out, and run it with us, which is huge. I have learned much from this and it's also a good, challengin situation for us to teach and work with kids who live around us.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we were heading to a soccer game here. We went, and it was the craziest game or competition in general that I have ever seen. People were climbing the stadium wall just to get in, this stadium hold 75000 people too! We ended up not being able to enter cause it was too chaotic, but hopefully tomorrow we{ll go to the next one.

Ok, hope this wasn't too long but I wanted to let you guys know what my work site looked like during the week.

1. Prayers are definitely for us volunteers that we'll be able to get through the many challenges are amazing experiences with perseverance, character, patience and consistent prayer. We couldn{t do anything here with prayer and a committment to being Christ centered in our focus at work and living as a community.

2. Prayers for health as being get sick once in a while and can't work and talk to people because they're sick.

3. Prayers for the people here and the integration experiences that we share with each other. We'll enjoy the good times and learn and appreciate the different obstacles in our journey here in Ecuador.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Blessings!
Sam Conway