When My Homeschoolers Attended School in Ecuador

After being homeschooled their entire life, Asher and Journey finally experienced going to school, but this is Ecuador, so it's completely in Spanish! Talk about immersion! I expected tears for the first few weeks, and braced myself for their first day. They arrived home with a burst of words and excitement. They LOVED it, made friends and couldn't wait to return the next day!

A four-day weekend later, their enthusiasm waned. Their biggest complaint was getting up at 6am for school. Don't we all despise getting up early for school or work? Sorry kids, that's just life.

 They played futbol (soccer) for the first time and though everyone else had been playing for years, they managed to learn the game and get a little bit of playing time in.

 

They participated in some really cool class projects. My favorite was when the class split into groups to represent three different cultures of Ecuador- Coastal, Sierra (mountain) and Selva (jungle). Each child spoke about a different aspect of the culture and introduced food and drinks typical of the area for everyone to try.

This was the day Asher ate a chontacuro (palm grub- see the stick on the left).

Afterwards they demonstrated a typical dance for that area.

School schedules don't exist here. This was one of the weirdest things for me to adjust to. I am used to school schedules being issued prior to the beginning of the school year with every day off listed. In Shell, even in June, no one could tell me when the school year would end. Some days the kids would come home unexpectedly 3 hours early, other days they would come home and say, "oh there's no school tomorrow". One week they came home on Monday and said there wouldn't be school on Friday. On Tuesday, they said they do have school. On Wednesday they said it might be only half a day. They ended up going to school for 3 hours that Friday.

When school finally wrapped up on July 5th, they were sad to leave the friends they'd made. Asher and Journey have picked up quite a bit of Spanish. One day, someone was speaking to me in Spanish and afterwards Journey asked if the woman said "...", when I said yes, she replied, "How did I know that?!" By the time we left Ecuador, our children were answering basic questions from strangers in spanish.

I am so very thankful that the school and teachers were open to accepting our children as students and working with them as wonderfully as they did. The principal mentioned he would be open to this type of arrangement again in the future, so if it's something you would be interested in, let me know and I can pass along the information.

The messiest week in South America

When I hear 'carnaval', instantly parade images of Rio de Janeiro come to mind, but this holiday, leading up to Lent, is celebrated all over South America. As Carnaval was aproaching friends warned us about being in public during the 4 day holiday weekend celebration (Saturday thru Tuesday), as anyone is fair game. Attending a parade, or merely being out in public during those four days, could end with you covered in water, raw eggs, paint, flour based paint, anything really. You do NOT want to wear your favorite clothing and you do want to protect your camera and any electronics!

A couple days later we ended up right smack in the middle of it when we went for lunch at El Jardin in Puyo. We had to walk thru a popular square where a number of people were standing along the street selling cans of colored spray foam, water balloons, and such. As we walked across the bridge, I was taking a photo of the mayhem when a young man reached over and put his paint-covered hand across my face. (You can see him walking towards us in this photo.) It was a shock, but also pretty funny. On the way back to the truck, we were sprayed with water, and witnessed a group tossing buckets of water from the bed of a truck, all in the name of good fun.

Our neighbor's hosted a Carnaval party for their church youth group and invited Asher and Journey to participate. It was a messy, fun party with water balloon fights, buckets of water, raw eggs and a relay race across a soapy tarp.

Another day (remember this is a FOUR day event) our neighbors decided to have us try a few fun challenges. Here the guys were competing against the ladies by passing a handful of flour over their heads from the front to the back of the line. I don't remember who won, but it was fun to watch.

We used black paint flour to mark our faces and arms or smear on each other. We took turns sliding across the soap-covered tarp, then had a water balloon fight that evolved into dumping full buckets on each other. Great memories were made with our new friends, our vecinos!

Why we ended up here {ITEC Ecuador}

Spending a good chunk of time immersed in a Spanish speaking culture has been high on our list for a couple years now. Though my husband is Cuban, he did not learn spanish at home. We both have a desire to be fluent in spanish and a strong desire for our children to learn the language while they are young. We thought our initial Spanish immersion experience would be in Spain, then it changed to Colombia, but shortly before our South American adventure began, we found our expertise could be of use in Ecuador, assisting an organization that was already dear to our hearts.

ITEC Ecuador trains indigenous Christ-followers to meet the physical needs of their community as a door opener for the gospel. They provide basic medical training for community health workers deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle. They teach people to use an iPad to record and edit a compelling video documenting the ways that the lives of themselves and those around them have changed as a result of their relationship with Jesus. This way they can easily share the gospel with others who speak the same language while avoiding the language and cultural barriers that many face when trying to share the gospel to people outside of their own culture. I was shocked to see how many people in very remote areas such as the jungles of Ecuador and the plains of Kenya, have smart phones and use them to watch and share videos.

ITEC is now self-funded by AeroFOR, an organization run by the same people thru which they build and sell airplanes and canoes, offer air transportation and are contracted to operate medivac services for sick and injured people deep in the jungle. Without this service, an injured person may have to endure a lengthy hike and/or canoe ride upstream to where a car can finally transport them to a hospital, a journey that can take days. It's been incredible to see the impact they have on those who depend on them to save the lives of people who would otherwise not make it to a hospital in time.

One of the 40ft canoes in production.

A completed canoe

A beautiful RV-10 nearing completion.

ITEC Ecuador produced and performed a musical, The Prince of Egypt, to a packed house in Puyo, a much larger city 10 minutes away. The two hour long musical told the story of Moses and the Israelites' exodus to a packed venue of about 400 guests. 200 custom costumes were created for this one night only show. It was a lovely way to bring to life the story of God's power and provision.

The story of ITEC really begins back in 1956 when 5 missionaries left this very same airstrip in Shell, never to return. They were killed by the people they had hoped to befriend. You can read about it HERE. Today, a yellow Piper airplane sits atop an oil drilling well in Shell's central park as a reminder of the history of the area.

With Galo's translation assistance, Daddy was able to share the miracle that happened when God saved his life during a deployment. Despite 17 broken bones plus lots of other injuries, he is here with us today, by the grace of God, the one and only true God who desires a relationship with each one of us. If you haven't yet experienced a real relationship with God, drop me a message and I'll be happy to share his and my own experiences with you. 

I recently finished reading Walking God's Trail, a book written by Steve and Ginny Saint sharing some of the ways that God has revealed himself in their lives. If you have ever wondered if God is real and if he cares about the details of our lives, this is a must read.

Lake County Museum, Wauconda, Illinois

One of my MOM friends, Liz, along with her husband and kids, met us at the Lake County Museum in Wauconda. Her twin boys, Camden and Dean, were due the same month as mine.  Even though we've been interacting online since we were pregnant (over 4 years ago), it's the first time I've met her family and only the second time I've seen her in person. She came out to Vegas a couple years ago for our wild and crazy MOM getaway. It was really nice meeting her husband, twins and new baby, Milo.

This is a small museum with a gallery of Presidential photos that were very intriguing regardless of your political affiliations. It also holds a display explaining the history of the postcard as well as an archive holding, I believe, millions of postcards. The most interesting part for me was learning about Curt Teich, a German immigrant who came to America and started his own post card business. He took a train from Chicago and headed west, stopping to photograph each of the different towns along the way and sell his prints as postcards to the local shops. He sold packs of 1000 cards for $1. He sold $30,000 worth in just 90 days! The shops then sold those cards for 1 penny each and the cost to mail them in 1905? Just one more penny!

They found the playroom:

The museum is surrounded by lakes and nature trails which makes it extra fun when you explore outside after seeing the indoor exhibits.

The boys ended up throwing stones in the lake, of course. 

 Afterwards we enjoyed lunch at Lindy's Landing at a table ON the beach! So fun and perfect for the kids to play instead of having to sit thru the whole lunch.

Then it was time to say goodbye to their new friends, with hugs.