John Mark and I headed out bright and early (after a nice reading of the battle of Jericho) on Friday morning for our final investigation. We hopped on a bus to Bayushig and both fell asleep on the way there. We awoke when the bus stopped and people got out to look/change buses, but neither of us cared too much, so we both kept drifting in and out of sleeping. When we finally woke up for good, we found ourselves in a town we were not planning on going to, Calshi. After encountering a semi-sober guy that was the brother of the president of the town (or something like that), we walked 20 minutes to the next town, Matus. We took a bus that had a fare of (I love it!) 7.5 cents each to the next town, Bayushig, and then walked to Penipe. There we ate our lunch and JM made the first of many good decisions: instead of blindly hopping on a bus about to leave (because the woman in town told us that was when a bus was supposed to arrive), he went over near the bus, checked with some of the locals, and then waited for the correct bus that took us to Puela. This town was hit hard by the volcanic eruption a few years ago. Apparently there were 2000 residents before the eruption, but now there were only 1200, and most of them didn't sleep in the town but would work the land during the day and then go back to a safer town. We got to hang out with some sweet kids (Jaime, Miguel, and Johnny) for a bit, then caught the bus to the beginning of the road to San Jose de Chazo.
Now this day's theme was favor from God in the bus system. A few weeks ago we waited 3+ hours for buses in one day, but today we didn't wait very much at all (Puela being the longest wait: 45 minutes). Within 5 minutes of the bus dropping us off at the beginning of the road to SJ de Ch, and after we turned down a 15 dollar ride to the town from Penipe, we caught a "camioneta" already heading towards Chazo and rode in the back from only ONE DOLLAR for both of us! Praise You, Father! When we arrived, we tasted the local bread and then waited no longer than 30 minutes for the last bus going out of the town to take us to our next town, La Providencia. In this town, we seriously contemplated staying the night until, wouldn't you know, a bus was just leaving the town in the direction we needed it! God blew us away... like usual :-). We got off a Cubijies, took a bus to Quimiag (where the public bathrooms are literally public: urinals on the side of a wall at the edge of a park), and took another bus to San Gerardo. This was the last town of the trip and JM and I both agreed we wanted to build a fire and cook some food before we were done with these investigations. So we bought some bread, eggs, and potatoes to cook and started to look for some firewood. We were threatened by a guy I couldn't really understand very well about picking wood up off the ground, but eventually ran into a place where an intoxicated man helped us find a good place. After being blessed with more firewood (scraps from a pile), some other people came and helped us get the fire started and our food cooking.
Ladies, here's another time where I encourage you to look at JM when looking for that special someone in life. If you want a rugged, outdoorsy, mountain man, I'm not your guy. We carved out the inside of the potatoes and dropped the egg yoke inside of them to cook. JM got his first try no problem, and while I had the bigger potato (more room for the yoke), it took me three eggs (the first two spilled out and the third almost did, too, but we caught it) to finally get mine to kind-of work. His came out beautifully... mine, crispy. I supplemented this wonderful outdoorsy meal with some fruit, a granola bar, and a nutrigrain bar. Nothing like outdoor cooking!
We caught a taxi home, chilled at the Maust house, and then I returned home and ended up watching the first 2 hours of LOTR Two Towers before heading to bed. I would say this was our best investigation trip ever in the sense that we got a ton done in a small amount of time and the Lord really encouraged my heart throughout the trip. I felt like JM and I were more compatible and encouraging than any other trip to each other. All of this is totally in the Lord's strength and by His grace... Hallelujah!
Saturday was much less eventful, but still very fun and exciting! I slept in a bit, had a great QT in Joshua 6 (studying the fall of Jericho), watched more of LOTR TT, and put down some food. I headed over to the Coupes to shoot off a quick e-mail and ended up staying for lunch! Luis, the guy that I help with English most Mondays and Wednesdays, called and invited me to soccer. I happily agreed! We took a van outside of Riobamba (with Luis and four friends) and then began playing on a nice, green field. There were a few difficulties in these games: first of all, there were only six of us, and with goalies, it was 2-on-2 on a decent sized field, and second of all, we were playing around 9,500 feet above sea level. Even for the Ecuadorians, after sprinting down the field once or twice in a row, you had to just stop and focus on breathing. It was that ridiculous... but SO much fun! My team won the first game, 5-3, lost the second, 5-1 (embarrassing), lost the third (tie breaker) 8-6, and then when other guys showed up to play, our group of friends got to play together and we won that game 9-7. I was not a very good goalie... but I was blessed with a good amount of goals throughout the day, which is more than I can say for all three years of rec league soccer in middle school. Yup, that's right... rec league soccer: 0 goals. God was teaching me humility... and still is. Please keep these guys (Brian, Andy, Sebastian, and Sebastian's older brother) in prayer, along with Luis...
Buying good, low-priced fruit for the last time (possibly) for a while went by quickly and then I caught a bus to band practice. I'm excited as tomorrow we get to play three Hillsong United songs: From the Inside Out, Take It All, and Came to My Rescue! And I get to worship the Lord with my vocals as well as playing the guitar on a few of them! So, if you read this before 12 PM EST, please send up a prayer that the Lord really blesses our time of worship as we seek to honor Him through leading the church tomorrow morning. After practice I walked to the Coupes, helped them do away with some left-overs (by storing them in my stomach), and chatted and skyped with family and friends! Praise the Lord for these wonderful past two days!
One main thing I learned from Joshua (and Dad also shared with me he learned) is that faith many times requires action. The priests with the ark of the covenant led the way around the walls, but there was also an armed guard in front and behind them. Although Joshua had faith that the Lord would protect His sacred ark, he was trying to be wise with what the Lord had provided by ordering protection for such a sacred item. Many times in our lives, the Lord will provide opportunities for us to grow our faith, but many times they will also require action. We can't take what the Lord has given us, "bury it in the ground" and have faith that it will grow! We must invest it... (Matthew 25:14-30) Are there things in your life the Lord has provided you with that you may not be using in the most efficient way?
Praise the Lord for the blessing of being able to encourage friends... oh, to be used by You, oh Lord, is overwhelming...
In His strength alone...
Luke
Now this day's theme was favor from God in the bus system. A few weeks ago we waited 3+ hours for buses in one day, but today we didn't wait very much at all (Puela being the longest wait: 45 minutes). Within 5 minutes of the bus dropping us off at the beginning of the road to SJ de Ch, and after we turned down a 15 dollar ride to the town from Penipe, we caught a "camioneta" already heading towards Chazo and rode in the back from only ONE DOLLAR for both of us! Praise You, Father! When we arrived, we tasted the local bread and then waited no longer than 30 minutes for the last bus going out of the town to take us to our next town, La Providencia. In this town, we seriously contemplated staying the night until, wouldn't you know, a bus was just leaving the town in the direction we needed it! God blew us away... like usual :-). We got off a Cubijies, took a bus to Quimiag (where the public bathrooms are literally public: urinals on the side of a wall at the edge of a park), and took another bus to San Gerardo. This was the last town of the trip and JM and I both agreed we wanted to build a fire and cook some food before we were done with these investigations. So we bought some bread, eggs, and potatoes to cook and started to look for some firewood. We were threatened by a guy I couldn't really understand very well about picking wood up off the ground, but eventually ran into a place where an intoxicated man helped us find a good place. After being blessed with more firewood (scraps from a pile), some other people came and helped us get the fire started and our food cooking.
Ladies, here's another time where I encourage you to look at JM when looking for that special someone in life. If you want a rugged, outdoorsy, mountain man, I'm not your guy. We carved out the inside of the potatoes and dropped the egg yoke inside of them to cook. JM got his first try no problem, and while I had the bigger potato (more room for the yoke), it took me three eggs (the first two spilled out and the third almost did, too, but we caught it) to finally get mine to kind-of work. His came out beautifully... mine, crispy. I supplemented this wonderful outdoorsy meal with some fruit, a granola bar, and a nutrigrain bar. Nothing like outdoor cooking!
We caught a taxi home, chilled at the Maust house, and then I returned home and ended up watching the first 2 hours of LOTR Two Towers before heading to bed. I would say this was our best investigation trip ever in the sense that we got a ton done in a small amount of time and the Lord really encouraged my heart throughout the trip. I felt like JM and I were more compatible and encouraging than any other trip to each other. All of this is totally in the Lord's strength and by His grace... Hallelujah!
Saturday was much less eventful, but still very fun and exciting! I slept in a bit, had a great QT in Joshua 6 (studying the fall of Jericho), watched more of LOTR TT, and put down some food. I headed over to the Coupes to shoot off a quick e-mail and ended up staying for lunch! Luis, the guy that I help with English most Mondays and Wednesdays, called and invited me to soccer. I happily agreed! We took a van outside of Riobamba (with Luis and four friends) and then began playing on a nice, green field. There were a few difficulties in these games: first of all, there were only six of us, and with goalies, it was 2-on-2 on a decent sized field, and second of all, we were playing around 9,500 feet above sea level. Even for the Ecuadorians, after sprinting down the field once or twice in a row, you had to just stop and focus on breathing. It was that ridiculous... but SO much fun! My team won the first game, 5-3, lost the second, 5-1 (embarrassing), lost the third (tie breaker) 8-6, and then when other guys showed up to play, our group of friends got to play together and we won that game 9-7. I was not a very good goalie... but I was blessed with a good amount of goals throughout the day, which is more than I can say for all three years of rec league soccer in middle school. Yup, that's right... rec league soccer: 0 goals. God was teaching me humility... and still is. Please keep these guys (Brian, Andy, Sebastian, and Sebastian's older brother) in prayer, along with Luis...
Buying good, low-priced fruit for the last time (possibly) for a while went by quickly and then I caught a bus to band practice. I'm excited as tomorrow we get to play three Hillsong United songs: From the Inside Out, Take It All, and Came to My Rescue! And I get to worship the Lord with my vocals as well as playing the guitar on a few of them! So, if you read this before 12 PM EST, please send up a prayer that the Lord really blesses our time of worship as we seek to honor Him through leading the church tomorrow morning. After practice I walked to the Coupes, helped them do away with some left-overs (by storing them in my stomach), and chatted and skyped with family and friends! Praise the Lord for these wonderful past two days!
One main thing I learned from Joshua (and Dad also shared with me he learned) is that faith many times requires action. The priests with the ark of the covenant led the way around the walls, but there was also an armed guard in front and behind them. Although Joshua had faith that the Lord would protect His sacred ark, he was trying to be wise with what the Lord had provided by ordering protection for such a sacred item. Many times in our lives, the Lord will provide opportunities for us to grow our faith, but many times they will also require action. We can't take what the Lord has given us, "bury it in the ground" and have faith that it will grow! We must invest it... (Matthew 25:14-30) Are there things in your life the Lord has provided you with that you may not be using in the most efficient way?
Praise the Lord for the blessing of being able to encourage friends... oh, to be used by You, oh Lord, is overwhelming...
In His strength alone...
Luke
Where to, John Mark? Remember ladies... on facebook it's JohnMark Maust. No space in between his first two names... 
One of the things that blows my mind about these mountains is how, even on this steepest of mountains (which this is not), crop is still grown on a great portion of the mountain side. It's not only dangerous for them, but they'll bring their animals up there, too!
The boys (below) insisted I take a picture of this church.
The GQ models... from left: Jaime, Johnny, and Miguel. Pray for them...
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