San Juan de Minas

Waking up at 6:00 is not my idea of fun, but this is what we did today. After a short night, we all got on the bus to go to San Juan de Minas for a morning of kids’ programs. A long bus drive started off our day as we went down into the valley where San Juan de Minas is located. It was a scary drive seeing as how there were no guard rails between us and the long drop down the hill side. Learning to trust God is an important part of our everyday lives here. I realized that worrying would not keep the bus on the road, so I decided to trust God with it and enjoy the trip.We arrived (safely! Yay!) and set up for the kids in a courtyard. Around forty five kids showed up for our program, despite the Catholic Church’s dominance over the town. Everything went smoothly as we and another group both did presentations for the kids. Seeing God work through us to teach kids was really cool.After teaching the kids for about two hours we all piled back into the bus for the ride back home. We stopped off at the airport to pick up our fifteenth team member, Amanda Forman. We now have three Amandas on our team and two Daniels and two of our translators are named Andrea. We have already had several confusing situations. Amanda’s flight had been delayed so we left a few people at the airport to wait and the rest of us went back to Casa del Padre to pack for the eight hour bus trip to Esmeraldas. After about an hour Amanda got to the house and soon we sat down to dinner. This night is the first time that we have had a home-cooked meal on this trip. YEA!!! We love food.Please pray for the team that we will stay healthy and that God would use us for His glory. God is teaching me every day to rely on Him more than I have before... such as when there are no guard rails. But we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.Daniel Fox, signing off for the team.The courtyard where we put on our children's program in San Juan de Minas.Tim telling the story of the shiny lures with John as the expert fisherman. That IS John underneath all those wigs and hats.Crystal talking with some of the kids. We really appreciate Crystal's skills in Spanish!Sunset in QuitoWe finished off the evening with a bonfire. Another mission team, just back from the jungle, stayed at the same place with us for one night. We shared stories, songs, and s'mores before heading to bed early to be ready for our trip to Esmeraldas in the morning.