Prayer Request

As many of you know, Michelle's mom had brain surgery last week. While the procedure seemed to go as planned, the recovery is not as expected. She has some complications that may not turn out to be a big deal, but her memory is very bad right now and she doesn't really remember much.

It is extremely hard on Michelle being this far away. Please pray for a full recovery for Mary, and for comfort and peace for Michelle.

Nuevos Amigos (the school)

Today we went to the school. The area around was terribly impoverished. There were dirty mops of dogs walking all around the area, dogs that were supposed to be white were a tannish brownish, in the school, on the streets, on 3 inch wide ledges up about 20 feet. But as we drove up to the school my mind changed. It was nice but not too nice. Extereme Response (the Christian building we are staying in for the first two weeks) is about the middle of the mountains. Well..... the school is at the very top. We are literally in the clouds. We can see the whole cable car ride, and the mountains peak looks like it is about 200 steps in the uphill position.

Enough with the area. We are going back tommorrow to paint and do computer work and play with the kids. We basically figured out our whole plan for the month of July. And the coolest news of the day(for the school) was that just today about an hour before we got there the school was approved to add second grade to the school.

That's all for today kids.
your friend, cousin, grandson,student,neighbor,and church kid
Matt

Muy delicioso pan!

Very delicious bread! There is a little store down the hill that makes fresh bread. We have been there twice now and the bread is amazing. They probably have about a dozen different breads to choose from. Today they also had a tray of fresh cookies. It was a sandwich cookie with fruit jam in the middle and the end was dipped in chocolate - ohhh yeah. I think we will be frequenting this establishment. Today is Steve's birthday so the girls and I made a cake for him. It is in the oven - we will see how it turns out with the altitude. We spent the morning on the roof playing games and enjoying the view. We could only see one volcano - but it was very clear for a short time. Yesterday we went grocery shopping. We walked to the store which took us about 40 minutes. Michelle met us there to help. Very interesting. The kids were disturbed by the chicken feet that were in the chicken packages. We were able to get everything we needed. We had to take two taxis back to our apartment because our family doesn't fit in one. Michelle helped to tell the drivers where to go. The girls and I got in the first taxi. He started speaking in Spanish. I said no comprende and he started speaking English. Made the ride much less stressful. Steve was not so lucky. When he arrived at the apartment he was asking the driver how much and had his hands motioning like they were on a steering wheel. The driver was looking at him like he was crazy. I told Steve to say cuantos which means how much. He understood what we meant. Glad to have our first grocery trip and taxi ride under our belt. Tomorrow we will go to Nuevos Amigos. We are very excited. Stay tuned......

Empty Me

We went to an english-speaking church this morning. The message was just OK for me, but the worship was great. I did not know most of the songs, but sometimes following along with the lyrics on the screen hits you even harder.

Then we sang Empty Me. Gotta love having some Jeremy Camp in Ecuador!
"Holy Fire burn away, my desire for anything that is not of you and is of me." Pastor Martin recently taught us how it is not about merely decreasing our own desires and ambitions, but dying to self at the foot of the cross. We looked at a bunch of examples in the Bible of complete and total surrender. Proverbs 3:6 took on a whole new look for me. "In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." Not most of them or only the ones that I think He needs to be involved with. God is not interested in half-stepping or partial commitments.

We finished with If You Want Me To by Ginny Owens. That one is worth looking up if you are not familiar with it. http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/g/ginnyowens1650/ifyouwantmeto78322.html

Saturday

We all got a good night's sleep and had a good day today. Matthew was sick through the night, but woke up fine. A few of us have headaches from the altitude, but nothing too severe.

We ventured out on our own today down to a little store where they make their own bread. It was rather challenging communicating with the owner, but we managed to get some delicious rolls and ice cream treats.

I did not follow my friend Craig Smith's instructions when traveling to a foreign land, and I was paying for it. He says you should always take some instant coffee packets, as you never know if you will find coffee right away. But I did find some today, so life is good.

Here is a night shot of the city from our rooftop.

Haha

Alright so, for those of you that don't now this ,my cousin , Elizabeth said in a comment that she gets the couch and her 2 sisters can each have one of the 3 steps. So Elizabeth all I have to say is
1) THERE'S THREE STEPS, one for each of you.
2)I GET THE REMOTE IN THE MORNING!
3)DON'T WAKE ME UP EARLY!
4)SAVE ME A POPTART IN THE MORNING!
As long as you follow these rules we'll get along FINE!
See you when u get down here.
your FAVORITE!!!! cousin..........Matt

From the roof

Here are some pictures from the roof of our building.

First images of Ecuador

Everything is either uphill or downhill.

This is Beanie. He lives on the grounds at our apartment.

The views are incredible.

More traveling pictures

Some traveling pictures

My mom's surgery

For those of you who don't know my mom had brain surgery today. Yes, the day after we left. I couldn't believe it either. We found out a few weeks ago and I was really struggling with leaving. After her encouraging me we decided not to change our plans. She has epilepsy and her seizures have become more frequent and violent recently. After lots of tests they found a tumor deep in her left temporal lobe which they did successfully remove today. My sister called about noon and said that it went well. The tumor is benign and no problems were encountered. She should be moved to a step down unit with the possibility of going home Tuesday - after major brain surgery - God is good! Although being so far away was incredibly difficult I learned a valuable lesson about trusting in my God. I know that he was with her and her doctors. That was a great comfort to me. Thanks to all of you who were praying for her. That was also a great comfort. Please continue to pray for her recovery.
Michelle

June 26,2009

We went on a walk with i Michelle (not my mom) and just when we were about to leave Michelle (not my mom) said how about we have a contest. And I said about what? Michelle said about spanish. Then she said this is what we will do. Matthew will do nouns Adam will do animals and birds in Quito Mallory (meeeee) will do verbs Jon will do foods and little miss Ellie will do numbers and colors. Now when we are on our walk you should write down stuff thats in your catagory on a notepad and when you get home you look up it in a dictionary the spanish way and write it down.Then when Michelle thinks we should stop we will see who has learned the most spanish word wins and get a prize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love,

Mallory

Jeanne

Finally Here

After an entire day of packing, going through security, flying, layovering, and a little more flying and a little (LOT) more flying we are finally here. We arrived at the Quito Airport at 11:30 at night and just to see how many cars were flying around I could guess how crazy this night was going to be. As we were driving through the city with Ceaser (Childreach's driver in Ecuador)
and Michelle( our translator) my mind was blown. We drove through a small road filled with Spanish graffitti, I was amazed. About 1 in every 25 buildings was lit, houses were trashed and decaying and our van barely made it up the (hill) MOUNTAIN. Its pretty funny how the Ecuadorians call them hills, we call them mountains. This morning we just met the Extreme Response staff and they are the nicest people. From all over the world every race every color they are all coming together to serve God. Those people are basically going to be our mommy's and daddy's for the next couple days.
We went on a walk with Michelle and saw the city, the mountains, the cars and the buildings are so heavily packed into one small skinny town that we could never even blink. But we could blink at the poverty on the streets and wish it would go away when our eyes reopened but that's exactly what we are here to help with. We went to a restaraunt and sitting outside were a pair of charcole black hands belonging to a boy that was polishing shoes all day for his family to just stick around the city. When we were sitting in the restaruant I watched the boy gather his belongings and walk away. 5 minutes later a young girl with a box of strawberries sat in the exact same spot. I watched a man walk up to her and the girl started speaking. I couldn't tell what she was selling him some strawberries. The man looked at her and quickly turned his head as soon as they made eye contact and acted like he didn't even see her. Just from the poverty of the first day I know that it is going to get worse.
By: Matt Schario

We're here!

We had smooth flights and everything went great. Michelle von Debschitz was waiting at the airport with a van and driver. They took us straight to our place and we got in safely about 1AM this morning.

While the flights were very long, the kids did great. Mallory was a little scared as we took off and Jonny was hollering like he was on a rollercoaster. As soon as we hit the clouds, Ellie asked if we were in heaven.

It is almost time now!

We leave tomorrow morning! Cleveland to Houston to Quito. About 8 and a half hours in the air. We arrive in Quito just after 11PM (midnight Ohio time.)

The bags are packed and we are just going over the details now. The wonderful ladies from TreeHouse Kidz will be here tomorrow morning to take us to the airport.

Next post from Quito!!

All dogs go to heaven?

Is this true or is it something Walt Disney made up? I need to know. I had to put down one of my best friends after almost 14 years this morning and it really sucks. I had some tough conversations with my kids and every one of them ended in tears. Brandy had been part of the family longer than any of them have even been alive.
I don't want any theological debate over whether dogs have souls (yours may not, but mine did), I just want to know if we will get to play again someday.

Crowder

We were at Alive '09 last night. This is a Christian music festival held every year in Canal Fulton. Oddly enough, it rains (no, actually it storms) every year turning the entire place into a mud pit. Does anybody know why the mud there smells like that?

The David Crowder Band was again one of the highlights. If you are not familiar with DCB, you need to be. Here are your instructions:
1. get the Lime CD and listen to it several times very loud.
2. read David's book Praise Habit.
3. go see them in concert.

If you follow this procedure, you can write back later to thank me. If you are not loving DCB after step 2, repeat step 1 louder. Then proceed to step 3.

Lemonade

From the very start, the folks that work in TreeHouse Kidz (the children's ministry at RiverTree) have been among our biggest supporters. They have encouraged us, prayed for us and even helped physically and financially. They have also worked very hard at involving all the kids from church in our trip, helping them to understand the purpose of our mission.

Yesterday, I heard the story of Kennedy and Olivia. They setup a lemonade stand with the sole intent of giving the proceeds to us for our trip. How cool is that? The $46 they raised is impressive, but I am even more grateful for their willingness to selflessly give of themselves. Their parents and church leaders are teaching them some of the most valuable lessons in life, and I am humbled to be part of it.
Awesome job Kennedy and Olivia! We are proud to partner with you!

Lessons at the Beach

We spent last week at the beach. What a great place to take in Creation. You can almost see God's hand in the ocean, sand, animals and sky. Doesn't look like an accident to me.
The kids had a blast playing in the surf. The younger ones always pushing the limits of how far out they could go like the big kids. Jonny loved challenging the big waves, running back up the beach just beyond the crashing. He was unfazed by the millions of gallons of water rushing at him with unimaginable force. At one point when he got too far in, his mom yelled for him to get back. He turned around and said "What? Dad's right there!" I was in fact standing only a few feet away and a 7 year old can get a lot of courage when dad is standing near by. Jonny doesn't have much fear, but knowing I was at the ready to pluck him from the water if needed certainly bolstered his confidence.
While taking this all in, I was struck by the parallel. He is fearless when facing this extreme danger, knowing that Dad is by his side if trouble does arise. So why do I let the challenges of life get me down when I have my Heavenly Father forever by my side, just waiting for me to call on Him?