A few happenings from this month

Thought I would share a few different happenings from this month, maybe I'll make this a monthly activity. No promises.

1)  Recently, our employee Mery came to work quite shook up.  She was teary-eyed and a bit out of sorts. She told us that she had been robbed at knife point by two men near her house.  They approached her and put the knife against her side and told her to give them her things.  She told them she didn't have much - they looked at what she had and took her cell phone.  She told them "God bless you".  Those words impacted them right away - they hadn't walked too far and they turned around and gave the cell phone back.  She told them they don't need to be doing this sort of thing (robbing people) but to go look for a job and do something good with their life.  We are thankful to God for protecting her.

2) There are a couple stores nearby that we go to when we need fruit or vegetables or other small grocery items.  Many times we go to these stores because we forgot to buy the item when we did our "big" grocery shopping at the grocery store.  One store is only a block away and the other is about 3 blocks away.

Store one block from the guesthouse

Recently, we went to the store that's only a block away to buy cilantro.  As we were getting ready to pay, we saw a bird (I think it was a pigeon) flying back in forth in the store before it flew out.  We both ducked and were a little freaked, but it was pretty funny afterwards.

3) The cell phone I use is also a contact number for the Guesthouse.  Our business card has our landline number and that cell number on it.  Our in country guests are starting to use that number quite a bit to get ahold of us for reservations, etc.  And many guests communicate with us via email, so it is important to be able to respond when we are away from our home WiFi. Up til now, we have only bought "pre pay" cell phone minutes.  We thought it would be good to purchase a plan for the cell phone (including talk, text, and internet) since that would be more economical.

As we already know but are still surprised each time, things just don't go that smoothly around here.  It took us 4 (!) trips to the cell phone store to get this plan set up.  Unfortunately, the cell number for that phone is listed in Hannah's name.  The 1st trip - I went to the store without Hannah to try and set up the plan.  The employee says that even though she is my spouse, I can't set up the plan unless she signs over that phone number to me.  Not interested in doing that.  The 2nd trip - Hannah goes with me and we hope we don't have to deal with that same employee.  We see him in the store but another employee helps us. Everything seems to be going well but then she says she can't do it.  Their computer system requires 2 last names (this is the norm in Ecuador - for men it is your father's last name followed by your mother's maiden name, for women it is your maiden name followed by your married name).  For some reason, when Hannah initially set up the number, she wasn't required to have 2 last names, but now that we want to set up a plan she is required to (who knows?).  So the employee tells us that she can work around it but her boss has to authorize it.  And of course her boss is not at the store so we have to come back another day.  The 3rd trip - We go back to the store and talk to that same employee and she remembers us (shocking!) and her boss is there.  They make the changes in the system to accept only one last name and we wait a few minutes for the employee to come back and get this finalized.  She comes back and tells us that it will take at least 2 hours for the system to accept the change and we should come back later.  The 4th trip - We go back later that day and are finally able to sign the paperwork and get the plan set up.    

4) Hannah has recently begun taking Spanish classes with a tutor.  The tutor is a teacher at Alliance Academy which is a few blocks from the Guesthouse and is also where I attended my Sophomore and Junior years of high school.  So far, I have gone with Hannah to the school.  While she is in her class I spend time in the gym reading or studying the Bible.  After 20 years of being away from Quito, it's very interesting for me to be back and spend some time at the school.

One of the times when Hannah was in her class, there was a girls volleyball game going on in the gym.  I played volleyball and basketball during my years at the school, so I spent many hours on that gym floor. Several times during the game, the girls on the bench led their own cheers and the small crowd in attendance sort of responded to it.

The "main" cheer they did is the same cheer that was around when I was in high school, and probably the same cheer that was around years before that.  The name of the school in Spanish is Academia Alianza.  The cheer goes like this: one person yells "Ali, Ali", the rest follow with "anza".  After a few times repeating this, everyone yells "Alianza" followed by clapping, this is also repeated several times.

Hearing that cheer I had an instant flashback to my time at the school and the many times I heard that cheer while I was playing a volleyball or basketball game.  I also had this thought: the cheer is the same cheer as 20 years ago, it hasn't changed.  What about me? Have I changed in the last 20 years? Have a grown spiritually? Is my relationship with God the same/stronger/weaker than it was 20 years ago? Do people see more of Christ or less of Christ in me?

It also got me thinking about when John the Baptist said of Jesus, "He must become greater, I must become less", or "He must increase, I must decrease" (John 3:30).  Over the last 20 years, has that happened/is that happening in my life?