EMT Day 1

Opening Doors

Let’s just say that our first few hours were not what I envisioned. Due to a burned out light on our plane, we were delayed in Miami over an hour and arrived in Quito after midnight. The immigration lines were the longest I’d ever seen. Many of the arriving flights’ passengers were wearing masks due to the Swine Flu scare. It was a little disconcerting and a little comical.
Pancho and Pity were there to greet us as well as our faithful driver Jhonny and the bus. Arriving the apartment at 2 a.m. we quickly lugged our bags up 4 flights of stairs then met briefly with Pancho and Pity to make introductions and give instructions. This is where the language barrier first caused us to stumble. He told us that one of the boys’ rooms did not have a key so not to close it. We assumed he meant not to lock it. But no, He really meant not to close it.

I had just finished brushing my teeth and was ready to crawl into bed. The girls were all asleep on the 2nd floor. I hear a slight knock and a quiet, “Mrs. LeCraw?” Years of parenting instincts tell me this cannot be good.

Harrison, Murphy, and Cole had shut their door to change for bed. They could not get out. We could not get in. We had closed the door.

With no tools accessible except a piece of rebar, we worked for over an hour to remove the knob. “How many ?? does it take to change a light bulb?” kept ringing in my head. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion I let George have his way. One quick kick and that baby was open. Naturally Drew was filming the whole episode so expect to see it at future wedding rehearsals and reunions. No need to say that we all fell quickly asleep.

Today was much better. We slept in and at 11 headed to the Equator where everyone got their first dose of cheap goodies and photo ops. We had an excellent lunch with an appetizer of cuy (guinea pig) which all newcomers had to try. Then we took a tour of the school where we will be working all week. The contrast of the small, ill-equipped classrooms to ours at Whitefield was a bit of a wake-up call for the new team members.

We rounded out our day with a yummy dinner of chicken breast, au gratin potatoes, and apple meringue cake. Pity’s aunt prepared dinner and it settled well. After dinner Mrs. Tolford briefed us on our teaching activities for tomorrow and we began our Bible study of James by having our drama members read it aloud.

How can you pray for us?

Read James Chapter 1 along with us and pray that the students are convicted by the exhortations.

Safety as we travel back and forth.

Continued good health. (Jimmy came here with infected tonsils and is running on low energy. Pray that the antibiotics he is on will clear it up.)

Pray that our students will be creative tomorrow as they play teacher. I sense they are a little anxious about whether they can be in a classroom for more than 55 minutes at a time, especially since they will be standing up front. One of the ways a missions trip brings us closer to God is it puts us out of our comfort zone and causes us to rely on him. This is “out of the zone” for your children.

Wisdom for Jackie Tolford and me. This is an incredible group but they are teenagers. (Thanks for trusting us with them.)


Jan LeCraw ( Mama Llama)