Back to the future...

In February, 2001, this big 10-meter dish was put up on the campus of HCJB World Radio in Quito. It was used to receive programming directly from the U.S. via satellite, thus eliminating the shipping costs for CDs. The dish hasn't been used for a couple of years because we have stopped English language broadcasts from the region.

The dish was sold to a Christian radio station in Manta so they would be able to downlink programing for their ministries there.

They used a crane to take the dish off of its' tower and spent the next day disassembling the dish. That evening they were able to place the components on a truck to take it to Manta.

It is exciting to see that something which we no longer had a use for can be used by another Christian organization to further God's work.

Of course, the added bonus is that I now have a better view from my office. Instead of looking at the bottom of the dish, I can now see more blue sky...at least when the sun is shining!

A treat!

Several of our employees enrolled in a culinary course on pasteleria. At the Second Coffee this month, the participants in the course permitted us to test the skills that they had been learning over the past few months.

It was a delight to try out the four main food groups, breads, vegetables, dairy products, and meat. Fortunately, each was cleverly disguised as something we normally associate with fattening.

Each of the bocaditos (small treats) was very tasty and I was encouraging them to take a second course, or better yet, just let us taste the results again!

Going, Going, Gone.

The changes continue to take place at HCJB in Quito. What used to be the old autoshop was torn down to make room for a new....basketball hoop. :-) Well, that's not the real reason. I suspect it had more to do with the shop always being used as a storeroom to put things in when we didn't have room in the offices!

The roofing material will be used by a church at the coast which hasn't had a church building since the floods a couple years back.

A small group of people came onsite and spent a couple weeks dismantling the roof so that it could be placed on to trucks and driven to its' new home.

It is so neat to see how when we are finished using something, God allows us to share it with others so that His name can be glorified!

Dress-up time

Here are Joel and Joshua doing the dress-up thing. Joel is the policeman (or as he sometimes will say, "Oficial"). I think he got this from watching a couple of episodes of CHiPs (for those of you who are from the newer generations, this was a TV show from the 70's about the California Highway Patrol but dealt mainly with two characters who were in the motorbike division).

Joshua is getting much more interesting in building things. Although, he does have very varied interests. If I had to decide which he liked more, tools and building things or bugs and insects, I'd probably have to go with bugs and insects. But we try not to allow him to bring too many into the house!

A good place to eat in Baños

If you are ever in Baños and looking to have lunch in a classy yet quiet dining-room atmosphere, you need to visit El Castillo. It doesn't look like too much from the outside, but inside it feels like a dining room. The food was excellent with four courses, a salad, soup, main course and dessert. And the price? Well, at $3, the price was every bit as good as the food.

It appeared to be quite popular with a number of regulars coming in to eat. I highly recommend it.

A little visitor

While we were in Shell, we had a small visitor in the house one night. Fortunately, it was after the boys had gone to bed or we would have heard pleas to keep it as a pet.

Joshua loves to pick up and play with all types of insects and bugs. What do they call that? (Besides being a boy that is.)
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In Shell for a couple of weeks

Wow, I hadn't realized that it had been so long since I posted something here. I guess I need to check my own blog more frequently!

We are in Shell for a couple of weeks to provide technical support to the hospital here until we can train our new employee in all that he needs to know to provide the support here in Hospital Vozandes del Oriente.

So far it's been fairly quiet, probably because not many people know I am here. That will probably change though.

The good part is that Marlene, Joshua & Joel could come with me as there is a nice house here at the hospital which we could use for the time we are here.

Joshua & Joel are quite excited about being here. It is something different for them and they do like doing and seeing new things.

We'll be going back to Quito July 3.