Estados Unidos

Last Thursday, Danielle and I headed back to the states to attend Nicole's graduation from Cal Poly San Luis. Howard and Jonathan stayed put, as the camp is moving into the busy season. We had a wonderful time at graduation and were so proud to be there when Nicole received her Bachelor of Science degree.
Danielle is now at "Kickback", an after school is out camp, the youth group attend each year on the the Kern River. Kevin and I helped Nicole pack up her house and prepare to move to Tollhouse, California.

My mom is scheduled to have back surgery on the 28th at Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, so I'll head over there and lend moral support to my parents.

Finally, I hope to help Bridget move into an apartment and get settled before we head back to Ecuador. Lots to do before we fly back home.

Really, we haven't been gone long enough for there to be "cultural" issues. My main luxury is to have the freedom to move about without the concern for sticking out. Wait, I take that back, I am in total Shock about the price of gas, I cannot believe people aren't screaming.

I've heard from several of you and enjoy your words of response.

Remember, God is our only Refuge.

Scholl Family Newsletter

Scholl Family Newsletter
June 2007
Serving God in Calacali, Ecuador
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalms 46:1


Honeymoon

May 26th marked our three month anniversary here in Ecuador. Many of you have traveled with us each week as we acclimated to life in another country. This is a good time for us to evaluate how we are doing and what changes should be made. When I started writing the weekly update some of you cautioned, as we became busier in ministry it might prove to be a challenge to maintain a weekly update and you were right. I (Mary) also became conflicted at “dropping in” on your emails each week. The solution we have found is to develop a blog site where I can still journal and you can access the entries at your own convenience. You can access our blog at http://www.howardschollfamily.blogspot.com/

Language Acquisition

Howard y Daniel Narvaez D

Danielle y Doris Balseca

Mary y Doris

We finished three months of Spanish with our two instructors Daniel and Doris. The decision was made to take a break for the summer. There were two reasons for this, the necessity to put the groups first that would be here this summer. And the second, Howard and I needed some time to assimilate what we had learned before we could move ahead in our learning. So, we take a break, speaking only in the present tense (Danielle not included), however feeling a bit more confident we are going to learn to speak Spanish.

Spanish is really an orderly language. However, there are some frustrations. For example, you learn verbs such as memorizer, dividir, and practicar which are easily understood to memorize, divide and practice. So you think to yourself, “Spanish is easy!” Then you run into a verb like manejar, huh? Yes, manejar it means “to drive”. To drive are you kidding me? Why not drivider? Or my favorite verb to forget, olvidar which means, “to forget”. The basic thing I have had to learn is when the verbs are easy, bonus, however more times than not they will have to be learned with some word association. For example, “to share” is compartir. In my mind I visualize compartments and those have to be “shared”. Please understand though this requires a lot more hard drive than remains on my brain! Pray for us as we practice over the summer and become more fluent.

Newlyweds

Marlene y Andres

Andres is one of the Cofan guard here on the property. Marlene is his new bride from Peru. They are the ones Danielle made the photo album for. Andres is studying to be a pastor and Marlene has a degree in linguistics from a university in Peru. Pray for them as they settle Marlene’s VISA issues. When they are not working here at El Refugio, they are busy working on translating the Psalms for the Cofan Indians.

The Cevallos Family

Courtney, Lillie, Marlie, Juan Carlos

An update on the Cevallos family, Juan Carlos gave a report at a recent team meeting and only expressed gratitude for how everything has worked out. Juan Carlos is one of our program director here at the camp. He has been very influential in bringing our two Ecuadorian facilitators to live here at the camp. He also works very closely with the Ecuadorian facilitators who come and help out with the various day camps.

Hacienda El Refugio

The camp continues to be very busy. In one week we had four different day groups. As always the variety of the groups is what, I believe allows the camp to be most effective. For example, we had a group of businessman, kids from a Korean school, a scouting group and finally a group processing through grief.

To top that off we head into our busy season with work groups coming from the states that will be staying here on the property, plus eleven different Quito Quest groups who each spend a day at HER. This translates to Howard being very busy making sure everything is up and running and supplies are ready for each of the work projects planned. As always we completely recognize we are serving at HER, because of you our friends and family who support us in various ways.
I will close with Paul’s words from Ephesians, “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel” 6:19 NIV.

As God is our Refuge, Mary for the Scholl Family
Contact info–schollseven@gmail.com (we need your email address)
Support info – http://iteams.org/ Click on the Give link
Designate for the ministry of Howard and Mary Scholl
Blogspot – http://www.howardschollfamily.blogspot.com/

Website – http://www.youthworld.org.ec/ Click on the El Refugio link

Bienvenido!

Welcome to the Scholl Family blog spot. Our current generation will surely be known for how well they communicated and shared information. Just the fact you are accessing this blog illustrates how up to date you have become in the accessing of information. Thank You for taking the time and showing interest in what the Lord is doing through our lives at Hacienda El Refugio or better known as HER.

As many of you know, we have changed from sending out a weekly email to allowing you to access our journal entries at your own convenience. One of the exciting things about this is you will be able to hear not only from Mary but from the rest of the family as well. Plus there will be the new addition of pictures to share.

Again we thank you for sharing this journey with our family.

As God is our Refuge, Mary for the Scholl Family