Easter Sunrise Service

Early Easter morning El Refugio hosted a sunrise service. What a glorious way to celebrate Christ, our risen savior. We ended the service with the hymn, "And Can it Be?"

And can it be that I should gain,
an interest in my Savior's blood?
Died he for me, who caused his pain
For me, who him to death pursue.
Amazing love, how can it be
That thou my God shouldst die for me?
Amazing love, how can it be
That thou my Lord shouldst die for me.

Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Do you ever feel like this?

Baby Anchor

Literally, there are many days I feel much like the picture above. You would think after living at 10,000 ft. for over two years, there would be a certain degree of acclimatization. Yet my heart still races after walking up our driveway. This is also one of the leading "excuses" for any ailment or tiredness here in Quito, we just say "Oh it 's the altitude". Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. All I know is it is Saturday afternoon. I have reports to file, schedules to figure out and a newsletter to write and you guessed it all I want to do is take a long afternoon nap.

El Refugio was closed over the holidays to give all our workers their vacation time off. This allowed time for our family to travel around Quito with Kevin, Jay and Nicole. As many of you know, Kevin is a photography major at BIOLA University. While he was here, in under 3 weeks he shot over 1000 pictures. Here is a picture of what Kevin was taking pictures of...

The Basilica del Voto Nacional, is an imposing church, neo-Gothic in style, with gargoyles representing the national fauna. It is built on a high spot in the city center. It was started at the end of the 19th century and is yet to be finished. Typically, we take visitors to tour the Basilica simply because it is such a beautiful cathedral.

Contrasting the old with the new. Bridget was not able to visit for the holidays. On December 24th she delivered our first grandchild, a boy named Anchor Viviano. Over Valentine's Day weekend, Anchor's dad, Viviano Aguilar asked Bridget to marry him and we are pleased to announce she said yes! They are planning a fall wedding.

As you can imagine, we are really looking forward to meeting this little guy :)

Extreme Response

Hacienda El Refugio hosted a Christmas Party for Extreme Response for the first time this year. Extreme Response has been involved in celebrating Christmas with over 13,000 in Ecuador, South Africa and Philippines. Our party consisted of 450 of those 13,000, people who came from all the surrounding barrios near the training center. For over three hours, young and old alike were able to simply have fun. They played games, had a picture taken with Santa Claus and just enjoyed themselves. Each of the children were given a navidad, which consisted of a small toy and candy. All were fed lunch and after the event, our team was able to hand out food bags to 50 of the families in the most need. For our team the highlight was to shake hands and greet those from the barrio, who at most times we see only from a distance.

Feliz Navidad y Feliz Ano Nuevo

We hosted a Christmas party celebration for the workers here at El Refugio. One thing we learned was that not many Ecuadorians have their pictures taken. Danielle took each of the workers and their families pictures when they arrived, and then while they were eating she printed copies of the pictures and put them in frames; the workers were thrilled.
As with many of you our workers have seen both blessing and tragedy this past year. From left to right of the panorama: Don Victor is our eldest worker at 78 and is really such a steady presence. Next is Enrique and his wife Alicia with two of their nieces. Alicia is waiting for a kidney transplant and travels in each week for kidney dialysis. The money has been donated for the transplant procedure, and they now are waiting for a kidney donor. The next family picture is Holgar, our head worker, and his wife Angelica, our head cook, with their twin boys Vladimir and Kenard. They are expecting a baby girl around the first week of February. Holgar and Angelica both have been very instrumental in working with Howard and I on our Spanish. Pedro is next in the picture lineup. This last year saw tragedy for him as one of his granddaughters died of cancer at the age of 5. We bought a tree as a memorial to her and planted it on the property; we see him there each day paying his respects. Finally, there is Andres and Marlena with their new baby girl Katerine, who was born mid November, along with Marlena's mom Panchita, who is visiting from Peru. This baby girl will be exposed to four languages through her family: Spanish, Kofan, Quinchua and English. I have written frequently about this dear family; you remember Andres is our guard and Marlena is a cook with Angelica.
All the men work with Howard on the operations side of El Refugio and I work with Angelica and Marlena. My proudest moment this last year was seeing both the women receive contracts that allowed for them to be blessed with three months off, with pay, after their babies are born.
These are the people Howard and I work with on a day to day basis. We thought you would enjoy seeing pictures of them and their families and learn a little bit about their lives.
We pray you had a blessed Christmas and our prayers are for a New Year filled with hope.