Rain, Hail, Thunder, Lightening...Party!!

Christmas Party at Pan De Vida in the rain!

This morning began, as every morning, with a time of worship and devotional with the entire Extreme Response team. Russ Cline (one of the founders of Extreme Response and one of our RDFC Faith Promise missionaries) challenged us to be willing to listen to God. All God asks of us is to listen to His voice, then do what He says. An excellent reminder as we continue our week. As we mentioned yesterday, the entire Extreme Response team is broken up into four teams. Our devotional time was followed by some friendly team competition that we dominated, as math was involved in one and Aaron came in second and the other was a Spanish test in which Luis was our secret weapon to come in first!

Our team was then assigned to help finish the preparations for the christmas parties. We finished making gift bags, helped prep craft materials, unloaded large amounts of food, and helped in lots of other little ways. Although some of the jobs were a little tedious, it was a blessing to get to sit and talk with our new friends, hear about what brought them to Ecuador and get to know them better. A little friendly competition never hurts either to get the job done faster... Team Mandi/Noah are tied with Team Aaron/Megan after a few rounds of craft-assembling. Don’t worry, the competition isn’t over yet! There will be a victor by the end of the trip!

Team Mandi/Noah (prepping crafts) vs. Team Aaron/Megan (hosting a game at the party)

This afternoon we got to be a part of our first Christmas party (1st of 5 this week)! The party was at Pan de Vida. Pan de Vida is a Christian organization that reaches out to the poor that live on the streets of Quito. They specifically target those families that make their living selling goods on street corners and outside of business. They provide childcare during the day so that kids don’t have to sit at intersections with their parents, provide 2 full meals a week, have a number of church services, educational classes for adults, and much more. It is an amazing organization. 

The Christmas party started overcast, as it had been all day. Each Christmas party includes games, crafts, face painting, an opportunity for kids to take a picture with Papa Noel (Santa Claus), a short time of worship and sharing of the gospel, and the giving out of gift bags to kids and bags of food for adults. Today, Steve served in the kitchen preparing food and washing dishes, while the rest of us helped at the games. It was so fun to interact with the kids..and the adults. They had so much fun playing the games! Even when it started raining...then hailing...then thunder and lightening...We party on no matter the weather and so do the kids and adults! It was definitely an adventure but we all agreed it was so worth being quite wet and a little cold. Although we are going to go a little more prepared tomorrow :). Overall, there were 422 people that attended the party and 27 people accepted Christ at the end. Praise the Lord! 

Steve in the kitchen at Pan de Vida and Luis pumping up the crowd before the party!

We ended our day with good bowls of hot chili and corn bread and then headed back to our dorm for wonderful warm showers. We are so grateful for the support that we have received from you back home. We feel your prayers, see your activity on our blog and so much more. In talking to people from the other churches, they are amazed when we tell them the amount of support we have from home. Thank you so much for sending us and being part of our team from home! 

P.S. It's raining and we like it. And each other. Obviously.