More pictures

The Andes somewhere between Quito and Cuenca

                                            Telephone witnessing in Otavalo.

                      Indigenous people washing clothes in the river.

                                         Ecuadorian favorite, Qui, or guinea pig

                                               Downtown Cuenca Center at night.

                                             Field Service in Cuenca.

                                           Pioneer meeting.

Quito to Cuenca

Hola Amigos! We have made it to Cuenca and love this place. We also enjoyed the week we spent with the English group up North in Atutaqui. This group has about 20 publishers, but meets with a much larger Spanish congregation for now. I think in the next year they may become a congregation. One couple we met moved there 3 months ago from North Dakota. The sister already has 11 bible studies and 6 more she is trying to develop. One of the families we stayed with were the Newmans. They have been there for 6 years now and are a great example of relying on Jehovah. They were so helpful to us. We called them from Quito to introduce ourselves and let them know we were coming that way for a few days and wanted to find out about meeting/service times. They insisted that we stay with them, and even picked us up in the pouring rain at the busstop (yes, it did rain). They also have two days that they do telephone witnessing there. They basically have the phone book for each little city, start at the beginning and call every number, saying that they are taking a census looking for English speaking people. It has been quite successful and saves a lot of bus rides. We probably would've stayed a little longer with this group, but we wanted to be in Cuenca for the CO's visit. So on Thursday we hopped on a Bus and stopped halfway to Cuenca in Riobamba. This town has an English group as well. The city sits between a mountain and an active volcano that is constantly spewing ash. We stayed with a lovely Ecuadorian family that are all learning English to help the group. In this group, they were told to stop canvasing the city for English speaking and cultivate the 500, yes 500, people they have already found. They also have an assembly hall there. We were able to go there on Friday and help the caretakers, Cindy and Harold do some maintenance on the facility. Saturday we hopped on another bus to finish our journey to Cuenca. 5 hours later, thru some of the most stunning scenery, we arrived. An Elder and his wife picked us up and took us to a brothers bed and breakfast. We have been here since Saturday. Tomorrow we will be moving to an apartment owned by a sister. Cuenca is a little bigger than Cincinnati, but without hi-rises. 4 rivers run thru the city and unlike the other cities we've seen has lots of big trees. We take taxis or walk everywhere. Today was our first day in service here. The CO is visiting. We met at the hall at 8:45 and spent the morning trying to return on people that have already been found. The sister and I walked an hour before we found the first call, but we found him home. He was a young college student and spoke excellent english. We covered the first question in the truth tract and arranged to come back in 2 weeks after his exams were over. Then we work territory and found an older woman who good english as well. She took the tract, asked for my phone number and promised to call me when she got back from her vacation. So in two hours I had 2 return visits with very good potential for turning into bible studies. They also had the pioneer meeting this evening. They have 15 regular pioneers here. So with those plus the auxiliary pioneers and our family we barely fit in the living room of the sisters house. We even used the steps to sit on because she didn't have enough chairs! So we are having a great time here. I've rambled on enough for now. Promise to make them a little shorter, some things will just have to wait until I have to get home. Enjoy!