These past few days have been incredible. We traveled to our Ecuadorian family's church, which is also a Compassion International site. We spent Thursday and Friday serving food to the kids and playing games with them. It was so neat to see the Compassion ministry from this side. In the U.S. we see it from the sponsorship end, but here, we have been able to meet the kids face-to-face. The kids who are sponsored by Compassion receive food, some schooling, and Bible teaching. One of the coolest parts was seeing all 200 of them pray out loud together before their meal. When asking about the program, we learned that what the kids valued the most out of the sponsorship program is receiving letters from their sponsors. One Ecuadorian mother cried when she said that only one of her two sponsored children receives regular letters.

While at Compassion, one of the activities that we provided was dropping kids off of the four-story Compassion building. :) With a rope, of course! I guess that you can call it "rappelling" them off. They loved it.

On Thursday evening, the Ecuadorian family that has been with us all week, invited us to eat dinner in their home. It was a small, four-room home, but filled with a bunch of love! The mother cooked us quite a spread and even surprised us with a chocolate cake for Claire Tippens' birthday! It was one of the most humbling experiences of our trip, as a family with so little, opened up their home to us with such generosity.

On Friday evening, we left the children behind and went to a couples Bible study that the church does regularly. It was an interesting experience, seeing two cultures come together to express their feelings and suggestions for what makes a Biblical marriage work.

Saturday morning opened with the kids leaving the parents behind to attend the regular teenage Bible study held at the church. The kids were able to share how God has been opening their eyes this week and what they have been learning. It was neat that our kids had the opportunity to participate in this.

Before coming back to El Refugio on Saturday evening, we were able to see the historic downtown of Quito. Evident from its incredibly ornate cathedrals built hundreds of years ago, traditional Catholicism has been a large part of the city's history.

After returning to the camp, we had dinner and a quick debriefing before hitting the showers and then on to bed!