what to do with the time that is given us?

        In my opinion;the greates tragedy of life is that life carries on. It doesn’t stop when something terrible happens. You want the world to stop turning but it doesn’t. During my time here so far I have seen terrible poverty, abuse and suffering. I have seen things which I never thought I'd witness. In spite of what has happened I am still alive and carrying on. Now I'm ill and am trying to get better and recover. I have no time to brood over what I've seen and experienced. I know that time will pass and life will return to normal. Will I be the same? Can I be the same? 

  I'm reading one of my favourite books at the moment "Lord of the Rings" and this quote has helped me:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time" 

"So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

   I have seen mental and physical pain. I am sick and I feel tired, upset, scared and depressed. So what am I going to do? 

  Part of me desperately wants to come back to the UK for a few weeks to recover. Part of me thinks I should stay here. I don't know yet what I will do but I do know this; whatever happens I will rely on God. I will use what time I have here to carry on working and try to show Gods' love.

Homesick and ill but never alone

I'm  writing this from "next door". My host family have gone away for a few days so I'm home alone. I'm getting better so I can manage but still; it's lonely and difficult to be alone when you're not well and so far from home. I've been here nearly 7 months now and yesterday was the first time I was homesick.

  I'm ill, alone ad homesick and I never thought I'd get this sick while away!

  But you know what? I am incredibly lucky! Nearly every day my family text, ring or email me to see if I'm ok. My mission partner comes round every day to see how I'm doing. My friend Amy visits every day and brings me bags of "goodies". Knowing my host family are away, the mission partners next door invited me over for lunch today.

  I'd love to be back in the UK right now (anyone with £800 spare please feel free to donate!) but since I am "stuck" here I am very fortunate in my friends, family and fellow missionaries. I am surrounded by love and I know that all this is just a weak reflection of God's amazing love!

am proper poorly

I have had a rotten week. Various bad things and to top it all off I've been feeling really ill. Finally went to the doctor yesterday and she gave me some painkillers and sent me for some blood tests because I have a fever. Got my results today and....I have had Dengue fever and I now have......Typhoid!!!


   I didn't think people still got Typhoid nowadays! I have to say I felt so ill yesterday I can easily believe people died, thank God for painkillers, they are a life-saver. The drugs are pretty strong so I'm now in a happy trance but at least I'm not in pain and shivering with fever :)


   I've been officially declared infectious so need my own separate cup and plate, can't go out and can't be hugged-miserable!

How do you move on from pain?

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold."
                                                                                 Tolkien

I didn't even know motorbike pick-up trucks existed!

Hello, How are you all? I've had a good week. I've been able to some one-to-one therapy this week with a few children from the school. Did some playing with water with Jonas. Officially it was to improve his co-ordination but  in reality it was really fun!

  A slight change in routine this week when on Tuesday I found myself spending the afternoon giving a 3 hour English class to a teenager and then a French introduction class to a local friend. Tuesday was certainly multilingual!

  I also got to go back to Laura Flores this week and do some women's work. I participated in a Bible study. Most of the women had obviously never used a Bible before and I spent quite a bit of time finding the right pages for them and explaining how to find a verse. Quite a new experience for me! A fair few of the ladies can't read and write very well at all and asked me for help!!! Me with my basic Spanish?! It was such a pleasure though to be able to help, encourage them and struggle along with them. Afterwards I did a few massage treatments to some of the women. I really hope I can carry on this work!

Amy and I went out for the day today. We both wanted to get out of Santo for a few hours and fancied a hike. We picked out a national park in Puerto Quito. We got the bus to P Quito easily enough and spent the trip up there day dreaming about long walks in lush forests. We were met by a small but friendly town who happily redirected us to Puerto Rico where they had a park and many waterfalls. A lovely man on the bus allowed me to sit on his bucket (no seats left) and directed us to our stop. Puerto Rico is a small town, in fact it's one street! We got a camion ride up to the park. I say camion but..it was a pick up trailer thing attached to a motorbike. One pretty but long trip in a bike pick up truck we arrived and paid our entrance fee. Gearing ourselves up for a brisk ramble we were met by a rather bossy man who sent us off to a hut to strip off and change!!!

  We politely protested that we didn't want to change but he insisted. We couldn't see the waterfall unless we wore a swimming costume and a life jacket!!!!!!!!! Amy decided we must taking a boat trip to the park and I reckoned we must walk near the waterfall and this was our protection. Can you guess who was right? ;) 5 minutes later we edged out of the hut looking like right idiots in swimming costumes, life jackets and trainers. 

 The man pointed to a stone, very steep, slippy and dangerous stairway. We got to the bottom and there was the waterfall. No nature walk, no boat just a waterfall. We swam in the water (in our life jackets) then got out again and that was it. There is apparently nothing else to do in Puerto Rico in spite of their 10ft sign calling themselves Ecuadors' paradise. I don't know why we were surprised-how long will it take before we learn that nothing in Ecuador EVER goes according to plan? We still had a good day though.