Thanksgiving

Well I have now had my first Thanksgiving away from home. On Thursday I had simply a regular work day, and honestly it was kind of weird. I thankfully got to talk to my family though and also got a wonderful package from my amazing friends to brighten my day! And I did have my first grade boys make Turkey hands...just like I did back in about first grade.

Today (Sunday) we had a delicious, all-American Thanksgiving meal though! Madre Cindy made it all...she refused to have any help. She is a great cook and really made an awesome meal. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes (kind of), cranberries, etc. Also pumpkin pie and apple pie with ice cream! Yum! There were other Americans (basically former volunteers who live in Quito) here as well for the festivities. Unfortunately no football and tv specials though...but I am currently watching Love Actually for the second time in 2 days!

Being Thanksgiving, it also got me thinking of all the things I'm thankful for. I really do have a pretty good life. I am so thankful for all of you, my family and friends. You guys are the ones who are sending me emails and notes, listening to me in the hard times, and always there to brighten my spirits. I am also so thankful for people here in Quito. I have definitely been challenged in the last couple months, but also been able to experience such genuine love and an opportunity to understand different ways of life. I know that this month will definitely be hard at times, but I am thankful for a such a huge, loving God that I know will provide me ways to keep my head and positive!

On another note, my soccer team, LIGA, is about to win the South American Cup on Wednesday. They played their first leg here in Quito on Wednesday and won 5-1 making it nearly impossible to lose in Rio de Janiero on Wednesday. Woo hoo. It was awesome as someone at the Center gave me a ticket to the game, because they knew I loved going to the games so much, and I got to experience the hysteria and fun! It was amazing!

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving (a little late)!
Taylor

Fun Times

Sorry this is going to be just another one of those scattered update blogs. I've had a bunch of fun events lately, but they are really necessarily related...

1 - I did a reading program with my school-age girls for the past month where they would get points for reading, more points for reading with a voluteer, and also points for finishing a book. Well they had an incentive of a field trip if they reached 50 points. So last week almost all the girls got to 50 points (or close), so Adam (the other group leader) and I decided to take them on their field trip. We got permission slips filled out and everything of our 10 girls, but then on Sunday only 4 showed up. We decided to take those 4 girls to the TeleferiQo, which is a tram that took us up to the top of one of the mountains where we could see all of Quito. It was a cool experience, but we had to wait SO long to get on - seriously these girls were so patient though. It was cute to get spend time outside of class with them and just love on these 4 girls.

2 - Also last weekend I went over to Doctor Elizabeth's house, who is the director of special ed and the psychologist at the Center. She had all of the volunteers who work in special ed (6 of us) over to her really nice house. Also her two kids who are close to our age, 17 and 25, were hanging out with us too. We were all just laughing the whole time and having fun all together. Also, there was a ridiculous amount of meat - she FILLED the grill up with sausages, pork tenderloin, hot dogs, and some other long sausage thing...it was a lot! It was good though.

3 - Final big event from this last week was the semifinal South American Cup soccer match that Liga (my team!) played in on Thursday evening. Liga lost the first game in Uruguay to this team, but they always play home and away with aggregate scoring. Well, needless to say they wanted revenge. We won 7-0!!! It was amazing. None of the other volunteers could go, so I was planning on meeting up with Doctora Elizabeth's kids but I got there just in time (and there aren't assigned seats) so I couldn't get a hold of them. Also basically the cell phone companies just get so backed up that I didn't get any of their message and they didn't get any of mine until 40 minutes after the game was over. It was okay though, my first sports event "alone," but with so many goals I was friends with the guys around me by the end of the game! I am super excited for the Finals on Wednesday now!

Well I can't believe it is nearly the end of November already...time flies. I am excited for Brennan now to be coming in just a little over a month! I can't believe it. Hope you all have a lovely fall weekend! Love, Taylor

limiting oneself

"Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve." (The Shack)

I have recently been reading The Shack again as it really makes me think a lot, and it puts the description of the trinity in such an accessible way. I so often barely even distinguish between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but reading this book has allowed me to think of the roles of each while also in perfect unity as One. Of course, it still confuses me quite a bit, but I love to think about it especially the mystery of the Holy Spirit always with us.

Well, anyway this one quote (or actually entire passage on page 106) really stuck out to me about limiting oneself in relationships. The passage is concerning Mack, the main character, talking to God and the Holy Spirit about his family, but questioning why he needs to tell them, as he of course knows that God and the Holy Spirit are already all-knowing. The Holy Spirit responds, "Remember that choosing to stay on the ground is a choice to facilitate a relationship; to honor it. Mackenzie, you do this yourself. You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitation and honor that relationship. You will even lose a competition to accomplish love. It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect." I really do believe this is true about God, which is why I pray and know that He listens even if He already knows.

Also, this stuck out to me a lot based on my work. I work with children all day, everyday and often times try to see life in their shoes in order to better connect. Specifically I think about reading with my two teenage boys who are just learning how to read. When reading today, we all took turns reading and then I also asked comprehension questions and expounding on the story. They know that when I ask them questions that I already know the answers to it is not to make fun of them or to prove I'm better, but for them to learn and because I want to know what they are thinking. I am not sure that I am able to communicate this very well exactly, but I do know that I want to be able to limit myself, or put others' first, in all relationships. I think that to be a true servant and loving daughter of God, I need to step back and make sure that I am not trying to gain power through my actions but rather respecting and honoring my relationships through service. I definitely need to rely more on God for such actions to happen, but I pray that I can move more in this direction.

The Shack explains all of this a lot better than me, but it definitely got me thinking a bit. I'd recommend reading it or rereading it if you've got the time.

Dios les bendiga, amigos!

Love,

Taylor

Halloween Fun!

Hello!

Sorry for the slow update time...my computer is once again out of commission.

Last weekend was Halloween! Big deal in the States, especially Madison of course, but not as much here. People know what it is and everything, but it's not like people are trick or treating and carving pumpkins. Well, considering we are 13 American volunteers here at the Center (and love any excuse for a party!) we planned fun activities for the kids. During girls program, we had lots of fun dancing, face painting, playing musical chairs, and decorating the bat cookies. In the picture you can see some of the cute little kitties.

I started off the day dressed up as a soccer play (super creative), but then during girls program some of my high school students came up with their faces painted and convinced me to go with them down to the beauty salon where some of my other high school students painted my face! It was kind of creepy looking on me, but they did a good job so I kept it on for the party with the high school girls - and then because I was busy the whole rest of the day, my face was painted all the way traveling to Banos and even when I went out dancing there for the night!

So beyond all the Halloween celebrations, this past weekend was a long weekend for us as it was the Day of the Dead and then the celebration of the foundation of Cuenca. Therefore, I had a fun traveling adventure. I started off going to Banos with 3 German guys where we danced until 4am, and then road bikes Saturday to the Pailon del Diablo again (I was there a couple weeks ago with other volunteers), but this time we got soaked! Then we went to Rio Bamba in order to catch a bus to Cuenca for the festivals. Well, the last buses were full on Saturday night, so we ended up spending the whole night in a dark, and honestly a bit scary, bus terminal. Praise God we stayed safe and made it out on the 5:30am bus to Cuenca.

In Cuenca, I met up with 4 other volunteers, Cinthya, Adam, Jessica, and Lauren, for the rest of the weekend. We enjoyed hiking in the national park (Cajas) for the day, and also being part of some of festivities and just exploring the town. The best part was dancing along to this crazy, relatively unorganized show in the main plaza in celebration of the city. We even got sprinkled with these makeshift fireworks that shot out right at the crowd. We all were laughing so hard and grabbing onto to whoever was around us to duck. Oh, Ecuador!

On a final note, it is sad how much I miss football and am definitely still following all the Brett Favre news. How crazy! Don't worry you all though, I'm still rooting for the Packers! As an alternative, I have been able to go to 3 Liga soccer games now, which have been fun! Tonight I got home from La Marin (downtown) at 8:55pm and quickly put on jeans and ran over to the stadium for the game with Jess. We had a blast and Liga won so they are in the semifinals for the South American Cup! We sat with La Muerte Blanca (the craziest fans), so it kind of has a college atmosphere and people are standing and chanting the whole game. It was a fun 2-1 victory! Sorry about the very scattered blog, but I'm tired and just wanted to put up a quick update! Life is good though and I am really enjoying what I'm doing.

Much love,
Taylor