La Vida Loca

Hello friends, family and curious fans of Ricky Martin, this is Maribeth reporting after the first official month in Ecuador. How time flies when you are having fun :)

After my very blogger-ish entry last week, I feel I should give you a better look at what I have been up to in daily life. Let´s see...we arrived at the Santuario here in Olón three weeks ago now and have every day learning more and more about the work that the foundation does and the needs of the surrounding pueblos. We have gone with a missionary a few times to visit the sick in the two pueblos closest to us, on of which we have adopted as our brother in Christ. Dear Marciano is a man in his late seventies who lives alone, has been blind for the last two years and his wife and children died many years ago. Despite his complete physical aloneness, the words of prayer that come forth from this man are unexpressibly beautiful and are enough to bring even a tough bird like myself to tears. We have gone back to visit him on our own and now plan to do so every week. He is no longer alone, for now he has Christ and two gringas for family.

We have also been given a pueblo, located on the coast (quite literally...we walk the beach to get to them) as our own mission pueblo. Little Rinconada is so precious, we have visited them twice, yesterday on our own for the first time, and intend to spend every Saturday with them, Mariya going with a doctor every Thursday as well to bring them medical care. For this weekly hike we have really cool boots (past missionaries to Ecuador, you know of what I speak) and I´ll admit, I like my boots and feel pretty fuerte (strong) in them...joy in the small things :) Also, this last time in Riconada, we met 7 guys from a local university who were doing research out that way. We hiked back with them, ate pie and they came for Mass today. Now we have 7 more brothers and friends...the little gifts of joy are the best.

Finally, I have begun work with some of the social workers in the foundation. The foundation has an office in La Libertad, which is 1.5 to 2 hours from here and to where I will now go there regularly with another missionary social worker Mon. thru Thurs. to do house visits and learn and participate in the work that they do there. So exciting. Soy trabajadora social, oficially! (I´m a social worker).

So yes, that is the obra (work) for now. And in a month, this is some of what we have learned:
* We are learning to rise with the missionaries (and our beloved siren that functions as a ¨bell¨ to tell us when to do things) at 4:30am every weekday morning
*how to wash clothes by hand (really cool actually, gets things cleaner than you´d think) but only when the sun (dryer) is out
*learning all about helpful and not so helpful insects and how fleas can be the huespedes (¨guests¨, as it was explained to us) of both dogs and gringas (us)
*that you want salamanders in your room to eat the bugs
*how to pronounce things in Spanish and how messing up can be really funny
*that rubber boots are cool
*how every moment can be a time to learn something new about yourself, about the people you serve and about the Lord.
*mud is slippery
*to carry toilet paper in your back pocket always
And finally - to speak simply but love immensely with everything you have.

So that is our vida loca. We love it, we laugh a lot (mostly at ourselves) and are excited to learn more. So many times I am still quite lost in translation, but as we have come to say ¨hey, it´s the vida!¨ Please continue to pray for us as we are most certainly praying for you. Also, keep the intentions coming, it livens up the interceding to have specific things :) Much love as always, it is my hope that you are all doing well in your own little ¨missions¨ of life, and I´ll be back again next week to give you further updates on my little vida. (Also, will do pictures next week when we are in Quito and have more internet time). Dios les bendiga, see you on the flip side...