Well our trip is over and the team should be in the air somewhere over Ecuador headed home. We have been talking about what God wants us to do with what we have learned this week. Learned about ourselves and Gods' extravagant love for children on the margins. We have seen great joy in kids living in poverty; we have seen the lack of hope on the face of Lourdes, a 25 year old mother with both legs and one arm amputated. She does not claim to be Chiristian but would like to go to church. But how do you get there when you have no wheelchair and if you did you would need to traverse a dirt hill with an extremely steep grade?

Some of us have learned that we have the gift of leadership and we have a responsibility to do it. With excellence and right where we are because there are no secular jobs. Some of us have the gift of compassion and I would argue that we must love wastefully. Wastefully? Yes. A love that is not conditioned upon the response. A love that is not contained by socail, religious or ethnic structures. A love that thanks God not only for the food on our plate but for those who grew it, transported it, cooked it, served it and made the plate it sits on. After all, with his dying breath Jesus offered salvation to a thief who had zero opportunity for spiritual growth. And that might seem wasteful but was extravagant and unconditional.

And now on to Peru.

- Rick

We were in the village of "La Comuna" today. Unlike in the United States, the higher the land the poorer the area. This village gets its water as it runs off the mountain.

To my wife Chris I confess that I had lunch with 2 other women today. Their names are Veronica and Carolina and they are the 8 year old beauties to the left. This was in the cafeteria of the Compassion project at San Pablo, Quito, Ecuador. We had great conversation about our ages and school and family and soccer and thunder and their sponsors and whether there are lions and pumas in los estados unidos. -Rick

Meet the kids from La Guardaria day care. We played in the park today and had lunch with them. This is Ariselle on the swing. We had dinner with local families tonight and I went to her house. It was maybe 200 square feet and the kitchen sink is on the outside. Her mom made us beef, rice and fried bananas. She apologized that we had to cut our beef with a spoon but she owns no knives or forks.

-Rick

Yesterday we met the kids we sponsor through Compassion International. We went expecting to give them something. But we received way more than we gave. Heaven came to earth when our bus sang "Jesus Loves Me" in spanish, english and quechua all at the same time. I think God was smiling.

-Rick

Rest of the guys hanging out, too excited to sleep!!!!

Some of the group making beds and hangin out.

Buenos Noches,

Just want to drop a quick note to say all the team got here safely and we are ready to meet our compassion kids. Check back for future blogs.

- Rick

So why would some business owners, salesmen, managers, pastors, a doctor and an engineer turned entrepreneur give a week of their time and money to visit kids in Ecuador? I mean, shouldn't we just send the money down instead? Would that be better stewardship? We don't think so. We think God does not need our money. When we read the New Testament we see a Jesus that personally touches people. We are beginning to see these kids through Gods eyes.

The other day a light snow was falling here in Ohio. The kind where you can pick out one snowflake and watch it slowly make its way to the ground. But the ground was warm and that snowflake began to slowly fade and then was gone. Did you know that every snowflake is unique? And now an unrepeated design of the living God is gone forever. And that happens 30,000 times every day to children under the age of 5. Shocked? Me too! Outraged? I hope so. And I cannot comprehend how God can deal with that. As a father myself I cannot imagine that happening once in a lifetime. And yet God continues creating. Setting himself up for tremendous heartache? Maybe. But also to love and be loved. And what an awful, beautiful thing that is.

I love this quote from Shane Claiborne in Irresistible Revolution: "It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle."

So to our families we say thank you. Thank you for sharing us, your husbands, fathers, sons and fiances with the new friends we will meet in Ecuador. We go to see God and work there and plan to join Him in some of it.

-Rick