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