Week Three: Acquiring new skills...

Okay, so its official, learning Spanish is way more difficult and way more rewarding than I thought it would be. I've just started having very basic conversations with my roommate (with my dictionary close at hand--its pretty much my best friend here). 

This past week the NILIs (as we're called) decided to try to wash our clothes by hand...of course, every time we told the seminary students this, they laughed. Apparently for good reason, its a lot harder than it looks...my clothes are a little stiff.  We also went to Otavalo, which is one of the largest and most famous open air markets in Latin America. We literally shopped till we dropped. It's huge! Even though the market was incredible, I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was on Friday evening. We decided to play games around the campfire with some of the seminary students. A lady from Holland saw us playing and asked to join us. It was so much fun and super funny to try to play games in
Spanish with people from three different countries.  

When I decided to come to Ecuador to study Spanish, it was because I saw an open door, not because I had been planning on doing this all my life. In fact, this hadn't been in my plans at all, but God seemed to continue to confirm the decision over and over and over again, so I kept heading in this direction. Now that I'm here, I'm realizing that this experience is impacting me in a much more profound way than I had ever anticipated.  His ways are truly higher than my ways. I'm reminded time and time again, that this experience isn't really about my performance; it's about His purpose.