Learning English with a Spotlight Listeners' Club

Where do the efforts of two radio programme producers, a few volunteers
and a Dallas grocery executive converge?

At the handle of a toothbrush.

At the Spotlight Listeners´ Club.

At English Fellowship Church in Quito.

That´s right! They did ! Toothbrushes. And here´s how it all happened recently.



Janine selects the “Caring for Your Teeth” programme, produced by
Spotlight´s Rebecca Schipper and Joshua Leo. “I wonder if we can find
someone to donate toothbrushes that night,” she muses. A quick e-mail
message to former SLC volunteers, Karen and Sam, now ministering in
Dallas.

They relay the request to Karen´s brother-in-law, Dan, the grocery
executive and he agrees to donate a couple hundred toothbrushes. Coming
back to Ecuador for other volunteer work, Karen and Sam bring the
brushes for us.




About a hundred English-language learners come to a January SLC club at EFC to listen to “Caring for Your Teeth” and then practice speaking English with others. They each receive a toothbrush. Then, with lots of brushes left over, we take Dallas Dan´s Donation and bless yet another EFC ministry,
Pan de Vida.

On Wednesday, February 27 we're planning more English-language learning fun. We will begin at the usual 6:30 p.m. start time and our topic is “The Belly Button.”

We don´t plan to be giving away any brushes.



A five-minute video introducing the ministry of Spotlight Listeners' Club is available for your viewing enjoyment

One time Janine wondered whether the topic of "Pizza" provided enough opportunity to visit with people about the Lord. That story is told here

Quito Day

Levi and a classmate dance to celebrate Quito's birthday

Dancing for Quito Day

When the city of Quito celebrates its birthday, all the school kids take part in traditional dances of Ecuador. This video clip was taken on December 6th, 2007.
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Three Mexicans and a Couple of Gringos in a Ford Van

Brad and I were the first of our disaster response team to ride in Victor’s 1987 Ford Custom van and we’re not quite agreed on whether or not it had a bumper sticker reading ”Say what they will, I’m still with Lopez Obrador.”

It certainly should have!

Victor’s reply to his friend Raul’s needling about who really got elected was always the same: “The legitimate president of Mexico!”

It was Day 5 of our trip to Tabasco State when a local church paired our medical team with Victor, Raul and Alejandro. We were in for a real treat. Just when their good natured jousting about the controversial elections had died down, Raul would deliver some little comment in a sing-song way, almost musical.

Or Alejandro would launch his musical tribute to a popular Mexican drink, pozol. Affecting operatic tones, he’d sing “OH POZOL MIO . . . “

So somewhere between Pavoratti and the cartoon character, Speedy Gonzalez, their story was told to us. They’d made the trip from Mexico City to Villahermosa, presenting documents about their humanitarian work at tollbooths to speed them on their way to flood victims. Arriving after a dozen or so hours in the Ford laden with foodstuffs and pure water, they later ferried us around. We had flown in about the same time from Ecuador.

The van was classic, with crush velvet (orange) interior, ONE captain’s chair seat in the back, and a back door that not only did not close properly but also let water pour in when it rained. The following day one of our docs stated flatly, “You couldn’t create a better situation for carbon monoxide poisoning.”

In caravan, our vehicles made their way to ranchlands surrounding Villahermosa. While our physicians met patient needs, Raul, Victor and Alejandro distributed supplies to grateful people who had lost everything in flood waters. Laying hands to other tasks as well, Alejandro, a weightroom trainer, helped with children’s ministry and advised on specific muscular or skeletal problems. We worked together for several days.

There are difficulties with a emergency medical response trip to a disaster zone. But when I think of our three friends in that 20-year-old van, I remember the trip fondly.

And I smile.

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Story of the help provided to flood victims in Tabasco State as reported in World magazine. Please click here.

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Three Mexicans and a Grand Rapids gringo sing a bit of “Cielito Lindo” complete with finale of simulated pistol shots. Click here.

Where to Find a Safe Bus Ride?

Our medical friends at the hospital in Shell received 23 people injured in a bus rollover at Rio Negro. Two of the crash victims didn’t make it, but tireless efforts by the medical team helped save the lives of others.

It’s a sobering part of any drive in Ecuador to see the baby-blue hearts painted on stretches of highway to mark fatal traffic accidents. The most jarring perhaps is a spot between Pifo and Papallacta that commemorates a bus accident. Now a similar memorial will likely appear on the road near Rio Negro.

Where do you go to find a safe bus ride? The same week that our medical folk put their hands of healing to work on the injured, I came across a couple more bus stories.

The I-can’t-believe-it story from the BBC webpage showed a young couple, Dani Graves and his fiancee Tasha Maltby, dressed in black, goth fashion. Click here to see the story.

Put off one bus in Yorkshire, the pair was asked not to board another. Reason? Miss Maltby wore a collar and was tethered on a dog leash held by Mr. Graves! The bus company’s operations director said primary concern is passenger safety, and welcomes the goth couple to ride his agency’s buses, but “we are asking that Miss Maltby remove her dog lead before boarding the bus.”

Well anyway . . . there’s also the “women only” busses in Mexico City. This is a measure aimed toward less crime and less women sexually accosted during their commute to work. Did you know that last year 14 percent of rapes in Mexico occurred in the transportation system?

One woman tells how she can dress more nicely to ride on the women-only busses. She has fewer concerns about being groped, catcalled or other abuses.

Again, an interesting news note, but not answering my underlying question: can I get to my destination alive?

We work very hard at keeping our women safe, our workplace safe, our wallets safe . . . our world safe. But ultimately –and this is what I hate about our world – we fail. You need only look at the headlines to see that there is no completely safe place.

Not in this world, only in the next. And only if we have assurance that we will be with God. This is my daily antidote to fear—God’s loving care over me and my family. And it is only iron-clad in assuring me as long as I believe that no matter what happens, God has allowed it. And that He cares for me.

Whether I take great risks or play it safe, I am only assured of two things– this moment and eternity. So I join the Psalmist in saying “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are: help us to spend them as we should.”

Levi is 12

A very Happy Birthday today to our third son, what a blessing he has been to all our lives. May God grant Levi many more years of falling asleep while reading His Word!!!!

Happy Birthday, Kathy

Today Kathy is 44 years old..but who's counting?
Thank you LORD, for life!

My, what big ears you have!!

On Christmas day, Ben is trying out a new gift given to Levi. Liza is busy working on one of her new presents, a Disney workbook.

WELCOME 2008

Gathering with several other families to ring in the New Year.

Horse Rider Dismounts and Removes Hat

A man rides up on horseback and I think, "Now here is a fella to photograph."

A rider looks carefree and in command at the same time. A free spirit, he gallops across a strech of open country to check on a cow or release a calf from tangled underbrush. A rider looks heroic and always worthy of a portrait.

Carlos fulfills all of this as he rides up to ask specifics of the rural medical caravan we’re doing in Mexico. The hat is right, the hardset jaw perfect, the piercing look that sees any hint of trouble on the horizon. Not beyond human pain though, Carlos wanted some help with his knees.

Well, I suppose even the Marlboro man gets sore knees.

It was also the turtle in his shirt pocket that intrigued me. "This is pochitoque turtle and it is eaten here," our guide says.

Inside the small rural church, Galo, his wife, Amparo, and I arrange pharmaceuticals on a table. Alejandro distributes pure water and food staples to those affected by the recent flooding. Carlos sits in the back pew and takes off that majestic cowboy hat of his.

It is as if he has stepped down to the level of mere mortals. He`s just not the Frederick Remington portrait I’d seen a short time ago on the road, even if his hair is still jet black at age 57.

It even starts to become somewhat comical . . . mostly because of the turtle. From the pocket of the peach-colored shirt, the poor little lunchbox extends out a leg from time to time. Nonchalantly, Carlos chats with folks sorting through secondhand shoes arranged on the floor. It’s the fine work of Alejandro, a weight room training coach from Mexico City. I am to see later what Alejandro can do for those knees Carlos complained of.

Then while Carlos stands in the church doorway, it happens. I watch -- somewhat horrorstricken – as in our “clinic” something black squirts out of Carlos’ pocket and I hear it plop onto the floor beneath him. I think, “That can’t have just happened. And from the Marlboro man’s shirt!.”

I try to think optimistically and wonder "Do turtles ever vomit?" No, it wasn't that, for the little delicacy was head down in the pocket, with the other end sticking up. I busy myself again, noticing later that Carlos is washing off the pochitoque (and his shirt) at a nearby faucet.

He gets the pills to help his knees, after which Alejandro takes him to a couple of pews at the front of the church. A 45-minute session of physical therapy and Carlos is good to go. He graciously thanks us all and walks out.

Alejandro recounts afterwards, "I`ve done therapy for a lot of people, but never before someone with a turtle in his pocket."

It could have been worse, you know. Worse than a pochitoque turtle in his pocket. If it had been the Marlboro man . . . it would have been cigarettes.

"a sort of lifelong pregnancy"

Below is a quote I found while reading a novel. It fits so well how I feel about our life here in South America these 16 years.... Kathy

“Being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that the previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”

Jhumpa Lahiri in THE NAMESAKE

Probabilities

The thing about drinking yerba mate (a sort of green tea popular in some South American countries) is that you’re carrying along your supplies: green tea leaves in a cup or mug with a filter-straw sticking out of it. And a thermos of hot water.

I arrive at my office door with hands full of stuff, including the yerba mate appertenances. I need to grab my keys from my pocket. Beside the doorway is a large box mounted to the wall. Inside the box are computer connections for the local area network (LAN).

The top of the wall mounted box is above eye level, but to me, it seems an adequate resting place for my guampa, which is just my thermos cup.

When I hear my guampa drop into the LAN-hub box, I don’t think so anymore. On tiptoes, I can see the circular hole in top of the box.

My guampa is three inches in diameter and the hole is just a bit larger. The hole takes up about 1/25^th of the top surface of the LAN-hub box.

Just what are the probabilities of dumping all of this onto delicate computer circuitry?

I’ve never been the greatest shot in basketball, after all.

The chances are slim that it fell to the box’s floor in an upright position, but not impossible. As the box is locked, I will have to see on Monday.

Listen to an audio feature describing yerba mate
by clicking here. You will need a few minutes to listen to it.