Welcome the rainy season

Well, that time of year is here. It is now rainy season in Quito. I am sitting in an internet cafe listening to the rain outside, the same rain that comes every evening without fault. It's always here without missing a beat. Sometimes it's a raging thunderstorm, other times a heavy shower, or like now just a nice shower to listen too. So, there is the introduction the the rainy season.

This past Sunday night I took off to visit Cuenca, Ecuador, my future ministry site. I met Patricio, the pastor there whom I will be working with. He seemed like a really great guy who is now working with I think a couple house churches that just had their first Gran Celebración (great celebration) where the two house churches meet together. It looks like I will be doing a lot of work with him in leading Bible studies, trying to start house churches and then trying to bring them together to a gran celebración. So we got to talk for a while about all of this then we went apartment hunting.

So this is how apartment hunting works in Ecuador. You wander around the streets of the neighborhood that you want to live in looking for windows without curtains. Normally those are the ones that are for rent and if you are lucky there will be a sign in the window saying arriendo este departamento (basically means for rent). Luckily that is what we found. We got to look around and I absolutly love the city of Cuenca. It's population is just under 500,000 people. After living in Quito with all the noise and polution that accompanies millions of people, 500,000 is like heaven. It is so quiet and clean. But there is a lot of work to do. The estimate is that less than 1% are Christians here. Of course there are a lot of Catholics there, but my understanding is that Cuenca is a purveyor of the extremely supersticious catholicism.

But anyway we looked and looked for apartments but since my move in is over a month away we really couldn't secure anything. But it was a promising day. We found one really nice one on the third floor with a marvelous view, two bedrooms, office, 1 bath, and living/dining/kitchen for $160 a month. About the average. But we'll have to see what is available when i move in Mid-late November.

Well I think that was about all. I guess I should tell you that my trip consisted of riding a bus Sunday night for 9 hours, being in Cuenca for Monday, and returning Monday night on the same bus. It was insane, hard, and painful at times (the night buses rarely stop...so that was 9 hours in the same seat.) Then when we got to Quito the rainy season rhythm was broken and we had to walk in the morning rain to try to catch a bus. Needless to say BJ and I were soaking wet and freezing by the time we caught the bus and were still looking at an hour bus ride. But in all all was well.

Well the rain has picked up to a heavy shower and the thunder is moving in. I guess that means I should start my hike of about 10 or so block to catch the bus to head back to Calderón. But luckily this time I have my umbrella. Thank you all for your prayers...they are needed.